COLUMBIA — The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and the Missouri Conservation Commission recently honored Daniel Dey of New Bloomfield with the Department’s Master Conservationist Award for his lifetime commitment to forestry and conservation.
The award was presented during a special ceremony following the commission’s Dec. 12 open meeting at MDC headquarters in Jefferson City.
The MDC Master Conservationist Award, established in 1941, recognizes living or deceased citizen conservationists, former commissioners, and employees of conservation-related agencies, universities, or organizations who have made substantial and lasting contributions to fisheries, forestry, wildlife resources, conservation law enforcement, or conservation education.
Dey has been a leader in forestry research and education for more than three decades, focusing on improving the productivity, diversity, health, value, and sustainability of forests both within the state and beyond.
He has spent the majority of his career working in forestry in the state, beginning with two years as MDC’s forest research supervisor. He later spent 26 years with the USDA Forest Service, advancing through positions of increasing responsibility, including research forester, research project leader, assistant director of research, and most recently achieving the rank of “super scientist,” the highest level attainable by a scientist within the agency.
Dey’s research, outreach, and educational efforts include providing forestry research leadership for MDC’s Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project, a large-scale study designed to measure the effects of forest disturbance on wood, water, wildlife, forest health, and sustainability across the Ozarks.
He has also played a role in restoring mixed oak-pine forest habitats to increase landscape-scale wildlife diversity, with particular emphasis on restoring populations of the brown-headed nuthatch in southern parts of the state.
Dey’s work includes advancing understanding of white oak health and productivity, with a special focus on sustaining the white oak resource used in manufacturing oak barrels sold worldwide. Oak cooperage production plays a key role in creating employment and investment opportunities in rural communities throughout the region.
In addition, Dey was instrumental in developing a statewide shared stewardship agreement among state and federal agencies, creating opportunities for collaboration on large-scale efforts to address forest health, diversity, productivity, sustainability, and rural employment.
Dey coauthored the 600-page textbook The Ecology and Silviculture of Oaks, which is considered the definitive reference on oak ecology and silviculture. He has also authored or coauthored more than 300 scientific and technical publications and delivered more than 400 presentations sharing research findings and forest management recommendations.
Throughout his career, Dey has received numerous honors for his scientific achievements and professional service, including the Karkhagne Award from the state chapter of the Society of American Foresters and lifetime recognition as a Fellow in the Society of American Foresters.
“Thanks to his decades of research, outreach, and education in the fields of forestry and conservation, Dr. Daniel Dey is an excellent example of a Master Conservationist Award recipient,” said MDC Director Jason Sumners. “The relevance and broad geographic scope of his research, his outgoing personality, his communication skills, and his decades of work have resulted in Dan being very well known, very well respected, and embraced by the forestry community.”
