Forest Management

Doing forest conservation right.

We have 11 acres of land, most of which is forest. Not a big lot by rural Maine standards, but owning a swath of land, forested land, any size, feels to me like a luxury and a responsibility. With conservation as our goal, it certainly seemed like all we needed to do was leave it alone. But we wanted to be sure.

In a way, things change slowly in a forest. A fast growing tree will take 10 years to reach 20 feet, or about the height of a two-story building. In 10 years lots have changed in my life. I left California. I started and finished grad school. I lived in 5 different apartments. I started a career in the space industry. I bought a house in Maine with 11 acres of land. I only vaguely remember what I was like 10 years ago and what my dreams were. If I planted a tree today, it would grow to about 20 feet when I was 44 years old, about as tall as our house, under ideal conditions. Hard to comprehend, how slowly things change in a forest.

That's why I thought conservation meant keeping trees alive. Especially old trees, the rare and precious resource they are. When we toured this land, we fell in love with the giant pines and hemlocks dotting the river bank along the back edge of the property, the larger ones maybe 3 feet in diameter. We have seen porcupines scaling these giant tree trunks, deer browsing in their shade. The old growth seemed like a magic sanctuary of undisturbed wildlife.

But, in a real forest, things don't always change slowly: fires, invasive species, some pests, diseases, can obliterate a forest on much shorter timescales. And in some ways, the diversity of a forest ecosystem depends on these natural disruptions, as an undisturbed forest trends asymptotically closer to sustaining only a few species of long-lasting, shade-tolerant trees.

It's easy to pick up a heuristic, after enough exposure to human-caused environmental wreckage, that any touch by human hands is necessarily destructive. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can apply our vast networks of knowledge to stewardship instead of exploitation. For example, as the climate warms, invasive plant and insect species are marching up the coast. Unlike the trees in the forest, humans can look into the future, see the disaster coming, and, in the best case, make preparations.

Our county forester told us that his property is 80% ash. As the emerald ash borer becomes more established in Maine, he stands to lose the majority of the trees in his forest. So he has begun the process of diversifying his forest, selectively cutting less healthy ash trees to replace with oak, maple, pine... species that are less under threat. Diversification, in general, seems to be a good go-to forest management strategy in the era of climate change.

Other actions include thinning stands of young trees to promote a few selected trees to grow with less competition. This encourages more carbon sequestration in the near-term, as the natural selection will happen anyhow, in time, just leaving behind a pile of dead wood.

You could also cut and burn the ailing trees to slow disease spread, use pruned branches for firewood, reducing the demand for logging elsewhere. Fires are not an issue here in Maine, but trimming low-hanging dead branches can help keep brush fires small, by eliminating their path to igniting the canopy. And of course, you would be looking out for the presence of invasive plants, which are best addressed early on before they really take over.

We have stands of beech, hemlock, pine, maple, ash, oak, and even a spattering of basswood (a rare tree in Maine). Most of our beech trees have beech bark disease at this point but a minority of them seem naturally resistant. The resistant lot includes our biggest beech, which the forester estimated to be over 100 years old. I like the feeling of positively impacting our forest, and I'll be looking for the best way to achieve my personal goals: carbon sequestration, a healthy wildlife habitat, diversity and robustness as the climate changes, and preservation of old trees-- just because they are a joy to behold.