Duke community members came together to commemorate the legacy and continued importance of the Duke Forest at a Thursday Duke Forest Centennial Gathering.
The event, held in Penn Pavilion, featured a panel, lecture and Q&A on the past, present and future of the Duke Forest Teaching and Research Laboratory.
“The forest has supported our academic mission since its founding in 1931,” said President Vincent Price in opening remarks. Looking forward, he said University programming will “highlight the important role the forest is poised to play in our second century.”
The Duke Forest is central to the University’s Climate Commitment, having been incorporated under the Office of Climate and Sustainability last fall.
The lecture, given by Duke Forest Director Sara Childs, chronicled the forest’s evolution from small tracts of farmland to what stands today as an interdisciplinary hub supporting the Nicholas School of the Environment’s research and education efforts and the recreation of surrounding communities. The panel that followed, moderated by Nicholas School Interim Dean Lori Bennear, focused on how the forest and its research will continue to evolve amid new challenges like climate change and a changing technological landscape.
The forest’s founding
Childs began the lecture thousands of years ago in the Paleo-Indian period, emphasizing that the forest has a rich history of “intertwined connections” between human and wildlife populations.
She touched on the land’s history in the 1700s and 1800s as a site of “forced confluence” between Indigenous groups and European settlers, acknowledging “the descendants that survived and live today in the Triangle area.” Childs also spoke about the history of plantation slavery that took root across the East Coast, noting that the Duke Forest contains at least five known sites where slavery was practiced and recognizing the “ongoing harm” produced by that legacy.
“These sweeping acknowledgements really are still insufficient, but I think they give you a good picture of the history on which the formation of the Duke Forest really stands,” Childs said.
She then moved to the forest’s official founding, which took place in the wake of the 1924 chartering of Duke University.
Previously known as Trinity College and located where East Campus stands today, building a new institution befitting the title of university required new land. President William Few charged a local realtor with finding and purchasing that land, which came together from hundreds of agricultural plots. Some of it was used to construct West Campus — the rest of the over 8,000 acres acquired by the University later became the Duke Forest.
Today, the Duke Forest comprises just over 7,100 acres distributed to the west of the University’s campus across Durham, Orange and Alamance counties.
According to Childs, the Duke Forest’s current strategic plan has three central goals: stewardship of sustainability, teaching and research, and community engagement.
The forest has been used by students and faculty for research and educational purposes across disciplines. For example, one lab used the space to study aquatic biogeochemistry and its relation to greenhouse gas emissions as well as polluted waters, while a Pratt School of Engineering team researched lightning in the outer layers of the atmosphere and its effects of global communication.
The forest’s management team also engages in wildlife habitat connectivity efforts, which entails partnering with local conservation and land use organizations to preserve biodiversity.
Moreover, while the forest is often used as an educational space that allows community members to engage with science, ecology and land management, it is also frequently used for recreation. Many audience members shared their experiences hiking the region’s many trails and appreciating the views at landmarks such as New Hope Creek.
To close out the lecture, Childs quoted former President Nannerl Keohane on the forest’s significance to the University and the surrounding community.
“The forest is one of Duke's most important features, both from the point of view of our history and our research opportunities and how it becomes an amazing example of the ways green space can be preserved,” Childs quoted. “… It's part of an institution that sees it as a very important priority to preserve.”
The forest’s future
Toddi Steelman, vice president and vice provost for climate and sustainability, described the forest’s importance to studying climate change.
“We have an incredible living laboratory of the Duke Forest to learn about the effects of climate change,” Steelman said. “… We're going to see hurricanes, we're going to see ice storms, we're going to see drought, we're going to see changes in tree composition as it gets warmer … and we’ve got a large enough area where we can actually see some of that work take place.”
Steelman also noted the forest’s importance as a “refuge,” arguing that it provides mental and psychological health benefits the University can make use of.
“Considering systems thinking approaches, interconnectedness, exploring possibilities of scale, [and] thinking about different perspectives [can be] really key to successful management,” said Nicolette Cagle, senior lecturer and associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Nicholas School of the Environment.
The panelists noted that researchers are piloting new technologies for forest management, including radar and drones, as well as leveraging AI.
“We’ve really been focused on these large language models,” said Steelman. “But we're moving into video, into pictures, and what that can look like, and I think that's a really rich area for the use of AI in forests — we can learn a lot.”
The panelists also discussed approaches to combating contemporary challenges like climate change-induced threats and increasing urban development as part of the University’s responsibility as a steward of the forest. Cagle, Childs and Steelman pointed to prescribed burns, wildlife management programs and learning from Indigenous groups as promising strategies.
“I think it is absolutely essential to actively manage wildlife in our forests, to demonstrate what a real working forest looks like in an area and urbanizing environment that is going to only lose more touch with what it means to live on the land,” Steelman said. “… I think the other part of stewardship … is connecting to and explaining and reconciling with our history.”
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