The first Forest and Rangeland Tax Conference organized by the US Forest Service and collaborators will be held at Duke University on August 4 and 5, 2026. The registration and abstracts website has gone live, the link is here. Presentation abstracts are due March 31, 2026. The event is supported by the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Natural Resources Finance Initiative (NRFI) at Duke University, North Carolina State University, and collaborators from across the country.

Forests and rangelands provide food, forage, energy, timber, regulation of air and water quality, sequestration and storage of carbon, and habitat for wildlife. Many of these lands face threats from unsustainable production systems, natural disturbance, conversion to other land uses and lack of investment and management. Tax policy is among the primary tools used by U.S. federal and state governments for incentivizing retention and management of forest and rangelands and to ease the financial burden on farmers, ranchers, and forest owners of managing these lands. However, the efficacy of these incentives is plagued by poor understanding and low utilization among landowners, lack of empirical evidence to understand impacts and design options, misalignment of program characteristics with landowner objectives, and various practical uncertainties.

This meeting is intended to create space for practical, cross-sector dialogue about how forest and rangeland tax policy actually works on the ground—and how it could work better. By bringing together researchers, extension and education professionals, policymakers, and practitioners, we aim to explore both familiar and emerging issues related to law, markets, and societal trends that influence land management decisions. A central goal of the meeting is to bridge academic research with real-world experience, identify gaps in knowledge and practice, and build connections that support more effective, actionable approaches to forest and rangeland taxation moving forward.

The purpose of the Forest and Rangeland Taxation Meeting is to move beyond broad discussion and focus on how tax policy can be better understood, evaluated, and applied to support working lands. The meeting is designed to foster practical exchange across disciplines and professional roles, with an emphasis on identifying concrete challenges and opportunities in current tax frameworks.

Specifically, the meeting seeks to:

The meeting welcomes participants from a wide range of professional backgrounds, including:

Topics of potential interest include, but are not limited to: