Forest Stewardship

After spending a few months working on our acreage and road building, I started thinking about how best to manage our forest woods. It was clear that some of the white pine were getting on in years. It was also clear that many of these white pine trees were disfigured and didn't have much in the way of usable timber. This disfiguration is due to a pest called a pine weevil which destroys the dominant stem of a pine tree leaving one or more of the remaining side shoots (branches) to take over as the dominant trunk. Weevils can attack one tree many times leaving a tree with few to many "yanks" or bends in the trunk leaving little in the way of straight wood for lumber. My options were to leave the trees to age and fall or selectively remove some of them. Pine is not very good wood to burn for heat due to it's high creosote levels and low heat output (as compared to the favored harwood to burn in our neck of the woods-oak). As far as I know, this leaves one option which is to chip the trees for either pulp or biomass. As these last options bring in little revenue, getting someone to harvest for these options will be difficult.

But I digress. I want to focus on the stewardship aspect of forest management which is where the above thoughts led me. Last fall, I had taken a 5 week extension course sponsored by the Maine State Forestry folks. This course touched on many different aspects of forest management but advocated strongly the development of a Forest Management Plan (FMP). Briefly, an FMP is a document, written by a state certified Forester, that describes your land, the tree stands present, their overall quality and potential and provides a 10 year prescription for managing timber. If desired by the landowner, the FMP can be much more than a prescription for trees. More later on that. For a bit more information visit these web sites: (http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/certification/) (http://www.umext.maine.edu/piscataquis/Forestry/forestryassistance.htm).

In our state, having an FMP also opens the door to government cost sharing for timber/land management. Two expenses I will be looking to obtain partial reimbursement for in the next year will be the development of a permanent stream crossing and for mast tree (food for animals) release. So, not only do I get a professional prescription for managing our forested area but there is some financial benefit as well. Of course, the management is labor intensive (and cost intensive if you choose to hire someone else to do it).

First, I took advantage of a free visit by our local State Forester and then another free visit by a private forester who works for a local lumber mill. I wanted to hear a few different opinions before choosing a forester to write our FMP. I ended up contracting with the forester for the local mill for a number of reasons. First, I felt good about his knowledge base and felt that he would represent our interests. In my book, feeling good about who you are working with ranks at the top of the list. Intuition usually always rules my judgement (In one significant instance where I decided against it, I ended up getting screwed.). I also felt that his connection to the mill would have exposed him to many different loggers and he would be able to find a match between us and a good logger when it came to harvesting.

Development of our FMP began with a walk around our acreage with our forester Mark. We walked and talked for a few hours, he entered waypoints on his GPS unit and made notes. This time was well spent as I could direct Mark to the different types of stands we had, ask questions, talk about our plans for building in a certain area and identify the location of a future farm pond. He was able to get a feel for our needs and a good FMP is taylored to the needs of the landowner as much as the needs of the forest. Managing our forestland for timber was a priority for us but managing for wildlife was equally as important. This second aspect became clear later on.

Mark created a first draft and sent it to me for perusal and feedback. I read and re-read the draft and it didn't feel quite right. This document was called a Forest Management Plan and yet it was really only a "tree" management plan. I felt that managing a forest using what had been written was only partially right but I wasn't sure what to do about it. This was when I stumbled upon a document about a program called "Focus Species Forestry". This program was developed a number of years ago by Maine Audubon, the State Forestry Folks, the Master Loggers Certification Program and SWOAM, the Small Woodlot Owners Association in Maine. These are all the key players in forestry in our state so I became interested.

The Focus Species Forestry program differs from traditional harvesting (http://www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/forest/focusspecies.shtml) only in that it first identifies the Focus Species on a piece of land, then seeks to sustain the habitat of those species before harvesting. Harvesting can actually create needed habitat. Many folks think harvesting destroys habitat (and they are correct) but, it's also really the only way to create an early-successional forest. These beginning forest areas are important in our region for creating habitat for small animals that provide many larger predatory animals with food. So, in this case, we trade one habitat for another. Managing for one Focus Species means that you are managing for many other species that live within the same habitat and have similar needs. For instance, one of our Focus Species is the Snowshoe Hare. By providing an early successional forest with clumps of young fir trees, we are giving the Snowshoe Hare protective cover in which it likes to hide. This area is also important to other small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks as well as specific birds for nesting and protection. On a very simple level, if all our forest were mature hardwoods, these species would be absent and so would the animals that prey on them. Realistically this is not true, but the picture is a complex one full of many habitat and animal interrelationships .

This program provided the information I needed to fill in the missing piece of our FMP. It was easy for me to provide the animal information on Focus Species after having been out in our forest daily for almost a year. I had seen one Snowshoe Hare but I was surprised, come winter, the evidence of a significant population (tracks and turds). In the spring and summer, I regularly hear woodpeckers and occasionally see a large Pileated flying about. In warmer months, we have regular Whitetail Deer visitors that love the newly planted grasses in the field I have restored. They do not winter on our land as evidenced by the lack of tracks that are clearly present in the soft soil other times of the year. These three different Focus Species provided enough information to define specific habitat to create, manage and protect. It doesn't seem like alot of information but remember that by managing forest for these three species, we will be managing for a much larger spectrum of other critters. We were lucky in that our forester was familiar with Focus Species Forestry and could add the missing content to our Forest Management Plan.

After adding Focus Species information to our plan, the final draft arrived. A few typos were corrected and off it went to our local State Forester for approval. Once we receive approval, we will be eligible for cost-sharing. The downside of this is that I have to pay our forester to come identify what is to be done and pay him to come back and say that it's been done. In many cases, this will negate some of the funds I receive for doing the small work. I do understand why this has to occur. I wouldn't think of not having him present come harvest time.

All in all, I am glad we paid to have a Plan developed. It reflects our desire to be good stewards to the forest we plan to call home sometime in the future. In Maine, we get reimbursed for some of the costs associated with developing a plan, both directly from the State as cash and later, as a state income tax deduction. Our plan was initially quoted at about $400. We ended up paying $650., probably because of the addition of the animal component. The State will reimburse us up to 50% of the cost at a maximum of $120. and give us a $200. credit on our taxes. In theory, our outlay will be $330. for our plan. We will be purchasing an $800. culvert for a stream crossing this summer and cost-sharing will reimburse us $500. In essence, this savings will offset the remaining monies we will have spent.