The idea of the North American Forest Ecology Workshops was first promoted by John Zasada and Terry Sharik in 1993. It evolved out of the perceived gap between meetings focused on basic science, such as the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, and meetings focused on technology transfer to field foresters, such as the Annual National Convention of the Society of American Foresters (Sharik and Cook 1999). The aim of the NAFEW is to fill this gap and provide opportunities for forest ecologists to meet as a separate group and discuss new findings and trends in basic and applied ecology.