The Horn Farm Center, 4945 Horn Road, York, will offer a Woodland Steward Training Program from April through October. Sessions will take place on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to noon.
The program is intended to provide foundational knowledge and practical skills for those interested in learning how to manage wooded and semiwild areas in ways that can meet human needs, improve biodiversity, restore woodland health, and regenerate degraded landscapes. The program will feature simple, small-scale, intensive, hand-tool-based techniques. No previous experience is required.
Topics will include forest ecology; disturbance-based forest management; riparian buffer design, installation, and maintenance; woodland plant cultivation; invasive species management; plant and insect identification; and animal tracking. Participants will work alongside Horn Farm woodland steward Wilson Alvarez in the woodlands and riparian areas of the 186-acre Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education.
The program will consist of woodland work and periodic classroom training. Classroom time will be used to introduce foundational concepts and reinforce training. Classroom time will be emphasized when winter weather prevents outdoor work.
Participants will receive their own set of tools to maintain and become proficient at using. This toolkit includes a professional-grade axe, a woodland hoe, a bow saw, and loppers. Participants will be fully responsible for their own tools and will take their kit with them at the completion of the internship.
Alvarez is a certified permaculture designer, an inventor, a gardener, a skilled tracker, a bowyer, a nature awareness instructor, and a writer from Lancaster. For the past 14 years, he has taught classes and workshops on bio-intensive agriculture, regenerative technology, foraging, hunting, trapping, tracking, and wilderness survival. Alvarez has studied through the Wilderness Awareness School via the Kamana program, and he received his Permaculture Design Certificate through Susquehanna Permaculture.
The Woodland Steward Training Program is limited to four people per session. There is a fee, and payment plans are available as needed.
For more information and the application, readers may visit https://hornfarmcenter.org/woodland-steward-training/. More information is also available by contacting educationdirector@hornfarmcenter.org or 717-332-8710.
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