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The Magazine of The Evergreen Foundation - September 1998
Forests and the Wood Products Industry
in the Northeast:Facts and Figures
(Page 12)
War in the North Country:The Battle for Control of
The Northeast’s New Forest(Page 24)
Forests and Forestryin the Northeast
2 EVERGREEN
Cover Photo: Fall comes to Heald Pond in the White Mountain region near Lovell, Maine. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of lakes like this in theNortheast. The mile-long lake is surrounded by a mixed white pine and red oak forest, and supports a healthy bass population. This photograph wastaken for a real estate brochure. The listing broker described the 492-acre property as “an excellent timber investment in the path of progress or could bethe foundation for one or more fine rural estates.” Story Litchfield photograph courtesy of LandVest
Northern Forest Land AreaProtected and Regulated Areas
Produced byJames W. Sewall CompanyOld Town, Maine 04468207•827•4456
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For a detailed explanation of this map, please turn to page 23,“Forest Regulation in the Northern Forest Land Area”
4 EVERGREEN
In this issue, we write aboutforests and forestry in the Northeast.To grasp the magnitude of this story,turn to the back page. There you willfind a list of 183 contributors whohelped fund this project. In the nearly13 years we’ve been publishingEvergreen we’ve never seen such anoutpouring from so diverse a group.While we’ve never met most of thesepeople, we are humbled by theirwillingness to entrust us with theirstory. And what a story it is. Forestry in America began here—in upstate New York—in 1891. Theconservation movement got its startthat same year in the same mountainrange: the fabled Adirondacks. Most ofthe nation’s early industrial history isalso rooted here, amid a flowinghardwood and pine landscape that—in the fall—is a sight to behold.
But there is much more to thisstory than forests or conservation.It is also a story about states’ rightsand private property rights. In theNortheast, these four forces—forestry, conservation, states’ rightsand property rights—converge on asingle question: how to keep forestsforested in an increasingly urbanworld? The object of this question isthe Northern Forest, a 26 million-acre expanse that stretches from theGreat Lakes east to the AtlanticOcean, across the upper reaches ofNew York, Vermont, New Hampshireand Maine. Though broken by smalltimber and farming communities, itis one of the largest working forestsin America. It is also a playgroundfor 70-some million people who livewithin a day’s drive. Inside the arbitrarily drawn
boundaries of the Northern Forestabout 94 percent of the timberland baseis privately owned. Timberland sales arebig news here, not just because theforest products industry is the region’seconomic mainstay, but also becausethere is a widespread fear these vastforests will be sold to land speculatorsand developers. There is a huge sum-mer home market here, fueled byaffluent city dwellers anxious to own apiece of the North Country. Suchdevelopments are usually well done, butpublic access—a New England tradi-tion—is sometimes lost, along with thewildness that characterizes the region. The Northeast’s development fearscame to a head in January 1988 whenFrench-owned Generale Occidentaleannounced its intent to sell 986,000acres of timberland it had purchasedfrom Diamond International.
Picturesque Old Forge, New York surrounds Forge Lake (locally known as “Old Forge Pond”) at the headwaters of Middle Branch of the MooseRiver, 30 miles inside Adirondack State Park. The nation’s forestry and conservation movements both have deep roots in the Adirondacks. Ji
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The parcels—800,000 acres inMaine, 96,000 inside New York’sAdirondack State Park and 90,000acres in Vermont and NewHampshire—were offered atprices thought to be well beyondwhat any forest products com-pany would pay, opening the doorto deep-pocketed land specula-tors. Two walked in: HenryLassiter, a hard-charging Georgialand speculator, plunked down$16 million (sight unseen) for theAdirondack lands and ClaudeRancourt, a construction laborerturned millionaire developer, paid$19 million for the Vermont andNew Hampshire tracts. Thetransactions sparked a firestormof protest from just about everycorner of the New Englandcountryside. Although most of the oldDiamond lands—including theLassiter and Rancourt tracts—areto this day managed for timberand wildlife, the sales became sopolitically charged that Congressordered the U.S. Forest Service—by far the smallest of theNortheast’s landowners—tostudy the region’s timberlandresources. The Northern ForestLands Study, completed in 1990,led to formation of the NorthernForest Lands Council, a diversegroup of citizens appointed bythe governors of the four states. Thecouncil was given the job of decidinghow best to protect the North Countryfrom further speculation. Their 1994report, Finding Common Ground:Conserving the Northern Forest, formsthe backbone of the proposed NorthernForest Stewardship Act, a hotlycontested piece of federal legislationthat is the main reason why Evergreenwas invited to conduct this investiga-tion. Our back page sponsor listincludes both supporters and oppo-nents of the Act. Supporters see the Actas a way to shore up states’ rights inforestry matters. Opponents fear it willopen the door to subsequent federalmeddling in private landowner affairs.We examine the situation in this issue. The Northern Forest debate hasspawned the usual cast of doomsayersfrom the left and the right. But there isone very big difference between thisforest debate and the debates that havedivided the West. Except for a few die-hard environmentalists, no one has
suggested that the Northeast’s timberindustry pack its bags and leave town.Remarkably, most people who livehere, including conservationists, seea robust timber industry as the bestdefense against land development—asthe key to keeping forests forested.Thus, timber remains a big part of theNorth Country culture, and few seemto be offended by the industry’spresence—though many wish the bigpaper companies would stop clear-cutting in northern Maine. Twice, in asmany years (1996 and 1997), environ-mentalists asked Maine voters toapprove expansive regulatory reformsthat would have restricted the size ofclearcuts. Twice they refused. The1997 referendum was defeated by anunlikely coalition of environmentalists,who thought the measure was notstringent enough, and by rural Mainevoters who dislike “downstaters”(urban voters) telling them how to livetheir lives. Counting only contribu-tions of $10,000 or more, big paper
interests in Maine spent almost$2.6 million in support of themeasure. Environmentalists gotvirtually all of their money fromone source: S. Donald Sussman, aConnecticut financier whocontributed more than $800,000to help fund their advertisingcampaign. In this issue, weexplain why voters turned backtwo clearcutting referendums. We also write about conserva-tion, a word that has a muchdifferent meaning here than it hasin the West, where writers oftenuse it interchangeably with theword “environmentalism.” But inthe Northeast a clear distinction ismade between environmentalists,who are usually viewed as disrup-tive outsiders not to be trusted,and conservationists, who arelocal and have a long history ofconstructive involvement increation and management ofpublicly revered forest reserves.Conservation has taken someremarkable turns over the lasthundred-plus years, but nonemore startling than the NatureConservancy’s December 1997announcement that it had pur-chased nearly 27,000 acres offorestland in Vermont’s GreenMountains, which it intends tocontinue managing as a workingforest. In its conservative approach
to harvesting, it hopes to set an exampleneighboring landowners will follow. Throughout the Northeast, thereis a powerful distrust for government,especially the federal government. Thisis (after all) where colonists fleeingthe tyranny of English kings laid thecornerstone for America’s republicanform of government. Hundreds of ruraltowns in the Northeast are still run by“Town Fathers” elected by townspeopleto carry on the town’s affairs for a year.Their Town Meetings—the lifeblood ofNew England local government—wereimmortalized by Norman Rockwellin an illustration titled, “Freedom ofSpeech.” In this bedrock environ-ment outside interference is deeplyresented. At its core, this may be themain reason why so many living in theNorth Country oppose the NorthernForest Stewardship Act. Close behindis a fear the Act will somehow openthe door to the kind of federally-sponsored litigation that has wreckedso much of the West’s timber
Vermont forester Robbo Holleran stands atop an old stonefence on Vermont Marble Company timberland near Chester.Before the Erie Canal put an end to unprofitable farming inthe Northeast, fences like this marked the bounday linesbetween neighboring farms. After the farms were aban-doned, forests overtook the pastures.
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Berlin, New Hampshire, has been a company mill town since 1852. The old Brown Company, once a world leader in pulp and paper production,got its start here. The mill has since changed ownership several times and is today owned by Crown Vantage. Company mill towns are stillprominent features in the rural Northeast.
industry. (Northeasterners are surpris-ingly well informed where westernforestry issues are concerned). As early as 1631, the British wereexporting crudely milled timbers fromMaine forests. History records that anEnglishman named William Chadbourneconstructed the first water-poweredsawmill in America in 1634 near Kittery,Maine. If we take this moment in time asthe beginning of the nation’s timberindustry, the Northeast is then on itsthird forest. White settlers in need ofcropland hacked and burned the firstforest into oblivion, but it grew backafter the Erie Canal opened in 1825. Thecanal gave Midwest farmers easy accessto eastern markets, creating crushingcompetition for less productive NewEngland farmers who soon abandonedtheir fields in favor of other morelucrative pursuits. The white pineforests that grew back helped fuel theindustrial revolution, including theemergence of Northeast’s still thrivinglumber and paper industries. Now, athird forest is in the ground andgrowing, the modern day fruit offorestry principles laid out in the
country’s first forest plan—written forthe Andirondack League Club in 1891 byBernard Fernow. In this issue, we writeabout Fernow and his contributions toforestry.
Here are the main points we make inthis issue, summarized for those whodo not have time to read the entireissue in one sitting:
• Forestry in America began in theNortheast. So, too, did the conservationmovement and the industrial revolution.
• The Northeast is on its third forest.Their recovery from earlier abuses is atribute to the resiliency of nature, theinfluence of the conservation movement,and a century of progress in Forestry.
• Forests in the four-state regioncontain a mix of shade tolerant hard-wood species (maple and beech domi-nate), plus several softwoods, includingspruce, eastern white pine and fir. Fifty-seven percent of the region’s 28.878million acres of timberland is located inMaine. Another 32 percent is found in
New York. There are tens of thousandsof forest landowners in the four states—a fact that contributes significantlyto the diversity of landscapes andhabitats. Many landowners are in thetimber business straightaway, whileothers manage for multiple resources,including timber, fish and wildlife. Afew own forests for nothing more thanthe joy they bring.
• As we have already noted, the mostcontentious forest-related debate inthe Northeast involves the NorthernForest Lands Study Area and theproposed Northern Forest LandsStewardship Act. The 26 million-acreNorthern Forest includes 23.4 millionacres of timberland. Across the regionthere is a deeply felt desire to keep thisworking forest working and to protectthe cultural heritage that resides in itshundreds of timber towns. Thequestion so many are asking [anddebating] is “Does the Act protect ourtimber heritage or open the door tofederal meddling and environmentalistradicals?” There are no easy answers,and thus, no easy solutions.
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Winter trucking near the old Katahdin Iron Works in central Maine. A century ago, forests in this area fueled the iron furnaces that fueled the IndustrialRevolution. Today, they provide a steady supply of softwood and hardwood for the region’s sawmills and papermakers.
• The nation’s pulp and paperindustry got its start in the Northeast.The big paper companies—all multi-nationals now—own more than ninemillion acres of forestland in the fourstates, including more than seven millionacres in Maine. In the four states, morethan 57,000 are employed in primary andsecondary paper-related jobs; another58,000 work in lumber and furnituremanufacturing. Within the NorthernForest Study area, more than 43,000people are employed by the lumber andpaper industries, including 24,000 thathave jobs in papermaking.
• The industry is reinventing itself in theNortheast, just as it has in the West.New, more efficient, environmentallyfriendly technologies have cost jobs andcreated jobs, often under the same roof.For some, the process is painful, but forothers, the door to opportunity is opened.
• Clearcutting is also a contentious issuein the Northeast, especially in Maine,where voters have twice rejected referen-dums that would have banned thepractice. Most of the clearcutting done
over the last 20 years has been inresponse to a terrible 15-year-longspruce budworm outbreak. The MaineForest Service reports clearcutting nowaccounts for about 11 percent of some500,000 acres harvested annually, downfrom 45 percent in 1989.
• In response to public concern aboutharvesting impacts, logging associationsacross the four states are teachingloggers how to do a better job in thewoods. Most loggers are faithful partici-pants in voluntary Best ManagementPractices designed to protect watershedsand other environmentally sensitiveareas. Still, the fact remains that loggersmust do what landowners want, or lookelsewhere for work.
• Landowner interest in forest conser-vation easements is growing, but theyremain controversial. Some say theypose an added burden for financiallystrapped local governments. Others fearsuch transactions (which often involvethe expenditure of public monies) createa contractual linkage that may make itpossible for activist lawyers to use
federal environmental laws to stopharvesting on private lands outsideeasement boundaries.
• Many living in the Northeast believelandowners can do whatever they wantin their forests without regard toenvironmental impacts. But the JamesSewall Company map on Pages 2 and 3suggests otherwise. As is explained onPage 19 (“Forest Regulation in theNortheast”) many regulatory watchdogsroam the regions’ forests.
In the course of researching thisissue we made three trips to the North-east. More than 50 interviews wereconducted, and more than 100 reportswere reviewed before the writing began.We again invite you to turn to the backcover for a complete list of those whohelped fund this most memorable issue.We hope you learn as much fromreading it as we learned in preparing itfor you.
Onward we go,Jim Petersen, Editor
Evergreen Magazine
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8 EVERGREEN
- Hugh Miller Raup, “The View from John Sanderson’s Farm: A Perspective for the Use of Land,” Forest History, April 1966
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“The Lock” from Marco Paul’s Voyages and Travels—the Erie Canal(1852) by Jacob Abbott. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gaveproductive Midwest farmers access to lucrative markets in the East,eventually driving most Northeastern farmers out of business. In time,land farmers had cleared for crops reverted to forests, paving the way foreventual development of a prosperous late nineteenth century timbereconomy.
Hugh Raup’s seminalessay, “The View from JohnSanderson’s Farm: APerspective for the Use ofLand,” is a story about howseemingly unrelated eventshave altered the course offorestry and land use whileforests themselves remainrelatively unchanged. Histhesis: land does not change.What changes is how peoplevalue it.
Raup, a Ph.D. botanist,was director of the HarvardUniversity forest from 1946until his retirement in 1967.He traveled widely duringhis career and publishedhundreds of research papers.As an inductive thinker—and member of a small bandof Harvard rebels who calledthemselves “scholars of thehere and now”—he had littleuse for the politically correctforestry terms currentlymaking the rounds: plantcommunities, forest succes-sion, climax forest andecological niche. For him,these were reified bits ofsomeone else’s deductive theories.
In “John Sanderson’s Farm,” a1966 article written for ForestHistory, the magazine of the ForestHistory Society, Raup traces hisfamily’s early New England historyback through events that foreveraltered the course of forestry in theNortheast and beyond. Of theseevents, none seems to have loomedlarger than the 1825 completion ofthe Erie Canal. The canal crossed NewYork State from Albany, the head ofnavigation on the Hudson River, toBuffalo on Lake Erie, opening thefertile farmlands of the Midwest to
equally fertile markets in the East. Inthe ensuing battle for market share, NewEngland’s farmers found their small butproductive fields were no match for theMidwest’s vast and fertile expanse.Midwest farmers could produce morefor less—a fact that created bothopportunity and capital for fledglingfarm implement manufacturers, whoseearly reapers and rakes made a monu-mental contribution to the efficiencyand profitability of Midwest farming.
“It was this that destroyed theagricultural prosperity of the Sandersonfamily in Petersham [Massachusetts]and of similar families in southern New
England,” Raup wrote. “Thefarms here could remainprosperous only so long asthey had no serious competi-tion. Once the latter appeared,their economy collapsed. Andit did so rather suddenly andon a large scale over wideexpanses of the landscape.Agricultural use of the landwas simply abandoned as theSandersons and others likethem sought prosperityelsewhere. Probably at leasthalf the open land, andperhaps more, went out offarming within 20 years after1850.”
What happened next laidthe cornerstone for theNortheast’s vast lumber andpaper industries: easternwhite pine overtook hundredsof thousands of acres ofabandoned farmland. By 1900,most of the New Englandfarms that had been carvedfrom forests in the early 1800swere forest again. Today, thetumble down remnants ofstone walls that dividedpastures and ownerships are
all that remains of nineteenth centuryfarming in New England.
The completion of the Erie Canal wasthe first of two great events that were toforever alter the hopes and dreams of athousand John Sandersons. The secondwas the Industrial Revolution. By 1820 ithad leaped the Atlantic and was makingits way inland, fueling technologicalinnovation and markets for newlycreated products. Among them: thewater-powered gristmill, which fosteredrobust demand for grain meal and aconcurrent need for better roads linkingNew England farmers to more distantmarkets. Then the Erie Canal opened,
“And again the land did not change, except in terms of the human values of the time. It merely seededitself to white pine and went on being productive but in its own way. In the early 1900s the people who
owned it found to their amazement that it had value again of an entirely different kind.”
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Early stages of land use around Petersham, Massachusetts, where John Sanderson’s father settled. (Harvard Forest Model, c.1700-1760)
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and New England’s farm economycollapsed. But for a time, Raup wrote,prosperity had “ ...made it possible forthe people of Petersham and other suchtowns to form new concepts of theirdestiny and new values for their landsin terms of these concepts. The landitself did not change. Only the people’sideas changed in response to otherpeople’s ideas brought to bear fromoutside the region.”
True indeed. By 1850 the IndustrialRevolution was running full tilt, andsouthern New England’s farm economyhad gone to pieces. The Sandersons soldtheir farm and started a bank.
“And again the land did not change,except in terms of the human values ofthe time,” Raup wrote. “It merely seededitself to white pine and went on beingproductive but in its own way.”
By mid-century, “summer people”began to move into the old farm towns.They were mainly affluent city dwellersin search of vacation hideaways. Theybought up old farm houses and reno-vated them in order to have a quiet placeto wile away the summer. Before long,they were remodeling main streets,imposing their own ideas about what a
rural town ought to look like. Theirinfluence can still be seen in small NewEngland hamlets that have become year-round enclaves for city dwellers anxiousto save the past.
By the early 1900s, when theNortheast’s forest caught up with theIndustrial Revolution, it had created anentirely new set of demands that favoreda new industry: lumbering. Demandfor boxes, barrels and pails to carry theproducts of a burgeoning Midwest farmeconomy over a rapidly expandingrailroad system created a market forthe pine that had grown back onabandoned farmland in the Northeast.Once again, the land had value.
But, Raup wrote, “The pine had novalue in itself. It acquired value onlybecause in the period of time when ithappened to come to maturity there wasa human demand for containers thatcould be made from its wood, a trans-portation system to carry both the woodand the packaged products, a labor forceand a local technology to cut and millthe lumber and make the containers,and a price and wage structure to makethe whole thing economically feasible.”
Two other events would alter history
in the Northeast and beyond: theemergence of forestry as a system ofmanaging forests, and the parallelemergence of conservation as a means ofsaving them. Both events unfolded inNew York’s Adirondack Mountains.
Conservation came first, in 1885,when the New York State legislaturecreated the Adirondack Forest Preserveto assuage mounting citizen concernthat a massive harvesting effort thenunderway in the Adirondacks might leadto a timber famine. There were also fearsthat excessive harvesting in upstate NewYork forests might disrupt water flows incommercial waterways, including theErie Canal or, worse yet, cause a loss ofsafe municipal drinking water. Two yearslater, the State drew a blue line aroundthe reserve, creating the AdirondackPark, wherein water, recreation andwildlife would be given special consider-ation. Seven years later, in 1894, NewYork state voters—still fearful of lumberindustry could not be contained—approved a constitutional amendmentgranting the park “forever wild” status.
Henceforth and forever, public timberinside the park could not be sold,destroyed or removed. A drive was
10 EVERGREEN
A cabin on Adirondack League Club land near Old Forge, New York. Timber harvesting has been an important revenue source for the club since itsfounding in 1890.
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mounted to fund state purchase of all theprivate land within the park, but it nevermaterialized. Today, the six million-acrepark still holds 4.2 million acres ofprivate land, much of it managed fortimber production.
Historically speaking, the AdirondackPark’s most notable private landowner isthe Adirondack League Club, for it wason club land that forestry got its start inAmerica. It is all laid out in the club’s1890 charter:
“The objects of this Club are (1) thepreservation and conservation of theAdirondack forests and the properprotection of game and fish in theAdirondack Region. (2) the establish-ment and promotion of an improvedsystem of forestry. (3) the maintenanceof an ample preserve for the benefits ofits members for the purposes of hunting,fishing, rest and recreation.”
The man behind the league’s secondobjective was Bernard Fernow, a clubmember, but more notably, the firstChief of the Forestry Bureau of theUnited States Department of Agriculture,the forerunner to the U.S. ForestService. Fernow had helped write New
York’s 1885 Forest Reserve Act, and nowhe was determined to show the statethat forestry—not outright preservation—was the key to protecting theAdirondacks. Perhaps more than anyoneelse, he understood that the club’s planfor combining recreation and forestmanagement would perfectly illustratethe hopes of New Yorkers who sharedhis concern for the future of the entireAdirondack region.
The club had two motives for manag-ing its forests. First, it needed money topay off the mortgage on its 125,000-acrepurchase. Members who plunked down$1,000 apiece (a huge sum of money in1890) to join the club expected adividend, just as they would from anyother investment they made. Second,ever mindful of destructive logginggoing on nearby, the club hoped to set abetter example for its neighbors bymanaging its land according to scientificprinciples of the day. And so, amid theglow of well-crafted publicity, Gardenand Forest magazine editor CharlesSprague Sargent declared, “the people ofthe United States will have for the firsttime a practical object-lesson in the
management of their woodlands,according to the established principlesof forestry.”
Fernow presented his plan to theclub’s executive committee in 1891. Init, he laid down a set of forestry prin-ciples that many contemporary forestscientists talk about as though they arenew ideas:
❖ As agriculture is practiced for thepurpose of producing food crops, soforestry is concerned in the productionof valuable wood crops, both attemptingto create values from the soil.
❖ Forest preservation does not, asseems to be imagined by many, excludeproper forest utilization, but on thecontrary, these may well go hand inhand.
❖ Reproduction is the aim of the forestmanager, and the difference between theexploitations of the lumberman and by theforester consists simply in this, that theforester cuts his trees with a view tosecuring desirable reproduction, while thelumberman cuts them without this view.
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Man’s DefeatBy Nature:
The Tragedy of theNew Hampshire Hills
Human muscle could no longercultivate the fields. Pines grew up in thepastures and overshadowed the feed ofthe cattle. Black alders sprouted thicklyby the brooks and encroached upon themowing. Brush filled in the roadsidesand miles of little traveled highway wereabandoned. Nature was closing in, yearin and year out, by summer increasingthe growth of brush and trees, by winterfilling the long miles of lonely road withdeep drifts of snow.
– New York Evening PostSaturday, September 28, 1907
❖ As in the animal world, so inthe vegetable, there is a constantstruggle for existence andsupremacy going on among thedifferent species as well as amongthe individuals of the samespecies. All struggle for theoccupancy of the soil.
❖ Light is one of the essentialfactors of tree growths and almostthe only one that man canregulate. Forest management,then, could be defined in the mainas management of light condi-tions.
❖ The general rules of manage-ment need to be modified accord-ing to local conditions, and it willappear at once that a considerableexercise of judgement, born fromexperience and knowledge, isexpected of the forest manager.
❖ The forester considers hisproperty as a permanent invest-ment, to produce revenue con-stantly and forever, in increasingrather than decreasing ratio. Thefactor of permanence is everpresent in his methods. Like theowner of a large office building, hespends part of his income fromyear to year to repair, improve andenhance its value.
Not all the club’s members likedthe idea that timber harvestingwould occur in their sporting camp,but the need for money tookprecedence. There were otherproblems too. The fact that hard-wood logs would not float—makingit impossible to drive them down-river to sawmills—meant the harvestwas limited to lighter weightsoftwoods that would float. Therewere also problems with unsuper-vised pulpwood loggers, who oftentook trees smaller than a foot indiameter, even though such harvest-ing was prohibited in club forests.The club even stopped harvesting forawhile, but money needs prevailedagain and the logging resumed. Poortimber markets also plagued the clubfrom time to time, and nearly forcedit into bankruptcy during theDepression. But by the 1950s betterroads and improvements in hard-wood pulp utilization vindicated clubmembers who had supported forestrythrough good and bad times. Today,
the club manages about 52,000acres and uses its harvest incometo support both wildlife andrecreation programs.
The odd mix of public andprivate land found insideAdirondack Park —and the factlogging occurs on private landinside park boundaries —puzzlesoutsiders from the either-or worldof preservation versus manage-ment. But the combination ofpreservation and managementworks here, in no small measurebecause of the club’s obvioussuccess in following Mr. Fernow’splan.
In the club’s centennial historybook, “The Adirondack LeagueClub: 1890–1990,” historianEdward Comstock, Jr., wrote thatthe club’s survival turned on itsdedication to sound forestry and itssuccessful marriage to practicalconcerns for recreation—factsthat he said “make the Club one ofthe best examples of what theAdirondack Park has represented inAmerican environmental history.”
Maybe so, but if Hugh Raupwere still alive, he would probablyargue—again—that the Adiron-dack Park and the AdirondackLeague Club have not succeededbecause of public policy, or adher-ence to a particular forest plan, butbecause they fit with the times.People want to own a piece of theAdirondacks, and so they buy amembership in a sporting club, orthey buy a second home. Others,perhaps less affluent, enjoy thesimple pleasures of a drive throughthe park. Most do so without everrealizing timber is still beingharvested here more than a centuryafter the park and the leagueclub—disparate visions of the samehope—were founded, one insidethe other, in the same mountainrange. Raup’s “summer people”have become permanent residents,thanks to technological advance-ments that make it possible forthem to live wherever they wantwithout abandoning their careersor their capital investments.Their presence is again changingthe way people value land, addingto the challenges Fernow andothers have faced in their effortsto demonstrate that forestpreservation and forest utilizationmay well go hand in hand.
Bernard Fernow wrote the Adirondack League Club’s firstforest plan in 1891. He was the first Chief of the ForestryBureau of the United States (forerunner of the modern-dayU.S. Forest Service), and an early voice in the nation’sconservation movement.
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Forests and the Wood Products Industryin the Northeast: Facts and Figures
Figure 1 traces the remarkablerecovery of northeastern forests -perhaps the greatest untold environ-mental story in the history ofAmerica. Historic and scientificrecords indicate that the four-stateregion was about 93 percent forestedwhen white settlement began inearnest in the early 1600s. Over thenext 250 years, forest clearings foragriculture, fuel,railroads, homeconstruction andindustrial and com-mercial developmenttook a huge toll. By1907, the Northeast’sforestland base haddeclined from93 percent to 54percent.
Forest recoverybegan in the early1900s, thanks mainlyto a seeminglyunrelated technologi-cal advancement: theinvention of theinternal combustionengine. Gas poweredtractors replaced draftanimals, allowingfarmers to convertgrazing land to cropproduction. At aboutthis same time, matureforests began toreappear in NewEngland fields that hadbeen abandoned after the Erie Canalopened in 1830. The canal providedmore productive Midwest farmerswith efficient access to easternmarkets, forcing New Englandfarmers out of business.
The Remarkable Recovery of Northeastern Forests
Today, the region is 79 percentforested, securing the recovery of wildlifespecies that were pushed to the brink ofextinction in the last century. Now a newwave of technology is influencing thecharacter of the region’s forests. Advance-ments in logging, lumber milling,papermaking and recycling have extendedthe region’s fiber supply far beyondanything thought possible 30 years ago.
Laser-guided saws maximize woodrecovery from each sawn log, whileengineered wood products utilize smalldiameter trees and odd sized pieces ofwood that were once unusable. More than60 percent of all newspaper and morethan 70 percent of all corrugated materialare now recovered and reused. This isgood news for a nation that is consumingmore wood and paper than ever before.
Source, Fig. 1: U.S. Forest Service timbersupply reports and studies published in1909, 1920, 1938, 1958, 1965, 1973,1982, 1987, 1989 and 1992
Northeastern Forest1630 to 1992
Maine New Hampshire New York Vermont0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
thousandacres
thousandacres Total
0
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20,000
30,000
40,000
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Total Land Area
Total Land Area
Total Land Area
Total Land Area
Total Land AreaForested in 1630Forested in 1907Forested in 1992
Fig. 1
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The Northern Forest contains manydifferent hardwood and softwood treespecies. Figure 2 displays the major“forest types” in the Northeast: White-red jack pine, spruce-fir, oak-pine,maple-beech-birch and aspen-birch.As the map and accompanying chart(Fig. 3) indicate, spruce-fir (darkgreen) forests dominate northernMaine, while maple-beech-birch (gray)forests are more prevalent in upstateNew York, Vermont and New Hamp-shire. Pine forest types (red) are morecommon in the southern reaches ofNew England. For the entire region,maple-beech-birch is the mostcommon forest type, covering about13.2 million acres, far more than theseven million acres dominated byspruce-fir forests.
Many Different Tree Species Grow in theNorthern Forest
Source, Figs. 2 and 3,USFS, Forest Inventoryand Analysis (FIA)Definition: “Forest type” isa classification offorestland based on thespecies mix presentlyforming a plurality of livetrees in a particular area.
Timberland Areaby Forest Type Group in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area
Vermont
NewYork
NewHampshire
Maine
AREATOTAL
0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000
Spruce-firWhite-red jack pine
Aspen-birchMaple-beech birch
thousand acres
thousand acres
Fig. 3
Major Forest Types inthe Northeastern U.S.
Fig. 2
14 EVERGREEN
Figures 4 and 5 illustrate the timberlandownership pattern within the boundaries ofthe 26 million-acre Northern Forest studyarea. Individuals, large non-industrial land-owners and industrial landowners own 94percent of all timberland in the study area.Forest management objectives differ widelywithin owner groups—a fact that addssignificantly to the structural and biologicaldiversity of the region’s forest landscape.While the region’s industrial landowners tendto emphasize pulpwood production, individuallandowners (who own more forestland thandoes any other owner group in the Northeast)tend to be less driven by the need to harvest.Many report they place their highest manage-ment priority on wildlife habitat protection.
Varied Timberland Ownership Pattern AddsDiversity to Northeast’s Privately Owned Forests
0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 16,000
Vermont
NewYork
NewHampshire
Maine
thousand acres
Other PrivateState & Local
IndustrialNon-Industrial
Federal
Timberland Ownershipin the Northern Forest Lands Study Area
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Northern Forest Land Area
Source, Fig. 5: Northern Forest Lands Study, USFS, April 1990and USFS, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA). Definition:“Timberland” is forestland not withdrawn from production thatis capable of growing 20 “cubic feet” of industrial woodannually. A “cubic foot” is 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot.
EVERGREEN 15
No doubt you’ve read or heard something about the“sustainability” of managed forests—managed forests beingthose from which timber and pulpwood are periodicallyharvested. Sustainability is a very subjective term for whichno agreed upon means of scientific measurement exists.
Considering the Sustainability Of Northern Forests
There are, however, some time-tested means of mea-surement from which one can make some inferencesconcerning the long-term sustainability of managedforests. One way is to survey “stand-size classes.” Suchmeasurements give a good indication of a forest’s ability to
sustain itself through time. Ideally, thestand-size classes (sawtimber, poletimberand sapling/seedling stands) should befairly well balanced, with few non-stockedacres. As Figure 6 indicates, this isgenerally the case throughout the North-east, though there is a preponderance ofmature sawtimber in some areas. Whilethere is nothing wrong with matureforests, they are past their prime in termsof future growth potential.
Another way to consider long-termsustainability is to regularly measure thevolume of timber growing in a particularforest. Two related measurements aregenerally taken: volume of growing stockand volume of sawtimber. Taken together,these measurements are useful in calcu-lating long term growth trends. Suchtrends are important when developinglong-term harvesting plans. In the North-east, the growing stock and sawtimbervolume trends are both positive, as isindicated by Figures 6 and 7.
Volume of Growing Stockby Species Group in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area
millioncubic feet Maine New Hampshire New York Vermont Total
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000Softwood
Hardwood
16,000
14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
thousandacres
0 0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
Maine New Hampshire New York Vermont Totals
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
Timberland Areaby Stand-Size Class in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area
Sapling/SeedlingNon-Stocked
SawtimberPoletimber
Fig. 6
Fig. 7 Source, Fig. 6: USFS, Forest Inventory and Analysis(FIA). Definition: “Stand Size class” is classification offorestland based on the “size classes” of all live trees.There are four size classes: non-stocked stands,seedling-sapling stands, poletimber stands andsawtimber stands. Nonstocked lands—recentlyharvested areas or reverting agricultural lands—haveless than 10% of full stocking in live trees. Seedling-sapling stands are at least 10% of full stocking andcontain at least 50% stocking in seedlings and saplings(live trees 1–4.9 inches dbh). Poletimber stands are atleast 10% of full stocking and contain at least 50%stocking in poletimber (live trees at least five inchesdbh). Sawtimber stands are at least 10% of full stockingand contain at least 50% stocking in pole or sawtimberor both.
Source, Fig. 7: USFS, Forest Inventory and Analysis(FIA). “Growing stock volume” is a cubic footmeasurement of live trees of commercial speciesmeeting specified standards of quality and trees. To beincluded, trees must be at least five inches “dbh”(diameter breast high) or larger. “Species Group”means the tree is either softwood or hardwood.
16 EVERGREEN
Source, Fig. 8: USFS,Forest Inventory andAnalysis (FIA)“Sawtimber volume” is a“board foot” measure of livetrees containing at leastone 12-foot saw log or twononcontiguous 8-foot logs.Softwood saw logs must beat least 9 inches dbh andhardwood logs must be atleast 11 inches dbh. A“board foot” is 12 inchesby 12 inches by 1 inch.There are about 4.5 boardfeet in one cubic foot.
Source, Figs. 9 and 10:USFS, Forest Inventoryand Analysis (FIA) (4)“Net annual growth”is gross growth minusmortality, minus the netvolume of trees that are nolonger of commercial value.In addition to volumeharvested, “Removals”include unutilized woodvolume from cut orotherwise killed growingstock, cultural operationssuch as precommercialthinnings or from timber-land clearing.
Volume of Sawtimberby Species Group in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
Maine New Hampshire New York Vermont Total0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
40,000Softwood
Hardwood
millionboard feet
Net AnnualGrowing Stock Growth & Removal
Based on Averages in Maine and New York Counties
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Softwood Hardwood Softwood Hardwood in millions of cubic feet
Growth
Removal
73.831.0
175.065.0
SOFTWOODN.Y.
HARDWOOD
248.896.0
TOTAL
Growth
Removal
133.5317.0
172.3116.0
SOFTWOODMAINE
HARDWOOD
305.8433.0
TOTAL
NEW YORKMAINE
020406080
100120140160180
GrowthRemoval
Net Annual Sawtimber Growth & Removal
Based on Averages in Maine and New York Counties
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Softwood Hardwood Softwood Hardwood in millions of board feet
NEW YORKMAINE
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Growth
Removal
517.6758.0
304.5233.0
SOFTWOODMAINE
HARDWOOD
822.1991.0
TOTAL
Growth
Removal
293.2109.8
574.1215.9
SOFTWOODN.Y.
HARDWOOD
867.3325.9
TOTAL
GrowthRemoval
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
EVERGREEN 17
How Timber HarvestingAffects Migratory Birds
The remarkable recovery of northeastern forests isparalleled by the equally remarkable recovery of manywildlife species that were pushed to the brink of extinc-tion by nineteenth century timber and farming influ-ences. Among this century’s success stories: the returnof moose, black bear, white-tailed deer and wild turkeys.
Until recently, much less was known about therecovery of migratory bird populations. Now there isevidence many of them are doing quite well, while othersstill have some distance to go. Not all bird species use thesame kinds of forest habitat, a fact that has a directbearing on their population numbers. For example, birdsthat do well in younger, more open forests appear to haveno difficulty adapting to timber harvesting, while othersthat prefer more mature, closed-canopy forests do havetrouble adapting to harvest-created habitat changes. Howmuch difficulty these birds are having is hard to gauge,because even species that prefer the seclusion of matureforests sometimes find their food in more open environs.
Some of the most interesting habitat research cur-rently underway in the Northeast is being conducted byDr. John Hagan, Senior Ecologist and Director of Conser-vation Forestry at Manoment in Brunswick, Maine.Manomet (formerly Manomet Observatory) is a non-profitscientific research group. It got its start in the 1960smonitoring migratory bird populations. Since 1992, Dr.Hagan has been studying the effects of industrial forestryon birds and forest structures in Maine. His research isconcentrated on lands belonging to S. D. Warren andGreat Northern Paper.
“What we can say at this point is that some birdspecies benefit from harvesting, while others appear to behindered,” Dr. Hagan said in an April interview. “We alsoknow that clearcutting does not create ‘biological deserts’as some have suggested.”
Among bird species that benefit from clearcut-relatedhabitat changes: Chestnut-sided Warbler, CommonYellowthroat, American Kestrel, Lincoln’s Sparrow andMourning Warbler. And among birds that are hindered:Blackpoll Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler andBlackburnian Warbler.
Most bird species are “site-faithful,” meaning theyreturn year after year to where they were the year before.
When they find their previous nesting area has beenharvested, they generally move to an adjacent forest. Whatis not known is how or if harvest related habitat lossesimpact population numbers. Some birds seem to need nomore than an acre of habitat, while other breeding pairsneed a hundred acres or more.
“We have some data for southern New England,” Dr.Hagan reports. “We know urban-related forest fragmenta-tion is a big problem for some birds, but annual surveyshave only recently been conducted in northern Maine, soin a long-term sense, we don’t know how bird numbers areimpacted by harvest-related habitat changes.”
Given the likelihood that reliable harvest impact datawill not be available anytime soon—and to reduce thepotential risk of species loss—Dr. Hagan is encouraging the
Northeast’s largelandowners tomaintain an age-class distributionthat provides amplemature (80–120year old) habitat forspecies that need it.
“Presently, Icannot identify anybird species inMaine that requireold growth foreststo maintain a
healthy population,” Dr. Hagan says. “The challenge is tofigure out how to keep a full array of habitat in a workingforest. That’s not easy to do when you are a paper manufac-turer. Paper company forests are definitely trending towardyounger age classes.”
The trend toward younger maximum forest age hasbecome a focal point in Dr. Hagan’s habitat research. Withannual harvest rates running at about 1.5 percent, hewonders whether any plant or animal species associatedwith mature forests will drop out as younger forests becomemore predominant in northern Maine.
“The forests we see today are the product of an earlierera when the annual harvest rate was less than it is now,”he explains. “What this means is that the Maine forestlandscape we see today will not look the same in 30 or 40years. We need to learn how to accommodate a full range ofwildlife species in this changing landscape.”
But how can such a range of wildlife species be accom-
Growth Exceeds Harvest Except for Areas Where Spruce BudwormInfestations Necessitated Aggressive Salvage Logging
Across the Northeast, net annual forest growthexceeds harvesting by safe margins, except in Mainespruce-fir forests devastated by the most recent sprucebudworm epidemic. (See nearby, “Condition and Outlookfor Maine’s Spurce-fir Forests: Aftermath of the SpruceBudworm Eipdemic”). Fig. 12 (pg. 19) illustrates net
annual growth and removals of growing stock and sawtimberfor Maine and New York counties in the Northern ForestLands Study Area. Such detailed information is not availablefor Vermont and New Hampshire because the relatively lowintensity of field inventory plots did not provide statisticallyvaluable estimates at the county level.
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Black-throated Green Warbler
18 EVERGREEN
modated in forests that are growing younger? Many whovoted to ban clearcutting in Maine think such a ban wouldproduce the older forests they believe would most benefitwildlife, but Dr. Hagan is less certain how wildlife wouldbenefit.
“Selectioncutting usuallyinvolves harvesting20 to 30 percent ofthe timber in astand every 15 or 20years,” he explains.“The result is amore open-canopyforest with fewerslightly older treesthan would natu-rally be present. Butselection harvesting does not mimic the mature, closed-canopyforest nature would offer up across much of Maine’s NorthernForest if given the chance. Both techniques—clearcutting andselection harvesting—mimic nature is some ways, but neithertechnique produces an exact replica of natural disturbancepatterns produced by wind, disease, ice or the occasional fire wesee in the North woods.”
Then there is the acreage factor: given the demand for—say—a billion board feet of wood fiber annually, it takes many morepartial cut acres to meet demand than it does clearcut acres. Is it
better to disturb fewer acres more intensively every 60 to 70 years,or is it better to enter a stand less aggressively every 15 or 20 years?Which alternative produces the better overall outcome for wildlife?Dr. Hagan concedes he does not know. But the Maine ForestService has come up with some interesting numbers worthconsidering. Between 1989 and 1994, clearcutting decreased from45 to 11 percent of annual harvest acres. At the same time, thenumber of partial cuts increased from 55 to 89 percent—and thenumber of total acres harvested by clearcut and partial cutincreased from 326,000 to 504,000 acres.
To help mitigate the immediate impacts of harvesting, Dr.Hagan offers a suggestion that seems certain to raise theeyebrows of a public obsessed with orderliness in forests: leavemore snags and woody debris—branches and treetops—inharvested areas. Such debris holds moisture, enriches the soiland provides hiding and nesting cover for birds, small mammalsand amphibians.
“Leaving woody debris may seem to add to the eyesoreclearcuts create,” Dr. Hagan explains, “but logging residue is veryhelpful where wildlife is concerned. Policymakers need to acceptthe fact that many of the things that benefit wildlife don’t fit wellwithin the public’s perception of what constitutes good foreststewardship.”
Where the future is concerned, Dr. Hagan is both a pragma-tist and an optimist. “About all we can do is learn as we go,” hesays. “We need to be flexible and open to new knowledge. Wherewildlife is concerned, we will never have perfect knowledge, andwe will never know all there is to know.”
Condition and Outlook for Maine’s Spruce-fir Forests:Aftermath of the Spruce Budworm Epidemic
Maine’s spruce-fir forests are products of a convergence ofhuman and natural events. Between 1890 and 1920, the state’ssoftwood forests experienced very heavy cutting. The nation’seconomy was growing rapidly, and Maine’s forests provided anenormous amount of wood for residential and commercialbuilding. The impact of 30 years of heavy harvesting was exacer-bated by a spruce budworm outbreak that occurred between 1912and 1920. This combination of events—the heavy harvest and thebudworm outbreak—set in motion the cycle of natural regenera-tion (Fig. 11) that created the spruce-fir forests that dominatedMaine’s landscape until the 1970s when a devastating sprucebudworm epidemic necessitated another cycle of heavy cutting.The outbreak lasted 15 years (1970–1985) and unleashed a stormof criticism from citizens who were angered by the amount ofclearcutting that occurred.
“People were angry,” reports Lloyd Irland, owner of The IrlandGroup, a Winthrop, Maine, forest consulting firm. “It all happenedso fast. Spruce-fir forests that had become Maine landmarks wereharvested on an unprecedented scale. Some of the clearcuts wereadjacent to heavily traveled roads. It was not a pretty scene.”
The budworm infestation hit spruce-fir forests so hard thatgrowth collapsed for more than a decade. Between 1975 and1990, budworm-related mortality in balsam fir exceeded bothgross growth and harvest. (Fig. 12) Red spruce fared better, as
did the hardwood species. In all, between 20 and 25 million cordsof spruce and fir were killed, though much of it was salvaged.
Spruce budworms are very efficient killers. Though their nameimplies a preference for spruce, they will also attack balsam fir.They begin their work in treetops, invading buds and cones first.
Fig. 11, tracks spruce-firgrowing stock volume inMaine’s forests from 1902through 1995. Inventorywas at its lowest point in1933—a result of twofactors: a heavy harvestingcycle that slowed at theend of World War I and the1912–1920 budwormoutbreak. Wood utilizationstandards have changedsignificantly over the years,so the earliest inventorydata is not comparable tocurrent data. However, itsreflection of the spruce-firlife cycle is accurate.Source: “Condition and
Outlook for Maine’s Spruce-Fir Forest,” The Irland Group, February, 1998;and the Maine Forest Service.
Estimates of MaineSpruce-Fir Growing Stock
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
02 17 33 44 58 71 82 95
million cords
Editor’s note: To learn more about Dr. Hagan’s views concerning timber harvesting and wildlife habitat, read “Clearcutting in Maine: Would somebody please askthe right question?” Maine Policy Review, July 1996, or write Dr. John Hagan, Manomet, 14 Maine St., Suite 404, Brunswick, Maine, 04011.
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EVERGREEN 19
Then they parachute into the understory below, where theyattack seedlings and saplings.
“They are hell on regeneration,” Mr. Irland says. “In aserious outbreak, like the one we experienced in the 1970s,about all a landowner can do is pick up the pieces and start over.”
In a February report, “Condition and Outlook for Maine’sSpruce-Fir Forest,” Mr. Irland suggested that had landownerselected not to aggressively salvage dead and dying spruce andfir, balancing growth against harvest and mortality would haverequired much of the industry to shut down by the late 1970s.“In retrospect, such a sacrifice would not have helped muchbecause the budworm outbreak was concentrated in mature,short-lived balsam fir,” he explained. “Thus, growing stockvolume would have declined even if no salvage harvesting hadoccurred. Though it created a momentary eyesore, salvagelogging was likely the lesser of two evils if only because it gavelandowners the opportunity to recover their capital.”Since 1982, the region’s paper companies have invested morethan $90 million in treating some 900,000 budworm-damagedacres. Herbicides were applied to control growth in competingvegetation long enough to give new naturally regeneratedspruce and fir an opportunity to overtop brush. Overly densespruce-fir stands were thinned and, where necessary, entirestands were replanted by hand.
When it calculates growing stock volume, the U.S. ForestService does not include volume or growth data for treessmaller than five inches in diameter. In Maine, it takes from 20to 25 years for spruce or fir to attain such size, so the industrydid not get credit for its post-epidemic investments in theagency’s 1995 survey.
“It’s unfortunate,” Mr. Irland says. “The public has been leftwith the perception that growth and harvest are way out ofbalance in Maine. Harvest exceeded growth when landownerswere out battling budworms, but current indications suggestthat spruce-fir harvest is probably in balance with long-termaverage growth.”
It would seem so. One landowner Mr. Irland is assistingestimates its new immature stands are growing at a rate of 1.15cords per acre per year—twice the state average measuredbefore the budworm outbreak. Another reports growth insurviving mature spruce-fir forests has doubled since thebudworm infestation subsided.
Softwood timber harvesting in Maine has been decliningsince budworm-related salvage cutting peaked in 1985. Other
factors have kept the harvest below its 1985 peak. Increased useof hardwood has enabled the industry to maintain outputdespite a decline in softwood usage. Recycling is playing anincreasingly important role, allowing mills to reuse fiber ratherthan harvest new wood. Advanced sawing technologies are alsohelping, enabling mills to use smaller logs that were onceconsidered waste.
As the budworm epidemic has subsided and production-related factors have begun to exert their own influences,clearcutting has given way to a wide array of partial cuttingtechniques. The Maine Forest Service reports that since 1989the number of acres clearcut has declined from 45 percent to11 percent of total acres harvested. (Fig. 13) Nevertheless,there is no denying that, during the worst of the epidemic,a few landowners took advantage of the crisis—liquidatingforests that were not infested or had suffered only minordamage.
“Their actions made it tougher for other landownerswho were really struggling to get ahead of the budworms,”Mr. Irland says. “Unfortunately, not all landowners sharethe same conservation ethic.”
Though the worst is over, there is not enough dataavailable to determine what sort of harvest level is sustainablein the foreseeable future. The U.S. Forest Service and theMaine Forest Service are conducting an in-depth review ofcurrent data, and a report is expected later this year. Prelimi-nary estimates suggest that softwood harvest levels of the pastseveral years are sustainable, but these estimates are based ongrowth and harvest modeling assumptions that have yet to be
fully tested. There is additional concern for the fact thebudworm outbreak and the resulting salvage harvest have atleast temporarily decreased the acreage of Maine’s spruce-firforest.
“We know acreage typed as spruce-fir declined during thebudworm outbreak,” Mr. Irland explains. “What we don’tknow is what forest type will replace it. We may see anotherspruce-fir forest right away, or hardwoods may become moredominant for a while. We don’t know for sure.”
For the time being, it appears that yield-increasingintensive forestry—which has already cost landowners morethan $90 million—offers the best hope for restoring Maine’sspruce-fir forests.
Fig. 13 , tracks the decline in clearcutting in Maine from 1989 through1994. As clearcutting has declined, it has been necessary to partial cutmore acres to produce the same harvest volume. Source: Maine ForestService
Fig. 12 , tracks mortality as a percent of gross growth and removals for1982–1995. By far, the heaviest losses occurred in balsam fir. Source:Data by the U.S. Forest Service and calculations by The Irland Group.
0%
20
40
60
80
100
120
Mortality as a Percent ofGross Growth & Removals – 1982 to 1995
Balsam Fir Red Spruce White Pine Hemlock Total Softwood All Hardwood
112%105%
46%
27%
7% 8% 10% 9%
50% 46%
24%
42%
GrowthRemoval
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Clearcutting in Mainein Thousands of Acres Harvested – 1989 to 1994
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
Clearcut Other Harvest
45%23%
82%
18%
87%
13%
89%
11%
89%
11%
77%
55%
20 EVERGREEN
The economic strength of a region isdetermined by its ability to export its goodsor services to other regions. Figures 14through 19 illustrate the economic impor-tance of the Northeast’s forest productsindustry. Lumber and paper producersoperating within the Northern Forest LandsStudy Area employ more than 43,600 people.More than half of them—about 24,000—work in the paper industry.
Dependence of forest products manufac-turing is greatest in rural counties. Forexample, in Essex County, Vermont, thewood products industry accounts for 66.2percent of basic income and 63.3 percentof basic employment. Basic income andemployment derive their importance fromthe fact that certain industries—called basicindustries—export their products or servicesto other regions, thereby generating newdollars for the region in which basic indus-tries operate.
Figure 14 compares employment in keysectors within the Northern Forest Lands StudyArea. Wood products employment totals 43,601,about 36 percent of total manufacturingemployment within the study area. Almost 69percent of total manufacturing employmentwithin the New Hampshire study area, andalmost 60 percent of manufacturing employmentwithin the Maine study area.
Source, Fig. 14: Minnesota IMPLAN Group, Inc.
Figure 15 illustratesemployment and income (wagespaid in millions of dollars) for thevarious sub-sectors that makeup the lumber and papermanufacturing industries inMaine, New Hampshire, NewYork and Vermont. Total primaryand secondary employment inwood products, wood furnitureand paper manufacturingexceeds 115,500 and totalannual income exceeds$4.32 billion.
Source, Fig. 15: MinnesotaIMPLAN Group, Inc.
The Forest Products Industry is a Major Employerin the Rural Northeast
Employment by Key Sectorsin the Northern Forest Lands Study Area – 1994
SECTOR
Agriculture & FisheriesForestryMiningConstructionManufacturing Food Processing Textiles & Apparel Primary Wood Prod. Hardwood Dimension Veneer & Plywood Other Primary Secondary Wood Wood Furniture Primary Paper Secondary Paper All Wood Products Primary Metals High Tech Mfg. Transportation Equip. Other Mfg.Transport., Comm. & Util.Wholesale TradeRetail Trade (excl. eat & drink)Finance, Insurance & Real EstateServices (excl. lodging & computer)Computer & Data ServicesEating, Drinking & LodgingGovernmentTOTAL
11,073819
8318,46639,648
2,4312,8346,946
382442
6,1224,731
52210,857
29123,347
20706
1,0079,303
10,78810,18833,816
8,55558,467
29015,59638,369
246,158
MAINE
2891029
9723,598
10341648
650
5834
1741,403
2432,472
040
0735789935
2,617675
3,85732
2,0832,438
18,324
NEWHAMPSHIRE
17,499192
1,26133,55569,773
4,7493,6751,586
239147
1,2001,2001,0847,4562,631
13,9576,9488,5672,538
29,33918,49418,88873,92928,110
135,5612,666
41,713131,207572,848
NEWYORK
4,0324669
5,6319,3991,7471,055
899151214534166
1,2421,046
4723,825
153107
622,4502,2402,0717,9592,418
13,636147
5,6529,202
62,502
VERMONT
32,8931,0671,442
58,624122,418
8,9377,905
10,079837803
8,4396,1013,022
20,7623,637
43,6017,1219,4203,607
41,82732,31132,082
118,32139,758
211,5213,135
65,044181,216899,832
AREATOTAL
Forest Industry Employment for States in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area – 1994
MAINEIncomeJobsSECTOR (income in millions)
NEW HAMPSHIREIncomeJobs
NEW YORKIncomeJobs
VERMONTIncomeJobs
AREA TOTALIncomeJobs
$497$62$41
$394$681$392
$1,515$1,243$4,328
18,6622,4101,668
14,58424,77414,47026,28531,343115,534
$82$20$24$38$68$59$51$38
$298
3,136729942
1,4652,4482,4151,1911,079
10,269
$132$30
$7$95
$353$276$547
$1,003$2,311
5,1571,204
2833,670
12,1659,5639,565
25,68262,132
$72$2$0
$70$93$35
$106$116$422
2,532850
2,4473,4191,3502,1272,586
12,014
$211$10$10
$191$167
$23$810
$85$1,297
7,837392443
7,0026,7421,142
13,4021,996
31,119
Primary Wood Prod. Hardwood Dimen. Veneer & Plywood Other PrimarySecondary WoodWood FurniturePrimary PaperSecondary PaperTOTALS
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
EVERGREEN 21
Forest Industry Employment for All Counties in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area – 1994
MAINEIncomeJobsSECTOR (income in millions)
NEW HAMPSHIREIncomeJobs
NEW YORKIncomeJobs
VERMONTIncomeJobs
ALL COUNTIESIncomeJobs
$263$20$20
$223$146
$72$1,156
$139$1,776
10,079837803
8,4396,1013,022
20,7623,637
43,601
$23$3$7
$13$3
$31$46$17
$120
899151214534166
1,2421,046
4723,825
$38$6$4
$28$29$28
$383$104$582
1,586239147
1,2001,2001,0847,4562,631
13,957
$16$1$0
$15$0$4
$70$7
$97
64865
0583
4174
1,403243
2,472
$187$10$10
$167$114
$9$657
$12$979
6,946382442
6,1224,731
52210,857
29123,347
Primary Wood Prod. Hardwood Dimen. Veneer & Plywood Other PrimarySecondary WoodWood FurniturePrimary PaperSecondary PaperTOTALS
Figure 16 illustratesemployment and income(wages paid in millions ofdollars) for the various forestindustry sub-sectors thatoperate in counties within theNorthern Forest Lands StudyArea. Total employment inwood products manufacturingexceeds 43,000 and totalannual income is $1.77 billion.Primary and secondary paperproducts employment (24,399)exceeds employment inprimary and secondary lumberproducts (19,202) by 5,197.More than half of all woodproducts employment andincome generated in the studyarea is in Maine.Source, Fig. 14: MinnesotaIMPLAN Group, Inc.
Figure17 compares basicemployment and income (on apercentage basis) for keysectors of the economy forstates within the NorthernForest Lands Study Area. Notethat in Maine (which accountsfor 58 % of the study area)19.1% of basic employmentand 25.3% of basic income isin the wood products sector.However, in New York (wherejobs and wages are concen-trated in the greater New YorkCity area) the industry’scontributions are barelynegligible. Also, note that forthe region, the tourist-relatedsectors of basic income andemployment (eating, drinkingand lodging) is only a fractionof wood products basic incomeand employment. The singleexception is Vermont, wheretourist employment exceedswood product employment.However, basic wood productincome in Vermont exceedsbasic tourist income.
Source, Fig. 17: MinnesotaIMPLAN Group, Inc.
Basic Employment & Income by Percentage in the Northern Forest Lands Study Area – 1994
SECTOR
0.00.00.00.1
15.30.41.50.00.00.00.00.10.00.60.00.70.06.10.06.62.50.00.4
38.832.3
0.00.0
10.6100%
0.10.00.00.8
15.90.42.00.00.00.00.00.30.00.70.11.10.05.30.16.84.30.11.9
16.644.60.00.0
15.6100%
3.00.00.76.0
51.13.90.42.60.80.90.92.02.21.30.88.91.0
21.62.6
12.82.10.08.30.1
14.50.06.97.3
100%
6.80.00.69.7
40.53.70.53.40.91.21.22.22.91.00.8
10.30.7
11.81.8
11.81.40.0
10.30.0
16.00.0
10.83.9
100%
0.00.00.00.0
13.70.41.70.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.05.20.06.42.50.00.3
39.932.3
0.00.0
11.1100%
0.60.00.00.7
13.40.42.30.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.10.10.04.40.06.24.60.81.2
17.544.5
0.00.0
16.7100%
0.30.00.24.4
59.50.91.90.80.00.00.81.10.31.31.44.93.1
29.00.1
19.63.40.0
12.13.0
14.11.61.10.4
100%
0.80.00.27.4
48.10.51.81.00.00.01.01.50.41.01.04.92.7
20.30.2
17.71.40.0
18.42.2
18.00.82.20.4
100%
2.40.40.04.0
52.91.82.53.80.10.03.62.80.0
17.71.0
25.30.32.8
11.29.02.10.0
11.42.3
14.70.02.17.5
100%
7.80.70.07.2
46.22.52.94.70.10.14.53.80.19.80.7
19.00.22.68.1
10.91.60.0
14.30.2
14.60.02.54.9
100%
Agriculture & FisheriesForestryMiningConstructionManufacturing Food Processing Textiles & Apparel Primary Wood Prod. Hardwood Dimension Veneer & Plywood Other Primary Secondary Wood Wood Furniture Primary Paper Secondary Paper All Wood Products Primary Metals High Tech Mfg. Transportation Equip. Other Mfg.Transport., Comm. & Util.Wholesale TradeRetail Trade (excl. eat & drink)Finance, Insurance & Real EstateServices (excl. lodging & computer)Computer & Data ServicesEating, Drinking & LodgingGovernmentTOTAL
MAINEIncomeJobs
NEW HAMPSHIREIncomeJobs
NEW YORKIncomeJobs
VERMONTIncomeJobs
AREA TOTALIncomeJobs
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
22 EVERGREEN
Lumber Production in MaineMaine’s lumber production has been increasing
steadily since 1954. (Fig. 19) Production laggedduring the late 1970s global recession, then shot upagain after interest rates fell and the homebuildingindustry recovered. Production dipped again in 1989on recession fears, but has increased steadily eversince.
The Northeast’s lumber industry accounts forabout 7% of all softwood and hardwood lumbermanufactured in the U. S. East, a region thatincludes all states east of the Continental Divide.Softwood lumber production in the four-stateNortheast is about twice hardwood lumberproduction, but hardwood lumber production inNew York State is more than four times softwoodproduction. The major softwood lumber species arespruce, fir and eastern white pine, while the majorhardwood species are oak and maple.
Source, Fig. 19: Steer 1948, and U.S. Department ofCommerce, Lumber Production and Milstocks.
Maine’s Paper IndustryMaine’s pulp and paper production has
been increasing since 1950—a fact thatshould serve to dispel an oft-repeatedenvironmentalist claim that the industry isin decline. Fig. 18 tracks more than 40 yearsof steady growth.
Source, Fig. 18: Atlas of the Resources of Maine,Supplement Feb. 1987, The Forests of Maine;Current Ind. Rept. MA26A (89)-1 to 1989; and Paper1991–1993 from AFPA. Pulp not available after1989.
Wood and Paper Products Manufactured in the NortheastThere are literally thousands of hardwood and softwood lumber and paper products manufactured in the Northeast. Below is partial list.
Tissue Typing paper Pulp Newsprint Stationery Bowling pinsLog homes Chairs Tables Bed frames Croquet mallets Golf teesPlywood Handles Veneer Cutting boards Veneer DecoysToys Signs Snowshoes Charcoal Acetate Piano partsFishing rods Wood alcohol Dowels Studs Molding WindowsBaseball bats Chair legs Chair seats Chair backs Stool tops Cabinet partsFurniture parts Stair parts Clothespins Toothpicks Tongue depressors Trophy basesToy parts Bird feeders Buttons Bird houses Knobs FinialsBeams Rafters Joists Paneling Balls BowlsCandle cups Spindles Golf tees Game pieces Key rings Honey dippersPallet boards Shaker pegs Spacers Spools Checkers CanoesCanoe paddles Drawers Drawer pulls Packaging Paperboard Clock casesCoat hangers Lamps Boxes Racks Rails ShelvingWedges Trim Picture frames Flooring Siding FuelwoodCoated paper Livestock bedding Garden bark Mulch Mousetraps Fencing
Wood-based chemicals used in food additives, plastics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and photographic film
MaineWoodpulp & Paper Production
milliontons
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1989 1991 1992 1993
WoodpulpPaper
MaineLumber Production Estimates
billionboard feet
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
1954 1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1993
TotalSoftwoodHardwood
Fig. 19
Fig. 18
EVERGREEN 23
An eastern white pine Tree Farm near OldForge, New York. This forest is growing insideAdirondacck State Park boundaries. State-owned land inside the park is “forever wild” -meaning timber harvesting is forbidden—butharvesting is permitted on private land withinthe park.
The Northern Forest Land Areaembraces 26 million acres – an area 13times the size of Yellowstone NationalPark. It stretches from the Great Lakeseast to the Atlantic Ocean, across theupper reaches of New York, Vermont,New Hampshire and Maine. Thoughbroken by small timber and farmingcommunities, it is one of the largest,most diverse forests in America.Individuals, private corporations andindustrial landowners own 94% of thisforest, but in keeping with NewEngland tradition, virtually all of it isaccessible to campers, hunters, hikers,anglers and others who enjoy theoutdoors.
The Northern Forest Land boundarywas arbitrarily drawn in 1988 when—atthe request of the region’s governors—Congress ordered the U.S. ForestService to study the area’s timberlandresources. The impetus for the studywas the sale of 186,000 acres of timber-land—then owned by a French con-glomerate—to two wealthy landspeculators. The sales promptedoutcries from citizens who feared thatmore timberland might be sold todevelopers, thereby limiting publicaccess and forever altering the region’srural timberland culture.
Although fears of widespreaddevelopment and loss of public accesshave never materialized, the NorthernForest Lands Study—and a subsequentstudy by the Northern Forest LandsCouncil—have sparked a citizen debatethat continues today. The issue: whatrole—if any—can special interestgroups play in decisions involving theuse or sale of private lands within theNorthern Forest. Many believe thepublic has no legal right to involveitself in the affairs of private landown-ers, but others say citizens have a rightto get involved when landownerdecisions impact publicly ownedresources on private land, namely air,water, fish and wildlife. Some believethe best way to protect these resourcesis through publicly funded land
purchases. Others favor government-imposed regulations that restrict whatowners can do on their property.
Across the Northeast, it is widelybelieved that timberland owners canharvest timber whenever and whereverthey want, without regard for fish andwildlife or air and water quality. This isnot true. The map on Pages 2 and 3depicts—by color—areas whereharvesting is regulated or prohibited.
Across the region, there are severalareas where no harvesting is permitted.Baxter State Park, the large green areain north central Maine is one suchexample. No harvesting is allowedinside this 200,000-acre park except inthe Scientific Forest Management Areain the northern quarter. Otherwise, thepark is dedicated to recreation withminimal road access and many
backcountry campsites.Harvesting is also tightly con-
trolled in the Adirondack Park, thelarge green area in upstate New York.Six million acres lie inside the park’sfamous blue line. Regulated harvest-ing is permitted on private landwithin the park, but no harvesting isallowed on 2.8 million acres of“forever wild” state land that lieswithin park boundaries.
Very strict regulations limit orprohibit harvesting and road buildingin the region’s two federally-ownedforests: Vermont’s 180,000-acre GreenMountain National Forest, and the774,000-acre White Mountain Na-tional Forest, which lies mainly inNew Hampshire but spills eastwardinto Maine.
Regulations limiting harvestingand road building apply to everytimberland acre on this map, includ-ing the white areas, which depictprivate land that is not regulated byMaine’s LURC (brown areas) or NewYork’s Adirondack Park Authority(light and dark green areas inside thepark’s blue line). Some communities(shown in yellow blocks) also limitharvesting and regulate log hauling.
Regulations restricting harvestingvary somewhat from jurisdiction tojurisdiction, but generally they bindlandowners to a notification processthat requires them to advise regulat-ing agencies of planned harvests.Regulations also limit the size ofclearcuts, protect visually sensitiveareas and restrict or prohibit harvest-ing in stream corridors and aroundlakes. Harvesting and road buildingare also restricted when such activi-ties might disturb birthing wildlife ortheir offspring.
Some regulatory authorities areattempting to streamline overlappingpermitting processes, but there arestill many instances where landownersmust apply to multiple agencies toobtain permission to harvest timber orconstruct roads.
Compiled by the James W. Sewell Co.
Forest Regulation in theNorthern Forest Land Area
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24 EVERGREEN
“I suggest that the principal role of the landand the forests has been that of stage andscenery. The significant figures have alwaysbeen the people, and the ideas they have hadabout what they might do at specific points in
War in the North Country: The Battlefor Control of the Northeast’s New Forest
An Essay by James D. Petersen
–Hugh Miller Raup, “The View from John Sanderson’s Farm: A Perspective for the Use Of Land,” Forest History, April, 1966
time when the stage properties are at hand. Ateach such point in time an actor could play hisrole only by the rules he knew—in terms of hisown conception of his relation to the playof which he was a part.”
The Boreas River between Old Forge, New York and Chester, Vermont
Jim
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On Saturday, September 8, 1900, arough and tumble sawmill crew at BerlinMills Company in Berlin, New Hampshireset a world’s record that stands today. Inone frantic 11-hour shift, it cut 221,319board feet of lumber from 714 logs. It did sousing a single-cut band saw mounted on asingle log carriage, a staggering accom-plishment, even by today’s standards.
The remarkable history of Berlin Millsis a good vantage-point from which to lookback on the history of the Northeast’stimber industry—an industry that is todaya colossus with enormous economic andpolitical clout. Berlin represents all thatwas good—and bad—about the industryduring its formative years.
The company was founded in 1852by investors from Portland, Maine whopartnered as H. Winslow and Company.That same year they dammed theAndroscoggin River at Berlin, then builttheir first sawmill—thus capitalizing on theAtlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad spurthat reached Berlin just ahead of them. By1861, the mill was sawing 30 million feet oftimber annually, and in 1866 a newinvestment group, led by Portland industri-alist William W. Brown, bought theoperation. They renamed their purchase theBerlin Mills Company and it operated assuch until 1917 when World War I hostilitytoward anything German (including theword “Berlin”) forced its renaming again.
The Brown Company would go on tobecome a giant in the pulp and paperindustry.
In its heyday, the company owned morethan 5,800 square miles of timberland in theNortheast and Canada—an area the size ofConnecticut and Rhode Island combined. By1890, it was exporting top quality sprucelumber to points as far away as Argentina.Three hundred worked in the mill andanother 1,200 worked in the woods.
In 1888, the company entered the pulpand paper business, and in 1904...built theworld’s largest self-contained pulp andpaper mill in nearby Gorham. By 1920,employment in Brown Company lumber,pulp and paper operations reached 4,200.Another 2,400 worked in the woods ordrove logs down the Androscoggin River.
The company was also a leader inefforts to improve woodland management.In 1898, it hired Austin Cary, a pioneerforester and friend of both Bernard Fernow,the first chief of the Forestry Bureau(forerunner to the U.S. Forest Service) andGifford Pinchot, first chief of the ForestService. Cary was an early opponent of the“cut and run” tactics then in vogue. “Youcan’t stop the economic forces that arecutting down our forests,” he warned. “butyou can guide them if you go at it right.”Though his recommendations were notalways followed, his ethic took root in thecompany’s greenhouse, one of the first
nurseries in the timber industry. By 1920,it was producing four million coniferseedlings annually. The company also builtthe paper industry’s first research anddevelopment laboratory, where in 1931 itperfected the first practical process forpulping hardwood.
But the company’s fortunes slowlyfaded. In 1913, it sustained a $300,000 losswhen its record-setting sawmill burned tothe ground. One thousand jobs were lost. Asmaller mill was built in its place, but by1930 their capital intensive pulp and paperoperation forced it to cease lumberproduction. Then, in 1935, it was forcedinto bankruptcy by Depression-era events itcould not control. In the ensuing years, thecompany changed hands several times, butit never regained prominence. In 1980,Virginia-based James River Corporationbought Brown’s paper mills at Berlin andGorham. Both plants have since been soldto Crown Vantage.
The Brown Company’s boom andbust history is mirrored all across theNortheast in timber fortunes made andlost during the hell roaring days of riverdrives railroad logging and splash dams.Technological and scientific advance-ments, mergers and acquisitions andeconomic ups and downs have sincechanged the face of the industry manytimes. But this story is about the forcesbehind change—about people and ideas
EVERGREEN 25
Harvard botanist Hugh Raupfound more important than landor trees. “I suggest that theprincipal role of the land and theforests has been that of stage andscenery,” he wrote in 1966. In thisstory, the characters—Raup’sactors—play their roles just as hesaid they would—by the only rulesthey know.
Last November, an amazingthing happened in Maine. A 59-year-old grandmother with nomoney to spend on politicaladvertising led a voter uprisingthat handed Maine’s paper indus-try an election-day victory itseemed not to want. Her name isMary Adams, and in rural Mainetimber towns she is something ofa folk hero.
Ballot Question 1—also knownas the Forest Compact—was (inthe words of one forestry consult-ant) “a regulator’s dream cometrue.” Among other things, itasked voters to reduce the sizelimit for clearcuts from 250 to 75acres. They refused, defeating themeasure by a 53 to 47 percentmargin. Had the compact beenapproved, the state’s paper manu-facturers would have found it moredifficult to efficiently harvest its60–70 year-old forests at a time whenits competitors south of the equator aregrowing entire forests on plantations inseven to ten years. But the electionoutcome does not appear to have turnedon forest practices, the fact paper isMaine’s largest industry, or even theindustry’s stated willingness to acceptsome regulation in order to deflectpublic criticism of clearcutting. Whatmattered more to voters was the specterof an increasingly intrusive government,which is something they have railedagainst since Maine became a state.
In bygone days, the paper industrymight well have picked up the tab forMrs. Adams’ grass roots uprising. But asa measure of just how much times havechanged, the industry spent close to $3million in a failed attempt to convinceMaine voters a little regulation was notsuch a bad thing. The story might endhere were it not for the fact that a yearearlier—in 1996—the industry spentalmost $6 million trying to convincevoters that limiting the size of clearcutson private forestland would be okay.Maine governor, Angus King, whoendorsed both measures, is rumored
to have said the only thing that coulddefeat the 1996 measure was “MaryAdams and $50,000.” She did it with$45,000. How she did it is an objectlesson in high school civics.
“This isn’t a forestry issue,” declaredMrs. Adams in a February interview.“The issue is whether Maine citizenswill retain control over their destiny, orrelinquish control to environmentalistswho have no respect for our way of life.If environmentalists can define the areaof discussion by creating a surrogateissue—in this case clearcutting—theycan use the cloak of government tocontrol our lives.”
Mrs. Adams is no stranger in Maine’sgrass roots war against governmentcontrol. In 1977, she teamed withMaine’s Freedom Fighters in a success-ful referendum repealing a statewideproperty tax. Thereafter, she vanishedfrom public view for many years, buther decision to fight the 1996clearcutting referendum immediatelymade headlines.
“The press played up the propertyrights angle, but that wasn’t my motive,”she explains. “What concerned me most
was that the Compact was lacedwith fuzzy language and fuzzyconcepts, like sustainability, thatgave environmentalists footholdsthey could later use in court.”
Clearcutting accounts for about11 percent of Maine’s annualtimber harvest, down from 45percent in 1989. Increasinglyrestrictive state harvest regula-tions and the ebb of a devastatingspruce budworm outbreak are thereasons why. But these eventshave not deterred opponents whosay that clearcutting creates anunnatural look, fragmentingforests along some of northernMaine’s most heavily traveledcorridors. But the prospect of anurban-inspired, government-imposed ban on clearcutting wassimply too much to bear for manyfor whom working in forests andsawmills is a way of life. With suchsharply divided opinions on theline, Mrs. Adams found that thehard work had already been donefor her out West. All she had to dowas capitalize on it, which she didin a series of brightly coloredbanners that reminded ruralvoters to beware of the plummet-ing fortunes of the West’s timberindustry. Her four-word message:“Remember the Spotted Owl.”
“Everyone here knows about spottedowls and about federal betrayal onAlaska’s Tongass National Forest,” sheexplained. “We simply said, “If you likewhat happened in the West, vote for thecompact.”
As for strategy, Mrs. Adams’ self-assessment of her back-to-back winsis instructive. “Tiny packs of irritatedcitizens are not enough to carry the day.They almost always end up fightingamongst themselves about the purityof their motives. We offered unifyingthemes: spotted owls and the specter ofan increasingly intrusive government.Last November we also benefited fromthe measure’s complex wording. We toldvoters they should not vote for whatthey could not understand.”
That Maine’s paper industry twicemisread voter sentiment is for Mrs.Adams an object lesson in the nature ofbig corporations. “As great and generousas the industry is, it is also politicallynaive. Faced with controversy it triesto compromise, and it is always dum-founded when opponents it has em-boldened come back for more. Thetrouble with most of these big company
Mary Adams and her campaign colleague, Kenneth Johnson,have twice defeated clearcutting initiatives on the Maineballot. Mrs. Adams has been battling what she calls “thecloak of government” since 1977 when she led a successfulreferendum repealing a statewide property tax.
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26 EVERGREEN
CEOs is that they have never seen a hillthey would be willing to die defending.I have.”
As originally written, the 1997 ballotmeasure asked landowners to complywith voluntary limits on clearcut sizes.But at the insistence of his politicaladvisors, Governor King decided thesize limits should be mandatory. Thedecision divided the industry alongphilosophical lines that have frequentlydistanced small timberland owners andfamily owned milling interests from theindustry’s corporate giants. No doubt forpolitical reasons, the paper companiesstuck with Governor King, but manysmaller companies stepped to thesidelines to await the outcome.
To make matters worse, environmen-tal groups sided with Mrs. Adams inopposing Question 1—not out of anyfear of regulation, but because theydid not believe the measure went farenough. They found a friend in Con-necticut financier S. Donald Sussman,who bankrolled their advertisingcampaign with an $804,000 contribu-tion. Between the disparate factions,
there were more than enough votes todefeat the measure.
The morning after the 1997 election,Portland Press Herald columnist JimBrunelle wrote a penetrating analysis inwhich he suggested the paper industrywas shedding “obligatory tears” over itsloss. “Let’s remember that the papercompanies were dragged into thecompact agreement only under threat ofthe ban clearcutting proposal,” he wrote.“A lot of their enthusiasm for regulatorycompromise surely faded with the defeatof the ban last year and probably hasdisappeared altogether now that thecompact has gone under as well...Behindthe tears, there’s glee.”
The compact’s defeat tossed theclearcutting controversy back into thelap of the Maine legislature. This springit strengthened the state’s hand bygranting the Maine Forest Service broadauthority to draft new harvest regula-tions when and where it sees a need.New draft rules will be submitted to thelegislature next January. The measurealso establishes annual reporting andmonitoring systems for clearcut areas.
More broadly, it instructs the state’sForest Service to establish a process forassessing the sustainability of Maineforestlands, building on “principles ofsustainability developed by the NorthernForest Lands Council.” Mrs. Adams sayssuch a move would “give environmental-ists an important foothold they have nothad, opening the door to the worst fearsof freedom loving Maine voters.”
“This is precisely the sort of regula-tory fuzziness we predicted,” she warned.“If it goes unchallenged, Maine’s timberindustry will be pushed too far toward thekind of environmental socialism that isdestroying communities in the ruralWest. We intend to fight it.”
What—if anything—the paperindustry will do now is anyone’s guess.To say the very least, this is not theoutcome that was envisioned in 1994when Maine industry executives firstdiscussed the possibility of supportinga regulatory safety net that includedvoluntary but verifiable standardsencouraging sustainable forestry.
“We saw the 1996 referendum as anopportunity to move policy in a direction
A peaceful fall morning along the Androscoggin River, just north of Berlin, New Hampshire. In the distance, a steam plume floats over the Crown Vantagepaper mill. Logs were driven down this river for 110 years. In that time, two billion board feet of timber were delivered to the old Brown Company papermill and sawmill at Berlin. The river runs quietly here, held in check by a dam first constructed in 1852 to provide waterpower for the sawmill. Log boomswere chained to concrete piers erected in the slack water just off this point.
Jim
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EVERGREEN 27
that would support long-term forestsustainability and away from the kind ofcommand and control micro-manage-ment found in forest practices acts in theWest,” explains Joel Swanton, ChampionInternational’s senior managementforester for the northeastern region.“What began as an attempt to movebeyond command and control, degener-ated into a political campaign withclearcutting as the focal point. We hada tiger by the tail, not once but twice.”
Undeterred, Champion and otherregional members of the AmericanForest and Paper Association’s Sustain-able Forestry Initiative are movingahead with a third-party processdesigned to verify the sustainability oftheir respective forestry operations. Inlate 1996, Champion assembled a seven-member review team that included forestscientists, environmentalists andthe public at large. According toMr. Swanton, the company got “arespectable” C+ in its first audit. Last fall,the process was repeated in Vermont andNew Hampshire. This fall a new team willreevaluate Champion lands in Maine.
“Third-party verification of thesustainability of our forest practices isvery important to us,” Mr. Swanton says.“We know some parts of sustainabilityare subjective, and we know manythink it is nonsense, but verificationis providing important baseline datawe are using to improve our manage-ment practices. Is this the best or theonly way to address public worriesabout the environmental impacts ofindustrial forestry? I don’t know, butwe are committed to moving forwarddespite the referendum’s defeat.”
The defeat of Question 1, and whatsubsequently happened in the Mainelegislature, cannot be fully understooduntil placed in the context with a farlarger issue some see as a federalattempt to dictate land use policy acrossall four Northeastern states: Maine, NewHampshire, Vermont and New York.The issue is the Northern Forest LandsStewardship Act, an outgrowth of twolandmark studies: the 1990 NorthernForest Lands Study and a 1994 reporttitled Finding Common Ground:
Conserving the Northern Forest. Thelatter study was the work of the North-ern Forest Lands Council, a four-stateadvisory committee whose formationwas among the recommendationscontained in the first study, which wasconducted by the U.S. Forest Serviceand a task force selected by the gover-nors of the four states.
The impetus for the 1990 study wasthe sudden 1988 sale of almost onemillion acres of timberland by French-owned Generale Occidentale. HenryLassiter, a Georgia poor boy who mademillions in Atlanta real estate, bought96,000 acres in the Adirondacks for $16million, and Claude Rancourt, a con-struction laborer turned Massachusettsdeveloper, paid $19 million for 90,000acres in Vermont and New Hampshire.Their purchases sparked angry and oftenvisceral outcries across the entireNortheast. “The beginning of the end forNew England’s North Country,” declareda Vermont newspaper editorial. Onelocal official blasted Mr. Rancourtdeclaring he had “just figured he couldcome in here, bulldoze the hell right out
Cleaning up after nature: This clearcut—on investor-owned land managed by the Hancock Timber Resource Group—was not planned. It was madenecessary in the aftermath of last winter’s severe Northeast ice storm—the worst such storm to strike the region’s forests since the still remembered1938 hurricane. Less than one percent of the 670,000-acres Hancock manages in the Northeast suffered material damage. However, many of theregion’s smallest timberland owners suffered devastating losses.
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28 EVERGREEN
of it, and make us grin and bear it.”Political leaders moved swiftly to
assuage North Country fears that a long-cherished rural lifestyle would soon besold to the highest bidder. Equallyonerous was the prospect publicrecreation access to private timberlands(a New England tradition) would be lost.In October 1988, the Forest Service andThe Governors’ Task Force met to mapout a federally funded study of mostlyprivate forests inside an arbitrarilydrawn boundary encompassing 26million acres that came to be knownas “the Northern Forest.”
The Northeast’s development fearshave never materialized on a scale closeto what was envisioned in 1988. But thepresence of the Forest Service—a minorlandowner in a region where mostforestland is privately held—quicklyspawned a separate fear that propertyowners would fall victim to the sameregulatory maw that was wreaking havocin the West. To calm fears of federaloverreaching, two of the region’s mostprominent political leaders, VermontSenator Patrick Leahy, and then NewHampshire Senator Warren Rudman,wrote the Forest Service to remind itthat concerned citizens sought “rein-forcement rather than replacement of[historic] patterns of ownership anduse.” But by May of 1991, only monthsafter the Council was formed, Task Forcemembers were talking openly aboutcodifying the results of their work, notin state law, but in federal law. Theirrationale: such a law would give thestates access to federal money neededto purchase private forests the publicwanted to protect from exploitation.The battle lines were quickly drawn.
“This is a classic assault by the richagainst the poor, the urban and subur-ban dwellers against the country folk,trying to turn our communities andhomes into a park for their recreation,”declared Carol LaGrasse of theAdirondack Cultural Foundation. Butthe Maine Times saw things differentlyin its editorial endorsing the proposedAct. “Residential development must bestrictly curtailed. The most dangerouscritter in the woods is not a man with achainsaw but a man with a lawnmower.We must accept our part in the millionsof acres the public will control and giveup our need to own a quarter-acre of it.”
Now, after seven stormy years, theCouncil is gone. But the essence ofthe 1994 report lives on in proposedlegislation that may never become law,despite Senator Leahy’s persistent
Robert “Mike” Whitney is a principal in LandVest, a Boston based firm that provides forest management andconsulting services throughout the Northeast. The firm represented French-owned Generale Occidentale inits 1988 sale of the fabled Diamond International lands. Initial fears the Diamond lands would be sold todevelopers have never materialized, but the sale ignited a public debate that continues to this day.
Henry Whittemore is northeast regional manager for Hancock Timber Resources Group, an investmentsubsidiary of Boston-based insurance giant John Hancock Financial Services. As such, he oversees 670,000investor-owned acres supplying timber to 120 lumber and paper producers. In its quest to hold the politicalmiddle, Hancock has become a leader in granting conservation easements in investor-owned forests.
Grass roots activist, Leon Favreau, is one of the Northeast’s best known small mill owners. His company—Bethel Furniture Stock—makes chair parts for the furniture industry. He is a founder and president of theMultiple Use Association and an outspoken opponent of the Northern Forest Stewardship Act.
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attempts to attach it to otherSenate bills. The fact that he hasdone so—in an effort opponentsview as clandestine—is for themproof enough the Act threatensboth state and property rights,providing an avenue the federalgovernment could use at will toimpose costly restrictions on thosewho own land inside NorthernForest boundaries.
No one has worked harder tokeep alive the principles containedin the Council’s 1994 study thanCharles Levesque, a New Hamp-shire forester and natural resourcepolicy consultant. Mr. Levesquewas executive director of theCouncil during its four-year life.In an April interview, he lookedback on its work, often paraphras-ing the report.
“We envisioned a win-winequation, a landscape of interlock-ing parts and pieces, inseparableand reinforcing each other: localcommunities, industrial forest-land, family and individualownerships, small woodlots,recreation land and public andprivate conservation land. Ourrecommendations were intendedto support property owners whokept their forests forested and tohelp communities strengthentheir resource-based economies,while also protecting biologicaldiversity, acquiring lands forpublic ownership and providingfor public recreation.”
The governor of each stateselected four people to serve onthe 17-member Council, onerepresenting each of four inter-ests: forest landowners, environ-mental groups, affected communi-ties and state conservationorganizations. The seventeenthmember represented the U.S.Forest Service. By all counts, Mr.Levesque was an excellent consen-sus builder who worked tirelesslyto find common ground betweenlandowners and environmentalgroups. But lately he has begun tofret about a loss of mutual trustengendered during the Council’stenure. He talked about it in 1997speech to members of the North-ern Forest Alliance, an environ-mental coalition formed after theCouncil disbanded.
“The trust I thought I saw built
over five or six years is almostgone,” he said, lamenting the riseof a win-lose mentality that hassupplanted the win-win environ-ment he says existed during theCouncil’s heydays.
“One of the things that reallyconcerns me is the lack of envi-ronmental community commit-ment—or even recognition—ofone of the most fundamentalpremises of the work and outputof the Northern Forest LandsCouncil. [It] is the legitimacy ofprivate forest land ownerships andtimberland management as thebedrock of what the NorthernForest is, and must continue to be,if it is to be conserved long term,”he said.
Mr. Levesque also told Alliancemembers he believes their groupis “at a crossroads” in its quest toconserve the Northern Forest.“You can continue to hammeraway on negative win-lose ap-proaches, or you can look for win-win equations for environmental-ists and landowners.”
But the win-win equation Mr.Levesque worked so hard to solvestill appears to defy solution. Tohis dismay he concedes environ-mentalists are now trying towrestle away what landownershave and cherish most: theNorthern Forest—the very essenceof the region—and the sociallicense to manage it.
“As a landowner and one whohas represented private landown-ers over the years, I know how thisfeels,” he told Alliance members.“It feels like someone has takenout your wallet or purse or packand started to take things out of itwhile putting these things in theirown pocket or purse or pack. Andit makes you damn mad.”
Among the 37 recommenda-tions made in Finding CommonGround were several requiringfederal dollars the Council hopedCongress would appropriate whenit took up the 1991 StewardshipAct. But the nation’s politicalwinds reversed direction that yearand the Act became a political hotpotato. Dollars that might haveflowed into such a program inprevious administrations werediverted to other causes. The $25million the Council sought forpurchasing conservation ease-
Ted Johnston is past president of the Maine Forest ProductsCouncil. For six years he worked tirelessly to keep forestryand forest communities at the center of what has become avery public debate over the future of the mostly privatelyowned Northern Forest. Mr. Johnston is now a lobbyist andis no longer directly involved in the industry.
George Mitchell is executive director of the NortheasternLoggers’ Association. He believes the proposed Northern ForestStewardship Act constitutes “a federally-funded land grab bypeople whose only interest lies in controlling land use in theNortheast.” NELA is base at Old Forge, New York and repre-sents about 2,100 logging companies in 21 eastern states.
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The two photographs on this page tell a rarely told story of wood utilization. In the top photograph, low quality hardwood trees are de-limbed and cut to truck length. Removingthese trees from a forest is an essential step in improving the vigor and quality of the residual stand. In the bottom photograph, Robbins Lumber Company co-owner, JimRobbins, stands at the foot of an enormous pile of chips. The chips—made from the low quality hardwood shown in the top photograph—will be burned in boilers that heat themill’s lumber dryers and offices. Ash from the boilers is sold as fertilizer. Many consider wood to be an energy source of choice because fossil fuels are not renewable.
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ments in the Northern Forestbecame a $2 million appropriationfor the entire nation. A similar fatebefell a stewardship incentiveprogram that would have rewardedlandowners willing to managetheir land for resources other thantimber.
The Council’s estate taxrecommendations have faredbetter. Portions of the FamilyForestland Tax Act, ratified in lastyear’s tax bill, should make iteasier for some families to retainownership of timberlands that inthe past might have been sold todevelopers to raise cash to payestate taxes. Other CommonGround recommendations con-cerning harvesting and forestsustainability have been taken upin new, mostly state level venuesformed after the Council dis-banded. New Hampshire hascompleted a field manual designedto assist timberland ownerswanting to harvest timber. Apublic-private partnership inMaine is trying to figure out howto define and measure biologicaldiversity. Conservation easementsappear to be gaining favor despitecriticism from groups concernedabout a loss of property taxrevenue. Logging interests—led bythe Northeastern Logger’s Associa-tion—have done much to makethe industry more aware of publicconcerns about the visual andenvironmental impacts of harvest-ing. And Maine and Vermont areseparately trying to improve publicaccess to forums where forestregulations are first considered.
Of these many efforts— allinspired by the Council’s work—Mr. Levesque says, “The sociallicense to own and harvest timberis a public commodity. Those whohold these licenses are well advisedto do all they can to keep thepublic happy.”
After Leon Favreau finishedreading the Council’s landmark1994 report, he fired off a fax toMr. Levesque. It read simply “B+”.Those who know Mr. Favreau maybe surprised to learn this. He haslong campaigned against federalinterference in the affairs ofprivate property owners, and hehas opposed the Act since it wasproposed in 1991. Recent changes
in the draft legislation seem onlyto have hardened his position.
“I gave the Council’s report aB+ because I thought it accuratelydescribed the challenges facinglandowners and timber communi-ties in the Northeast. But sincealmost everything proposed by theAct is already being done here atsome level, why do we need it?”He asks. If the Act is passed, it willonly elevate federal interest inacquiring land in the Northeast,exposing the region to unneces-sary new layers of regulation,thereby opening the door toenvironmentalist radicals whowill use the federal courts to gaincontrol of the region’s forests. Ourregion’s communities would beginto suffer economically, just ascommunities in the West aresuffering.”
Mr. Favreau co-owns BethelFurniture Stock, a small chairparts fabricator at Bethel, apicturesque town of 2,500 nearthe Maine–New Hampshire border.His late father founded thecompany in 1958, but the youngerMr. Favreau did not join thecompany until his father’s death.After he took over the business,he built it into one of the fastestgrowing operations of its kind inthe U.S. But in recent years thebusiness has suffered from fierceforeign competition, robustoverseas demand for New Englandhardwood logs, and a decline inharvesting on the nearby WhiteMountain National Forest. “Abouta third of our logs used to comefrom White Mountain,” he said.“Now we don’t get any.”
By his own admission, Mr.Favreau has spent an enormousamount of time battling environ-mentalists—time he concedesmight better have been spenttending his business. But, he adds,“My ability to purchase logs atcompetitive prices has sufferedterribly in recent years, in partbecause of political pressure fromenvironmental groups that opposeharvesting.”
Where environmental skir-mishes are concerned, Mr. Favreauis no shrinking violet. “Let’s re-member that the forests environ-mentalists want to control areprivately owned,” he explained ina January interview. “Remember,
Signs of the times: These two signs—the Hampton Woodssign on top and the Tree Farm sign beneath it—tell the storyof the Northern Forest debate as powerfully as it can be toldin pictures. Most northeasterners would rather see a TreeFarm sign than a sign advertising woodland home sites forsale. Even environmentalists seem to understand that theonly practical way to prevent development of forests is toallow them to remain working forests. But there is still a brisksummer home market in the Northeast, fueled in part bylandowners that fear environmentalist-sponsored regulationwill make their forestry operations unprofitable.
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too, that these groups have nothing tooffer in exchange, so when they talkabout ‘compromise’ they’re talkingabout the landowner giving up some-thing he owns. When the old Diamondlands were sold in 1988 they saw anopportunity to advance the idea thatthey ought to represent the public’sinterests whenever private timberland issold. Since then, this region has lived infear its forests will be sold to developers.I don’t see it happening. What we havehere is a surrogate issue environmental-ists are using to gain power for them-selves.”
Politics aside, Mr. Favreau is rightabout one thing: the 1988 Diamondland sales did not unleash a torrent ofdevelopment despite Forest Servicepredictions that it would. A 1993analysis by the widely respected JamesSewall Company revealed 92 percent ofNorthern Forest timberland sales from1980 through 1991 involved companiesor individuals already in the timber
growing business. Sewall conducted theanalysis for the Northern Forest LandsCouncil, which felt such a study wouldprove development fears were justified.But the report produced the oppositeresult. Of 7.63 million acres thatchanged hands (in timberland tracts of500 acres or more) only 203,000 acreswere converted to another use, andonly 40,000 acres were subdivided,presumably into home sites. Sellerssold for four reasons: estate tax plan-ning, to pay inheritance taxes, becausetimberland investment returns provedinadequate, or to capitalize on landvalues pushed upward by a robustvacation home market.
The Sewall study also indicates theNortheast’s “unstable regulatory andpolitical environment” is becoming afactor in the decision to buy or selltimberland. With so much invested inits mills, the region’s pulp and paperindustry is in no position to sell out, sothe 9.2 million acres it owns within the
Northern Forest will likely remainforested. But nonindustrial landownerscould more easily liquidate the 9.8million acres they own because they haveno capital investments in manufacturing.
“The current political climate is adestabilizing factor,” explains DaveEdson, Sewall vice president of forestryand natural resources. “If tax andenvironmental regulations cut moredeeply into future profitability, timber-land owners worried about the safety oftheir investments will turn to developerswho are ready and willing to pay topdollar for their land.”
Few in the Northeast monitortimberland investments more closelythan does Robert Whitney. Mr. Whitneyis a principal in LandVest, a Bostonbased forest management and consult-ing firm with offices throughout theNortheast. The firm represented French-owned Generale Occidentale in its saleof Diamond timberlands sold to LassiterProperties and Rancourt Associates. For
New Hampshire consulting forester, Charles Baylies (left) with landscaper Mark Sullivan. The pair is part of “Team EBM,” a diverse consulting group Mr.Baylies founded that works with small timberland owners in New Hampshire. “Mostly, we practice Martha Stewart forestry,” Mr. Baylies explains. Theletters “EBM” stand for “ecosystem-based management”—a management philosophy Mr. Baylies has embraced as a tool for opening landowner eyes toforestry’s many possibilities. “Team EBM” has its own web site: www.teamebm.com.
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sale is that the Northern Forest gainedseveral new timberland owners, includ-ing some whose only motive is conserva-tion,” Mr. Whitney concluded. “The freemarket proved that it can still produceimportant societal benefits. Those leftpounding the table for a federally-fundedbuyout of private timberlands are mainlyurban types who want only to imposetheir political will on a rural lifestylethey admire but don’t want to pay for.”
Not everyone sees the Northern ForestStewardship Act as a threat to landown-ers in the Northeast. Stephen Schleythinks it may provide an unusualopportunity for landowners to codifytheir sovereignty over those who desire afederal takeover. Mr. Schley is presidentof Pingree Associates, a small manage-ment company that links the heirs ofDavid Pingree with forests he beganpurchasing in 1840, when he was a seacaptain sailing from Salem, Massachu-setts. Though his name does not survive,his 65 heirs—including Mr. Schley—own about one million acres of primetimberland in northern and westernMaine. The forests are managed by theSeven Islands Land Company, which isalso owned by Pingree heirs.
“I am convinced the agreed upon
language in the bill provides solidprotection for private propertyowners,” Mr. Schley said in anApril interview. “As written, itprevents the federal governmentfrom intervening in the relation-ship between private landownersand state governments, unlessinvited to do so by a governor ofone of the states. I don’t believelanguage this strong—describingthe relationship between thefederal government and the fourstates—exists anywhere else infederal law.”
Apart from what may beprecedent setting language, Mr.Schley says the bill contains anunderlying message that is aimedsquarely at the West’s environ-mental activists. “The message,”he declares, “is ‘You can’t comehere and do what you are doingin the West’.”
Most of the Northeast’s majortimberland owners concur withMr. Schley’s assessment of thebill’s strengths, and with so muchat stake it is hard to see howanyone could oppose such atightly written bill. But the factis the precise wording Mr. Schley
and other major landowners agreed tomay be falling apart in a partisan battlebetween Vermont Senator Leahy andIdaho Senator Larry Craig, who headsthe Senate subcommittee consideringthe Act. Senator Craig opposes the billas written. To garner support elsewhere,Senator Leahy has been tinkering withthe bill’s wording much to the conster-nation of Mr. Schley. “What SenatorLeahy is doing constitutes an inappro-priate end run,” he declares.
Senator Leahy’s maneuverings havealso provoked the Maine Forest ProductsCouncil. In a June letter to its Senatedelegation, the Council said it wouldwithdraw its earlier support for the billif its wording was altered or if SenatorLeahy reneged on an earlier promise toconduct field hearings before a finalSenate vote is taken.
Somewhere beyond the indelible linesthat separate supporters from opponentsof the Northern Forest Stewardship Actthere lies a second set of lines that aremuch harder to trace. Like seams in aquilt fashioned from thousands of odd-sized pieces, they zoom off in differentand unpredictable directions. Theselines define the patchwork ownership ofthe Northeast’s forests. Follow them and
Mr. Whitney, a forester by profes-sion, the transactions offer ampleproof that a federal presence in theNorthern Forest is unnecessary.
“Less than one percent of theland that changed hands has beensubdivided for the vacation homemarket,” he recounted in a recentinterview. “Another 23 percent hasbeen set aside in no-harvest pre-serves. The rest is still beingmanaged for multiple benefitsincluding timber, wildlife and publicrecreation. Where is the crisis?”
But the sales did precipitate acrisis on political fronts in all fourstates, leading the governors to askfor a congressionally funded investi-gation—a fact that still disgusts Mr.Whitney. “The entire Occidentaltransaction involved 986,000 acres,”he explained. “Why then was itnecessary to study an area 26 timeslarger? The answer is that opportu-nistic environmental groups whippedthe public into a frenzy.”
Forgotten amid the ensuingmelee was the fact Occidentaleinitially offered to sell all of its U.S.timberland (some four millionacres) to the Nature Conser-vancy—a fact that calmer headsshould have seen as a sign the companywas not interested in dealing with landspeculators. In any event, the Conser-vancy reported it was interested only inthe New York, Vermont and NewHampshire parcels, for which it wantedto pay no more than $100 per acre.Messrs. Lassiter and Rancourt later paidalmost twice that amount.
The final dispensation: In 1988, thestates of Vermont and New Hampshireand the U.S. Forest Service paid $14.8million ($275 per acre) for 54,000 acresthat Rancourt Properties bought earlierthat year from Occidental for about $211per acre. That same year, LassiterProperties sold a 40,000-acre conserva-tion easement and 15,000 acres in fee tothe State of New York for $10.4 million.Two years later, Occidentale and JamesRiver Corporation—by then a 23 percentowner of Occidentale subsidiary DiamondOccidental Forest Industries—sold about40,000 acres in Maine to the Conser-vancy, which had partnered with LandFor Maine’s Future and the National ParkService. James River Corporation boughtmost of what remained in 1993 when itpurchased the rest of DiamondInternational’s outstanding shares.
“One of the most interesting andleast appreciated aspects of the Diamond
This birch grove is located on timberland owned by the VermontMarble Company. The company mines some of the world’sfinest marble. It also routinely harvests timber from forests atopits mountain of marble. Protection and creation of deer habitat isa primary management objective in company forests.
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you will find examples of just aboutevery kind of forestry there is—fromclearcuts that stretch from ridge top toridge top, to areas so subtly logged youwould be hard pressed to find theevidence. The result is a forest landscapeas diverse as any on earth.
“The possibilities are endless,” saysCharles Baylies, a Whitefield, NewHampshire forester who works with NewEngland Forestry Consultants, the for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit NewEngland Forestry Foundation, one of theNortheast’s best-known conservationgroups. NEFCO works with hundreds ofsmall forestland owners scattered acrossthe region. (Mr. Baylies is also a memberof The Evergreen Foundation, whichpublishes this magazine).
“Our clients are mainly interested inimproving the appearance of theirwoodlots,” Mr. Baylies explains. “Mostof them love wildlife and are delightedto learn we can thin their forests in
ways that encourage habitat formation.It’s Martha Stewart gardening on agrand scale.”
Mr. Baylies has given his brand offorestry a name that certainly has a nicemarketing ring to it. “We call it ecosys-tem-based management—EBM forshort,” he explains. “Landowners rarelycall me to talk about harvesting timber.Most want to talk about ecosystemmanagement. I use the opportunity totalk possibilities.”
Foresters are not known for beingcrack salesman, but Mr. Baylies is anexception. To attract new customers, heeven formed “Team EBM,” a loose-knitconsulting group that includes aprofessional landscaper, a wildlifebiologist, a botanist and plant breeder.Few landowners could ever afford to hireso much talent outright—a fact thatforces Mr. Baylies to pick his jobs verycarefully. “Most of our clients expectthat sufficient timber can be harvested
to pay for our services,” he explains. “Itis a rare landowner that is willing to payus out-of-pocket.”
Eco-cutting”—another term fromMr. Baylies’ marketing lexicon—relieson steady pulp and biomass markets forlow quality wood Team EMB harvestsfrom lands that were logged decades agoby workers hired to remove only the bestwood. “You would be amazed how goodone of these junky old stands can lookafter only a few years of loving care,” hedeclares with characteristic enthusiasm.Most of Mr. Baylies’ clients are absenteelandlords who are indeed amazed by theresults of his work. Among them: BobMerritt, a Boston stonemason for whomowning a piece of New Hampshiretimberland is the culmination of a life’sdream.
“I have been a member of the RuffedGrouse Society for many years,” heexplains. “I always wanted a place whereI could hunt grouse and encourage their
When the YMCA of the Greater Rochester (New York) area found itself in need of money a few years ago, it turned to Mart Allen, one of the Northeast’sfinest woodsmen. The forest plan he developed for the organization’s 1,200-acre youth camp has thus far generated more than $90,000 in harvestrevenue. Mr. Allen has been a practicing forester for more than 50 years.
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propagation. I am doing it with Mr.Baylies’ help. Fifty years ago thiswas an abandoned pasture. It grewback, and we have turned it intofine grouse habitat. To say that Iam pleased would be the under-statement of the century.”
A stunning half-day drive south ofWhitefield, Robbo Holleran worksin Vermont forests that were fieldsa hundred years ago. The Midwestagricultural boom and the ErieCanal put an end to nineteenthcentury farming in Vermont, butremnants of stone fences still markthe boundaries of abandonedpastures. They lie hidden beneathtowering stands of maple, oak,cherry, ash and birch. Althoughthere has been some logging inthese new forests, Mr. Holleran’sgeneration of professional forestersis the first to significantly influ-ence harvesting here. “Theseforests have never been managed,”he explained in an Octoberinterview. “They grew here bythemselves after the farmers left.”
This is the Vermont of whitechurch steeples, neon fall colorand picturesque farms frozen intime on millions of calendars. Everyonewants to save this scene, but few seemto understand how. It is an irony that iscreating a market for foresters like Mr.Holleran who are spending increasingamounts of time counseling landownerswho want to improve the look of theirwoodlots, but don’t have the slightestidea where to begin.
“You have to start with what natureleft,” Mr. Holleran explained. “Withperiodic thinnings we gradually removethe lesser value tree species whileencouraging growth and naturalreproduction in the more valuablespecies, like hard maple, oak and cherry.The result is a diverse and increasinglyvaluable forest.”
Such work is rewarding, but not veryprofitable. Few small landowners arewilling to spend beyond the revenueharvesting brings. Fortunately, Mr.Holleran has other larger clients thatkeep him busy most of the year. Amongthem: the Swiss-held Vermont MarbleCompany, which owns several thousandacres of prime timberland in southwest-ern Vermont. The company has beenmining premium-grade marble in thearea for more than a century. Thehardwood forests that sit atop itsmountain of marble are a bonus.
“We have two objectives,” Mr.Holleran explains. “The first is toencourage long term tree growth incommercially valuable species, and thesecond is to mitigate the visual andwildlife impacts associated with quarry-ing operations. Providing good qualitydeer habitat is a priority.”
Clearcutting has been common innorthern Vermont’s low-grade hard-wood forests, which lie within easyhauling distance of New Hampshire’spulp mills. But last year one suchharvest near popular Green Mountainski areas led the state legislature topass heavy cutting legislation aimed atcurbing abuses by so-called “liquidationharvesters.” According to Mr. Holleran,the legislation has had little impact insouthern Vermont where smallerwoodlots and more diverse forests makelarger clearcuts unlikely. Maple and ashregenerate themselves in shade, butoak and cherry—often found in thesame stands—need more sunlight toregenerate. In such a diverse environ-ment, selection harvesting works best.“Wind, disease and ice are the toolsnature uses to control the amount ofsunlight that enters these forests,” Mr.Holleran explains. “By thinning, we cancontrol sunlight in much the samemanner.”
Mr. Holleran is not the aggres-sive marketer Mr. Baylies is,preferring to rely on his reputa-tion to bring him new business.Even so, potential clients get ahandsome brochure describingthe basics of forestry as well as hisservices. He also participates incounty fairs where he annuallygives away hundreds of copies ofthis magazine.
“Forestry still enjoys a goodreputation in Vermont,” heexplains. “But we are underconstant public scrutiny, andthere are a lot of new people livinghere who think the best way toprotect these forests is to set themaside in federally controlled nomanagement reserves. Faced withthis threat, I’ve concluded that thetime I spend at fairs and otherpublic gatherings is important tomaintaining our working land-scape.”
A day’s drive west, the storyrepeats itself amid Adirondacksplendor. A surprising 62 percentof New York State is forested. Inround numbers: 18 million acres.
More than a third of it—some 6.3million acres—now lies inside thearbitrarily drawn boundaries of theNorthern Forest. By one count, morethan half a million private ownershipsare involved. The specter of a federalpresence in these forests is a big worryfor many, including George Mitchell. Mr.Mitchell is executive director of theNortheastern Loggers’ Association,which has its offices at Old Forge, in themidst of the Adirondack State Park. Theassociation represents about 2,100logging companies in 21 northeasternand east-central states.
“The Northern Forest StewardshipAct constitutes a federally-funded landgrab by people whose only interest liesin controlling land use in the North-east,” he declared in a Novemberinterview. “It is awfully hard to swallowgiven the steadily improving conditionof this region’s privately owned forests.”
New York State is a case in point.Its forests have staged a remarkablecomeback since the turn of the centurywhen only 25 percent of the state wasforested. Even more remarkable is thefact that growth in commercial forestsis concentrated in older trees, a strongindicator that modern-day landownershave steered clear of the harvestingexcesses that were so common a century
Fall graces a woodland walking path near Old Forge, NewYork. This forest belongs to the YMCA of Greater Rochester.Harvest revenue is used to fund several youth programs theorganization sponsors.
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ago. A 1993 U.S Forest Service survey ofNew York forests revealed net growth(gross growth minus mortality) ex-ceeded harvest by a margin of 3 to l,creating what the agency termed “anopportunity to expand the harvest inthe future on a sustainable basis.”
New York’s 15 million-acre commer-cial forest has spawned an impressiveforest products industry that includesmore than 500 sawmills and eight pulpand paper facilities. More than half of allprimary and secondary forest-relatedemployment in the four-state region islocated here: 35,000 work in pulp andpaper and another 27,000 work inlumber and furniture.
Despite robust, well managed forestsand a powerhouse industry, many NewYorkers still equate forestry withdestruction of forests. When the YMCAof the Greater Rochester area neededmoney four years ago, it reluctantlyagreed to a small test harvest at its1,200-acre youth camp near Old Forge.Mart Allen, considered by many to beone of the Northeast’s finest woodsmen,
developed a long-term managementplan that has thus far netted theorganization almost $100,000 in harvestrevenue. After touring the carefullythinned test site, a director who hadopposed the harvest admitted to Mr.Allen that he feared “logging meant allthe trees would be chopped down.”
Apart from producing much neededincome, Mr. Allen’s efforts have addedmany years to the life of a long-ne-glected forest that had begun to deterio-rate. “Our objective is to improve thequality of this forest,” he explainedduring a tour of the property. “We areretaining the larger, well-formed trees,favoring more valuable cherry, hardmaple and yellow birch—all fine naturalseed sources for years to come.”
It would appear the YMCA wasdoubly fortunate in finding Mr. Allen.The work he is doing—marking indi-vidual trees—is a highly subjectiveprocess requiring years of on-the-ground experience. In Mr. Allen’s case,more than 50 years. “It is an inexactscience,” he concedes. “There is a lot
to consider: the site, the mix of treespecies, their age and condition, thedesired future stand structure and, ofcourse, the market value of the wood.We have made a good start. I hope I livelong enough to see the result.”
The clearcutting initiative defeated lastNovember by Maine voters did morethan divide the state into opposingcamps. It also divided its timber industryalong predictable lines: big pulp andpaper outfits on one side and smallerfamily-owned milling and loggingcompanies on the other. Among themost notable exceptions were Jim andJenness Robbins, big names among ahandful of Maine lumbermen movingtoward the perceived center in anincreasingly contentious forestry debate.The brothers campaigned actively forthe measure’s passage.
“We need to make ourselves moreappealing to the majority of voters,”brother Jim explained in a recentinterview. “Had it passed, Question 1would have helped us move to the
These side by side photographs tell the story of how human intervention saved a dying spruce-fir forest. This site was clearcut about 50 years ago. As often happens, the forestthat grew back after clearcutting (left) contained too many trees. Minus adequate sunlight and soil nutrients, it began to die. But once thinned (right) the remaining trees quicklyrecover from the strain of trying to survive in an overstocked condition. The wood thinned from the stand on the left will be sold as pulpwood. The adjacent stand on the rightwill begin to produce good quality sawtimber in about 20 years. These photographs were taken in a recently purchased Seven Islands’ managed forest near Rumford, Maine.
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political center without adverselyimpacting science-based forestry.”
The Robbins brothers are fourthgeneration owners of Robbins LumberCompany, a Searsmont milling andtimberland concern founded in 1881 bytheir great grandfather. He made barrelstaves and shingles in a small buildingthat stood a stone’s throw from thecompany’s state-of-the-art sawmill.Among its products: custom cut pinelumber, shelving, bevel paneling, tongueand groove siding and pre-cut compo-nents used in rat traps, bread boards andracks for kitchen spices and compactdisk storage. Wood shavings are baggedand sold as livestock bedding, and thelowest quality logs are chipped andburned in an on-site power plant thatheats lumber dryers. The various millingoperations employ 135. The brothersalso own about 5,000 acres of mixedpine and hardwood timberland, plusanother 22,000 acres purchased jointlywith Champion International in 1996.They also manage timber tracts forother landowners and farm about
150,000 Christmas trees.Where forestry and milling are
concerned, few companies have earnedwider recognition than Robbins Lumber.In 1989, it was named the OutstandingLand Steward in the United States by theArbor Day Foundation, and in 1992 itwon the Maine Governor’s Award ofExcellence. The Maine ConservationRights Institute and the Natural Re-sources Council of Maine have alsohonored its work. Apart from thepleasure of being publicly honored,Mr. Robbins says the awards mirrorboyhood lessons learned from their latefather. The elder Mr. Robbins was formore than 50 years one of Maine’s mostrespected lumbermen and conservation-ists. “At an early age we were taught totake our civic, business and environ-mental responsibilities very seriously,”Mr. Robbins says of his upbringing.
Mr. Robbins is president the MaineForest Products Council, the only venuein the state where paper and lumberinginterests sit at the same table. Since1991, when they were asked to join the
Northern Forest Lands Council, theorganization has been immersed in theensuing debate. The issue has tested itsdiverse membership’s mettle as well asthat of Mr. Robbins, but they have heldon despite Sen. Leahy’s recent attemptsto alter critically important wording inthe Northern Forest Stewardship Act.
“It has been very frustrating,” Mr.Robbins concedes. “But by our participa-tion we have kept forestry and forestfamilies at the center of a criticallyimportant political process that wasgoing forward with or without us. I hateto think where we would be today hadwe stood by while environmentalistsdecided what our future would be.”
Of the Northeast’s big timberlandowners, the Pingree family (heirs ofDavid Pingree) may be the most ad-mired. That is certainly the case wherethe region’s mainstream conservationgroups are concerned. Hardly a monthpasses without one of them holding upthe family’s land ethic as one theywish others would emulate. It is an
This hardwood stand in a Seven Islands’ managed forest in Maine was harvested last year, but the logging was done so carefully it is hard to findevidence of timber cutting. Seven Islands uses a variety of thinning techniques in its hardwood forests. Its management practices are much admired andoften praised by environmental groups.
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image Pingree heirs enjoy but wiselyrefuse to flaunt.
“People like us because we rarelyclearcut in our forests,” explainsStephen Schley, president of PingreeAssociates, a management servicescompany that links Pingree heirs toSeven Islands Land Company, anotherfamily-owned entity that managestimberland owned by the heirs.
“The tree species we are managingwill tolerate a good deal of shade, whichmeans they respond very well to unob-trusive selection harvesting techniques,”Mr. Schley explains. “Not having toclearcut often has strengthened ourpublic image.”
But the emphasis on barely visibleselection harvesting methods is not theonly reason why Pingree heirs andSeven Islands enjoy such extraordinarypopularity with conservationists. Theyalso jumped on the certification band-wagon well ahead of their competitors.The move pleased niche marketers whowant to showcase lumber bearing a thirdparty label certifying that the productcame from forests that are managed insustainable ways. The market forcertified wood is small but growing
rapidly, especially in Europe—a fact thatweighed heavily in the decision to seekcertification.
“Certification provided an opportu-nity for us to differentiate our SevenIslands product lines and managementstyle,” Mr. Schley explains. “It was notan attempt to embarrass competitors orcurry favor with environmental groups.”
Seven Islands enjoys other advan-tages over its competitors. It has nocapital investments in milling, unlikemost big timberland owners in theNortheast. Moreover, the Pingree heirstake a much longer view of theirinvestments than do most stock marketshareholders. The success the companythus enjoys has not gone unnoticed. Mr.Schley reports several major timberlandowners and investment funds currentlymulling timberland acquisitions in theNortheast have asked Seven Islands toconsider managing their purchases.
Although Mr. Schley will not saywhat companies have inquired, it islikely some of them also own land in theSoutheast and Pacific Northwest, whereclearcutting is as common as it isuncommon in Seven Islands’ managedforests. In any event, Mr. Schley’s
response is instructive. “Everything wedo is predicated on our ability to manageshade. Our system would not work in aDouglas-fir forest because that speciesthrives in full sunlight and is bestpromoted by clearcutting, in spite of allthe negative issues that go with it.”
Although Pingree-owned forests arerarely clearcut, Mr. Schley concedes thatclearcutting is occasionally the onlyrealistic option. During the 1970s, itsforests were hit by the same sprucebudworm outbreak that devastated theentire Northeast. Almost 40,000 acreshad to be clearcut before the infestationsubsided. Thereafter, to rebalancegrowth and harvest, Seven Islands’foresters reduced logging in spruce-firforests by 50 percent for several years.
“The decision to dramatically curtaillogging created a short-term financialhardship for the landowners,” Mr. Schleyrecalls. “But their sacrifices are nowbeing rewarded in terms of new,healthier, fast growing forests. Unfortu-nately, the massive amount ofclearcutting that was done left manybelieving clearcutting is still thedominant harvesting method in Maine,when, in fact it is the least dominant.”
Daryl Martens stands beside a deck of white ash in Plumb Lumber Company’s log yard at Andover, Vermont. The ten-employee company cuts ash,maple, oak, hickory, cherry, basswood and butternut for flooring and furniture manufacturers. Such species diversity is common through the Northeast’shardwood forests.
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Although conservation groups havebeen generous in their praise for SevenIslands, the company is caught up in thesame land war as everyone else—a factthat concerns Mr. Schley. “Many of thesame groups that praise what we aredoing also take political positionsdetrimental to our business,” Mr. Schleyconcedes. “Other landowners consider-ing change see that it hasn’t insulatedus from the onslaught. They conclude—perhaps correctly—that there is noincentive to follow in our footsteps. Itis time for conservationists to decidewhose side they are on.”
The world’s day begins along theInternational Dateline—an imaginarytransection that divides the SouthPacific into two days at an archi-pelago called the Kingdom of Tonga.Back in the 1970s, Henry Whittemoreworked here on the island of ‘Eua as aPeace Corps volunteer. His fondestmemories are of hiking from hisvillage to a volcanic ridgeline, arriv-ing in time to watch the sun rise overthe eastern Pacific.
“Because we were right on theDateline, I always knew I was one of the
first people on earth to watch the newday dawn,” he said in a recent inter-view. “I wish I could find a similarpromontory from which to view thefuture of forestry.”
These days, the search for a promon-tory from which to view forestry’s futureis attracting a lot of attention. Even thevenerable Nature Conservancy hasgotten into the act. Last December,its Vermont chapter purchased almost27,000 acres of timberland in the GreenMountains. Amid political fanfare—andto the delight of the locals—it saidit plans to manage its $5.5 millionpurchase as a working forest. Amongother things, the Conservancy hopes tochart a new more enlightened coursefor forestry in the Northeast.
But if there is any one person capableof finding the overlook from which tolook down on forestry’s new daydawning, it is Henry Whittemore.Mr. Whittemore is Northeast RegionalManager for the Hancock TimberResource Group, an investment subsid-iary of Boston-based insurance giantJohn Hancock Financial Services.
John Hancock is not a name oftenlinked to forestry, and its subsidiary
Timber Resource Group is relatively newto the business. Founded in 1985, thegroup develops and manages timberlandportfolios for institutional investors—mainly public employment retirementsystems. Its current U.S. portfolioincludes about 2.6 million acres valuedat $2.8 billion. As Northeast regionalmanager, Mr. Whittemore oversees670,000 investor-owned acres supplyingtimber to 120 lumber and paper produc-ers. Its best cherry is so valuable that itattracts veneer buyers from Indianapo-lis—800 miles distant. The day-to-daywork is done by New Hampshire basedWagner Forest Management, freeingMr. Whittemore to do what he does best:represent Hancock’s timberland inter-ests in high-level political and environ-mental forums.
“Forestry has become a very publicbusiness, but it suffers from a lackof leadership,” Mr. Whittemore says.“We hope to fill the void by bringing aconservation ethic to our business anda business ethic to our conservationactivities. Our successes lower thechances that a political skirmish willundermine the safety of client invest-ments in timberland.”
21-year old Dennis Walter pauses beside a skidder he operates for a logging company in Maine. Mr. Walter hopes to make logging his life’s work. Suchwell paying opportunities still abound in the Northeast, where most timberland is privately owned, but are increasingly scare in the West, where mostforests are federally owned.
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Four years ago, Hancock judged theNortheast to be the most stable invest-ment environment of its three operatingunits—the Southeast and the PacificNorthwest being the other two. But therecent political tumult surroundingMaine’s clearcutting debate and uncer-tainty about the future of the NorthernForest is causing the company toassume a more public role to protectinvestor interests. It supported Maine’sfailed forestry compact and NewHampshire’s widely praised Memoran-dum of Understand-ing restrictingharvesting invisible highelevation areas.It is also workingbehind the scenesfor ratification ofthe NorthernForest Steward-ship Act.
“The Act couldprovide a mecha-nism whereinfederal fundingcould be allocatedto states to con-serve forests thatcontribute to theeconomic, environ-mental and socialwell being of theregion,” Mr.Whittemoreexplains.
But many Northern Forest landown-ers disagree, noting that repeatedattempts to legislate forestry solutionsin the Pacific Northwest have servedonly to embolden environmentalactivists. In Oregon and Washington,hundreds of thousands of investor-owned acres have been lost to federallyenforced habitat conservation programs.But Mr. Whittemore remains optimistic,in part because he thinks the politicalclimate in the Northeast is more hopefulthan it is in the Pacific Northwest.
“The fact that there is so little federalland in the Northeast is a big factor,”he explains, “but I detect other morefundamental differences. The culturalvalues embodied in forestry and millingstill enjoy wide public acceptance in theNortheast, but the most fundamentaldifferences reside in our town meetingform of government. Rigorous debate isencouraged but it rarely divides commu-nities. We may harbor deep differences ofopinion but we remain neighbors first.”
In its quest to hold the political
middle, Hancock has become a leaderin granting conservation easementsin investor-owned forests that holdintrinsic values the public reveres. Injust two years, the company completedtwo of the largest such sales ever in theNortheast—a 2,700-acre tract in the13-Mile Woods corridor along NewHampshire’s Androscoggin River and31,000 acres in Vermont’s NortheastKingdom. Easements are popular withconservation-minded citizens becausethey limit harvesting in protected
areas, but those who oppose easementssay that such transactions result ina loss of local property tax revenue—a charge that Mr. Whittemore vigor-ously denies.
“Hancock remains sensitive to thenegative tax burden some peopleperceive,” he says. “Properly executedeasements yield no such unintendedconsequences, and—in fact—providea proven strategy for landowners whowant to do their part to conserveprivately owned but publicly valuedforest resources. Moreover, the ease-ment debate has helped focus legisla-tive attention on the need to makecertain tax policies don’t shift therevenue burden back onto the shoul-ders of local taxpayers.”
Although Mr. Whittemore remainsoptimistic about a peaceful settlementof the Northeast’s escalating land war,he admits there are times when he toois discouraged by the increasinglybitter debate between those whoenvision dramatically different futures
for the region’s forests. “Public valuesand business values are clearly converg-ing on a common destination,” he says.“Where Hancock is concerned, thefuture depends on our ability tomanage client-owned timberland ina way that strikes a dynamic balancebetween economics, environmentalhealth and societal needs. Other majorland managers in the Northeast mightsay it differently, but I suspect theyview the current situation in much thesame light.”
The NorthernForest Landsdebate will not bequickly or easilyresolved. Ifanything, thesharp edges thatdefine the pro-tagonists arehardening withage. In June,opponentsof the NorthernForest Steward-ship Act met atSt. Johnsbury,Vermont toconsider newstrategies forkeeping thefederal govern-ment at bay.Attendees report-edly formed a new
coalition dedicated to making certainthe Act “never passes.” Barely 20 milesaway, the terrorist group, Earth First,set up a summer training camp atWheelock Farm. Meanwhile, back onearth, there are new worries about “theWall Street factor,” a refined version ofthe earlier fear that developers wouldswallow up the Northern Forest. Thebig paper companies are all underenormous investor pressure to increaseprofitability. The question is, “How?”Some have suggested “improving thebottom line” is as simple as sellingland. While such sales would surelyraise capital, they would also play intothe hands of those who dream of afederal takeover. Then, too, there isthe fact the mills would still needfiber, for which they might then haveto pay a premium.
What—if anything—the generalpublic thinks about all this is hardto gauge. Sherry Huber believes theunderlying issue is the same as it hasalways been. “The public has no
Robbins Lumber co-owner Jim Robbins discusses a customer order with Myrtle Wilson, managerof the company’s cut-up plant. The Searsmont, Maine lumber company employs about 135 people.Women account for about half the workforce in such milling operations in the Northeast. Countingbenefits, they earn about $12 an hour, far more than is earned by most working women.
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confidence in the kind of forestry itbelieves is being practiced.”
Mrs. Huber is the executive directorof the Maine Tree Foundation and aformer member of the Maine House ofRepresentatives. She is also a formerchair of the Maine Audubon Societyand the Maine chapter of The NatureConservancy. For many years, her latehusband managed the timber andmineral divisions for J. M. Huber, aNew Jersey based conglomerate withmajor landholdings in Maine.
“There is apublic perceptionthat forestry hasmoved beyond thebounds ofsustainability,” shesaid in an Aprilinterview. “Peoplebelieve that whatlandowners aredoing in forests ishurting wildlife,soil, water andwildness. Theindustry has thusfar been unable tocalm these fears.The clearcuttingreferendum andthe stewardship actare reflections ofconcern, confusionand mistrust.”
Although Mrs.Huber shares manyof the public’s concerns, she alsosympathizes with “enlightened Mainelandowners that have always managedtheir lands responsibly.” Moreover, shesees a big difference between “home-grown environmentalists and beltwayenvironmentalists that—however well-intended—don’t mirror the Mainepoint of view.”
“Local control is a big issue here,”she explains. “There are only 1.2million of us in the entire state. Weknow each other and we know ourculture. The challenge lies in drawingdivergent points to common ground.Extremists at the far edges of thedebate made this very difficult”
Under her direction, the Maine TreeFoundation is shopping a fundingproposal for a new forestry educationprogram called LEAF—Long-TermEducation About the Forest. But manyof the region’s biggest forest productscompanies are no longer headquarteredin the Northeast, making fund raisingmore difficult. She is undaunted: “If the
industry can spend $10 million on twoclearcutting referendums, it can surelyafford to spend half a million a year ona long term forestry education programthat might someday restore the public’strust in forestry.”
Ted Johnston sees an entirely differentforest growing out of an increasinglypolitical landscape. The past presidentof the Maine Forest Products Councilbade goodbye to the timber industryseveral years ago after six excruciating
years of involvement with theGovernor’s Task Force and the North-ern Forest Lands Council. Now he isa registered lobbyist in the Mainelegislature, working mainly for theinsurance and natural resourceindustries.
“I was naive enough to actuallythink we were talking about a win-winsituation involving forestry and forestconservation,” he says of his time onthe Northern Forest Lands Council.“Now I am a cynic. Environmentalistactivists don’t give a hoot about forestsor land. For them, the issue is how togain control over the largest singleblock of privately owned forestland inthe United States. None of the toolsthey used in the West will work here,so they are investing in new strategiesfor gaining control. The NorthernForest Stewardship Act is at the centerof their strategy.”
Mr. Johnston makes no apologiesfor his outspoken views concerningenvironmentalists. He is equally critical
of the industry’s ineptness. “They wereterrible at politics during the earlystages of the Northern Forest debate,”he said in a February interview. “Theywanted to believe the best abouteveryone, and they refused to acceptthe fact that environmentalist activistswere bargaining in bad faith.”
According to Mr. Johnston, Maine’stwo bitterly fought clearcuttingreferendums opened the industry’s eyesto “some of the public realities” thatconfront them. “Their education was
painful to watch,”he says, “butthey’ve come along way in ashort while, andI give them creditfor new-foundperceptiveness.Now if they couldonly agree on astraightforwardforestry messagethe public canembrace.”
If the industryis confused aboutwhat the messageshould be, Mr.Johnston is not.“Here it is in twosimple sentences,”he declares.“There is onlyone way to keepworking forests
working—and that is to preventenvironmentalists from using thepower of the federal government tocontrol how private landownersmanage their forests. The day land-owners are no longer free to worktheir forests profitably, two NewEngland traditions are gone forever:public access to private forestland andthe vibrant rural culture forestry hascreated.”
The quest to keep forests forested isone of the few connecting points in thedebate about the future of the NorthernForest. But it has inspired muchdifferent visions of what the Northeast’sforests should look like. Some seeworking forests. Others see wilderness.A few see both.
Even the most ardent proponents ofwilderness seem willing to grudginglyadmit that working forests have helpedto arrest development. In “An Explo-sion of Green,” [Atlantic Monthly,April, 1995] Bill McKibben wrote, “One
A worker checks the bend in chair backs at Bethel Furniture Stock in Bethel, Maine. This machine useshigh voltage electricity and hydraulic pressure to bend pre-cut hardwood strips into the desired arc. Thebending process takes about 20 minutes. Bethel inventories different arc designs for several customers forwhom it makes a wide variety of chair parts. The company employs 85, Bethel’s second largest work force.
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of the chief fears of eastern environ-mentalists is that the twin plagues ofindustrial forestry and over develop-ment will merge. In New England, forinstance, the forest products industry—which for all the damage it has inflictedhas at least kept the vast woodlands itmanages free of houses and pavement,and thus theoretically restorable—could decide to start selling off landit has cleared.”
Mr. McKibbens views this century’srecovery of Northeastern forests as thelast chance forenvironmentaliststo save them. Hedreams of a timewhen wolves willagain roam free,drawing tourists tothe North Country“where they buyT-shirts and go onhowling expedi-tions. In short,wolves belong here.The East will not befully renewed untiltheir packs wanderits mountainsagain. That this iseven a real possibil-ity is a wonder,nearly a miracle.”
But others lookat these sameforests and seesomething completely different. In1989, Paul Bofinger, then president ofthe Society for the Protection of NewHampshire Forests, laid out his visionfor writer John G. Mitchell in “Moun-tain Views, Bargain Prices,”[Harrowsmith, July-August]. “It’s notjust the trees. It’s not just the prettyscenery and the flowing waters. Thecharacter I’m speaking of is a way oflife—the people in their checkeredshirts and their boots and their pickuptrucks. You know what I mean? Wehave to preserve that. We don’t want tobring in a lot of conventional touristfacilities and put those people to workas chambermaids for minimum wage.We’ve done enough of that, otherplaces, right? Let’s face it. What wehave here is a wonderful woodresource, and to preserve the characterof the North Country we have to learnhow to use it better. We have to createthe markets and jobs right here toprotect that way of life.”
The late Mollie Beattie, who wasthen Commissioner of Vermont’s
Department of Forests, Parks andRecreation, once talked about turningher state’s Tree Farms into duderanches. “Why not,” she told Mr.Mitchell. “We’re not talking aboutreplacing the forest economy. We’retalking about maintaining it. It hasa value of its own. It deserves to bemaintained for its own sake.”
Just how much tourism the NorthCountry will tolerate is an openquestion. Most businesses welcome it,but residents in these quiet communi-
ties—particularly new residents—seemto resent its trappings. “I see condo-miniums,” Mr. Mitchell wrote inHarrowsmith. “I see luxury town-houses. I see Cinemas Four and TheDepot and Mansion Hill and Star Ridgeand The Village at Loon Mountain andThe Nordic Inn...Is this what’s in storefor Mattawamkeag, Molunkus andMacwohoc? Will the new arrivals whoinhabit these places in Lincoln (week-ends and vacations only) wake up somemorning and notice that their pan-oramic views are getting cluttered withother people’s condominiums.”
For its part, the Wilderness Societyhas been out beating its “timber isdead, tourism is the future” drum, justas it did in the West a decade ago. Buta 1989 study (All That Glitters) by theSoutheast Women’s EmploymentCoalition leaves no doubt abouttourism’s shortcomings. “Beyond thesmall pool of management and short-term, male-dominated constructionindustry jobs associated with tourismdevelopment, the employment ‘oppor-
tunities’ that remain in successfuldevelopment communities are those offood servers, maids, and retail clerks.Traditionally held by women, these jobsroutinely offer minimal wages, mar-ginal benefits and virtually no opportu-nity for advancement.”
The study, which was funded by theFord Foundation, the Aspen Instituteand the U.S. Department of Commerce,also concluded, “tourism develop-ment, as it is currently practiced, isnot a sound economic development
strategy. Whilesuccessfuldevelopmentgenerates muchneeded local andstate revenue, italso places costlydemands on acommunity’sinfrastructure,raises the cost ofliving, degradesthe environment,which firstattracted tourists,dilutes oftenfragile localcultures andgenerates princi-pally marginal,seasonal jobs.”
Others arefocused on a lessintrusive kind
of tourism normally reserved for theaffluent and the physically fit. They seethe mountainous Appalachian Trail asthe backbone of a wilderness expansestretching from Maine to Georgia.Vermont environmentalist Jamie Sayenenvisions “continuous wild habitatthe length of the Appalachian Range,which in time could enable the returnof unique plants and large animals—panthers, bears, wolves, moose—thathave been exterminated throughoutall or part of the mountain chain.”
Other big picture thinkers, like theAudubon Society’s Brock Evans, morequickly cut to the chase. The NorthernForest “should all be in the publicdomain,” Mr. Evans declared at a 1990conference at Tufts University. “If thatsounds unreasonable, so be it. Beunreasonable. Let’s take it all back.”
It is precisely this sort of inflam-matory rhetoric that has convincedStewardship Act opponents thelegislation is no more than a smoke-screen concealing an eventual federaltakeover. Though the Act makes no
A moose quenches its thirst in a pond south of Maine’s Baxter State Park. The moose isMaine’s state animal and Baxter is the state’s largest park.
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provision for purchasing or confiscat-ing land, proponents believe it opensthe door to “greenlining,” a zoningprocess that has become so politicallyonerous that environmentalists havestopped talking openly about it.Mr. Mitchell had this to say aboutgreenlining in his 1989 Harrowsmitharticle. “As defined in a seminaldocument on the subject—Charles E.Little’s 1975 report to the U.S. SenateSubcommittee on Parks and Recre-ation—a greenline park would be aresource areacontaining a mix ofpublic and privateland that is com-prehensivelyplanned, regulatedand managed by anindependentagency set upspecifically topreserve the area’srecreational,aesthetic, ecologi-cal, historic andcultural values.”
New York’sAdirondack Park isa greenlined areaand has beenfor most of thiscentury, thoughthe lines there areblue, not green.But elsewhere inthe rural Northeast, talk of greenliningor bluelining—and the comprehensiveplanning it necessitates—will get yourun out of town on a rail. Few havewritten more pointedly on the subjectthan Martin Harris, an architect andformer farmer now living in Vergennes,Vermont.
“The real reason there’s a problem,I would suggest, is that both theregulators and their mostly urbansupporters see no need to considerthe economic fallout of their land-usedesires,” he wrote in “A Battle OverLand Use.” [Journal of Forestry,November, 1991] “With no ties to theland, with personal incomes quiteindependent of land use or capability,with little interest in or sympathy forthose whose personal incomes andfuture security are closely tied to theland, it’s been remarkably easy for themto build (and then systematicallyenlarge) a set of seemingly logicalenvironmental regulations ostensiblyaimed at such reasonable goals aspreserving wetlands, woodlands and ag-
land. It’s not they who have to live withthe economic implications of withdraw-ing the basic resource of other people’slivelihoods from the marketplace.”
Just last month, this decade-longsaga came full circle with a WildernessSociety call for the federal purchaseof 900,000 acres of Maine timberlandrecently offered for sale by Sappi FinePaper North America. The asking price:$200 million. Sappi’s intent to sell hasnot yet generated the same publicoutcry the 1988 Diamond land sales
generated, but to rally public supportfor federal intervention the Society hasadded the tract to its list of the 15 mostendangered wild lands in the nation.“The importance of protecting signifi-cant parts of the Sappi holdings cannotbe overstated,” said Bob Perschel, theSociety’s Northeast regional director.“This is a huge opportunity, but ifmoney can’t be found to acquire keyparcels, these lands are almost certainto be logged or subdivided.”
“Alarmist rhetoric” retorted MainForest Products Council communica-tions coordinator Dennis Tompkins.“(They) use these sales to try to gener-ate panic on the part of the public, andthey continually fail to realize thatthese are privately owned commercialwoodlands.”
Separately, Mary Adams wrote MaineGovernor Angus King to remind himthat recreation access, job-creatinginvestments in timber production anda stable tax base are among “the virtuesof private ownership.”
“The (Sappi) land should stay in
private hands and productive use,” shewrote. “The last thing we need is toturn sections of the woods into apatchwork quilt of various uses,depending upon which special interestgroup had the ear of the Governor atthe time conservation easements,riparian zones, watershed protections,endangered and threatened species,land trusts, management plans andenvironmental lawsuits the tools thatare being used to take land out ofproduction in the West are being used
here as well.”Not to be
outdone, environ-mentalistsconducted a “stopthe chain-sawmassacre” rallyJuly 14 in thestate’s capital.Declaring therecently revisedstate forestpractices act “afailure,” theythreatened tolaunch yetanother citizeninitiative to banclearcutting. “Wewill do whatever ittakes to stop therape and pillage,”declared JohathanCarter of the
Forest Ecology Network.Meanwhile, 3,000 miles west,
Oregon’s first-ever ban clearcuttinginitiative will appear on the state’sNovember election ballot— promptingone logger to ask if it might not be timefor someone to follow the money trailthat feeds petition drives in states wherevoters referendums are permitted.
Hugh Raup was right. Land andforests are mere stage and scenery.People are what bring the stage to life—arranging and rearranging the sceneryat hand to fit their story. In the North-east—and elsewhere in America—a warstory is currently playing. In it, theprotagonists fight to the finish over theright to rearrange the scenery the waythey think it should be. We don’t knowhow this play ends because the lastscene has yet to be written, but thismuch is certain: the land and its forestswill always be there for the enjoymentof some and the prosperity of others—stage and scenery in a two-act play thathad its first fun in the Adirondackmountains more than 100 years ago.
New Hampshire consulting forester Charles Baylies takes his work very seriously—as his licenseplate suggests. The “EBM” in 1-EBM stands for “ecosystem-based management.” Private individu-als own most of the Northeast’s timberland, providing a lucrative market for foresters like Mr. Baylies.
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By Eric Johnson, Editor The Northern Logger
The logging industry acrossnorthern New York State and NewEngland has a long, rich and colorfulhistory, backed by a mountain oftradition and popular folklore. It’s aproud, powerful legacy. It’s also largelyirrelevant to making a living as a loggerat the end of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, sometimes theimages fostered by popular myth andfolklore go beyond irrelevant, and theywind up doing more harm than good.People who should know better, stilltalk about loggers as though theycontinue to buck logs with hand-heldcrosscut saws, live in camps six monthsout of the year, drive logs down theriver in the spring and raise all kindsof hell in town once the season is over. They use arcane descriptions thatmight once have been terms of admira-tion, but now have basically negativeconnotations. They’ll say, “loggers area special breed”; “. . . fiercely indepen-dent”; “colorful”; “salt of the Earth”;“Paul bunyan”; “timber beast”;and so on. Usually these
stereotypes and misconceptions workagainst logging professionals. Bankers don’t care if you’re themember of a “special breed.” They justwant to be sure you’ll make yourpayments—all of them—on time. County highwaydepartments and lawenforcement agenciesprobably wince atthe thought of
Glenn Brawn, A&G Logging, Howland,Maine, stands beside his “poor man’s feller-buncher,” a machine he and his brothermodified to do low impact logging forHancock Timber Resources. The factoryversion of the same machine would havecost them $300,000—about ten times what itcost them to modify this machine.
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John Adler—Chester, Vermont: “The best part is seeing all these skeptical loggers come to oursessions because their employers make them, and then turning them into believers before the end ofthe day.”
“fiercely independent” log truckers onthe roads. They want law-abiding,responsible log truck drivers operatingin their jurisdictions.
Few landowners want “colorful, salt-of-the-earth” characters working ontheir land or adjoining woodlots. Theywant—and have a right to expect—skilled and competent professionals,preferably with good references, creden-tials and business habits. There is nothing wrong with theproud history oflogging in thisregion, nor withthe people whomade it. On thecontrary. Themodern logger’sproblem occurswhen otherwiseintelligent peopleform an image oftoday’s loggersbased largely ontheir romanticnotion of what alumberjack usedto be. When theideal and thereality don’tsquare, some-times it’sfunny—andsometimes it’snot. Loggers areamong the firstto concede thata share of theforest productsindustry’s negative public image hasbeen earned over the years. But they willalso point to dramatic changes—manyseen in the past ten years—that havehelped create a better industry popu-lated by better loggers. One thing nearly all modern loggersmention when asked about challenges isthe high cost of equipment, timber andskilled labor. Managing these resources,they point out, requires a high degree ofresponsibility and business skill notexpected of their predecessors.Training, education, membership intrade associations and involvement inlocal, state and even national politicshave all become important to successfullogging in the late ‘90s. Positive publicrelations is becoming increasinglyimportant. Modern loggers cite a vast array ofexternal forces—from workers compen-
sation insurance requirements to newOSHA standards to steadily-strengthen-ing environmental regulations affectingtheir work—that have prompted bigchanges in the way they operate. Stayingin business has become more expensiveand complex, which has thinned theranks over the years, and has forced thosewho remain to become more efficient. And operational efficiency is thename of the modern logging game;every successful logger on the scene
today has a strategy for achieving evenmore of it over time. The best loggerswill tell you, for example, how muchmore profitable and satisfying it is towork the same woodlots over and overagain during the course of their careers.Not only can they minimize travel andother logistics and work in familiarsurroundings, but by improving thelong term health and value of theresource—other people’s forests—theyshare the rewards. Nowhere is the oldadage that happy customers are repeatcustomers more appropriate than inmodern logging. Evergreen recently visited fourindependent logging contractorsoperating in the “Northern Forest”region, which covers much of thenorthern parts of the states of NewYork, Vermont, New Hampshire andMaine. We asked them to describe the
changes they see affecting theiroperations and those of their peers,and to share their insights into thestate of contemporary logging in theregion.
John Adler At first blush, John Adler of Chester,Vermont appears to be a throwback tothe past: a part-time logger with anotherjob on the side who works alone, cutstrees with a chain saw and produces
wood one load ata time. Mean-while, theindustry aroundhim rapidlymechanizes. But dig a littledeeper and youfind that JohnAdler is not onlyon the cuttingedge of loggingtechnology andprofessionalismin the Northeast,he’s one of themajor forcesbehind it. Adler is a part-time loggerbecause the restof his time isspent trainingother timberharvesters. Hismain focus is onsafe and produc-tive chain sawuse for manual
cutters, but his broader message appliesto nearly every aspect of modernlogging: Think about what you’re doing,and then find a way to do it moreefficiently, more safely and moreresponsibly. Ask John Adler what single force hashad the most important impact on thelogging business in the region over thepast ten years and he doesn’t miss abeat. “Soren Eriksson” is his answer. For Adler and many loggers in theregion, Soren Eriksson, a short, middle-aged Swede with a bad back and a heavyaccent, is the guru of safe, productivelogging. Over the past 15 years, Erikssonhas almost single-handedly guided a bigchunk of the logging industry out of thedark ages and into an era of enlighten-ment. He did it with a dynamic person-ality, a great system of work habits andtechniques originally developed and
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Rick Lessard—West Ossipee, New Hampshire: “In 40 years of watching and working withloggers, I’ve never met one yet who cut trees for the pure joy of it. Obviously, there’s a hugeconsumer demand for wood products and money to be made producing them.”
refined in Sweden. And he did it withthe help of proteges like John Adler. When he first met Eriksson, Adlerwas working as a cutter for anotherVermont logger. After seeing one of theSwedish instructor’s demonstrations onsafe chain saw use and productive workhabits, the young cutter was amazed.“I suddenly realized how little I under-stood about what Iwas doing,” he says.In the subsequentmonths and years,Adler learned asmuch as he couldabout the new“Swedish technique”and applied all of it tohis work both as anemployee, and later,in his own loggingoperation. Eventually,Eriksson approachedAdler, who has anassociate’s degree inforestry from PaulSmith’s College, withthe idea of becominga professional trainer.He jumped at thechance. “The bestpart is seeing allthese skepticalloggers come to oursessions becausetheir employer ismaking them,” Adlerexplains, “andturning them into believers before theend of the day.” The difference between good, intelli-gent logging practices and some of themore “traditional” methods of cuttingtrees, skidding logs and otherwiseproducing merchantable wood, isenormous. Production is increaseddramatically, as is on-the-job safety.Disturbance to the residual stand and itssurroundings is minimized. Loggers takepride in their work and strive to becomeeven better. The advantages are immedi-ately obvious to anyone in the industrywho sees them being practically applied,and most come away from such demon-strations convinced of their value. That’s certainly the case with one ofthe major logging workers compensationinsurance carriers in the region, the NewYork Lumbermen’s Insurance TrustFund, which has employed Adler for thepast five years to train its members andtheir employees. Other groups, such as
the Vermont Forestry Foundation,contract for Adler’s training services, aswell as a number of other private,independent logging contractors. “We’reapproaching 1,000 people trained so far,”he notes. Adler’s wife, Mary Beth, keepsthe books for both businesses andhandles various paperwork and otherlogistics.
On the logging side of his operation,John Adler prefers to work on smallwoodlots for private landowners, and hetries to establish long-term relationshipswith his customers. On a recent springmorning, he was selectively thinningwhite pine sawtimber from a woodlot fiveminutes’ drive from his home in Chester. He had done improvement cuts onthe property, which was recently namedone of Vermont’s Outstanding TreeFarms by the American Tree FarmSystem, at various times during hislogging career. The stone walls runningup and down the heavily-woodedhillsides betrayed its past as hard-scrabble farmland. An independenttrucker was loading pine logs forshipment to a nearby mill. “I’m constantly trying new thingsand keeping an eye on efficiency andproductivity,” Adler tells a curiousvisitor during a break. “That’s the keyto survival for the small logger.”
Rick Lessard Rick Lessard became fascinated withthe logging business as a young boy,when he would accompany his father,Philip, to work on weekends and schoolholidays. “I just wanted to be there;doing anything I could to be involved,”he says. After receiving an associate’sdegree in Industrial Engineering and a
brief stint as atool and dyemaker, Lessardheaded back tothe woods, wherehe’s worked eversince. TodayLessard’scompany, NorthCountry Lumber,is one of thebiggest loggingcontractorsoperating in NewHampshire.From his homebase of WestOssipee, the 47-year-old loggerruns a highlymechanizedoperationproducing a widevariety of forestproducts, fromveneer logs onthe high end towhole tree fuelchips on the low
end—and pretty much everything inbetween. “In 40 years of watching and workingwith loggers, I’ve never met one yet whocut trees for the pure joy of it,” Lessardsays, adding, “Obviously there’s a hugeconsumer demand for wood productsand money to be made producing them.”He goes on to point out that it’s impera-tive for loggers to conduct their busi-nesses responsibly and with attention tothe details, particularly the needs of thelandowner and the environment. North Country Lumber is setting thatexample. In 1991 Lessard’s company wasnamed the New Hampshire TimberlandOwners’ Association’s “OutstandingLogger of the Year.” In 1998, he wasnamed the Northeastern Loggers’Association’s “Outstanding ForestIndustry Activist” award. The yearbefore, he received that organization’s“Outstanding Forest Industry Leader-ship” award and in 1992, he was named
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Andy Irish—Peru, Maine: “Our main goal has always been to have all our members obeying allapplicable laws. We also have plenty of work to do on other important issues, including loggertraining.”
“National Logger of the Year” by theAmerican Pulpwood Association. Like most mechanized loggers, RickLessard is production oriented andadamant that it’s possible—maybe eveneasier—to log responsibly with state-of-the-art equipment. But high productionalso means a large, steady appetite forwood. Since 90 percent of NorthCountry’s work isdone on privateforestland, Lessardhas to constantlyscout around forwoodlots, havinggone as far away asBoston for the rightopportunity. “Butwe like to staywithin a 50-mileradius,” he says. “I’d say ourbiggest challengehas been finding theright sites to cut inthe spring” when thefrost in the groundbegins to thaw andotherwise firm soiltakes on the consis-tency of chocolatepudding for a monthor two, Lessard notes.In the past, manyloggers were inclinedto just gut it out onregular groundduring “mud sea-son,”—especiallyduring periods when markets forpulpwood and logs were good. Thistypically resulted in an ugly mess. But an increasing number of loggershave begun to seek out higher, well-drained sites for spring logging, andthey are trying to optimize the advan-tages of modern equipment, which whenproperly used, can have less groundimpact. Lessard is obviously in thisgroup, but all the competition is makingit more difficult. “We can log sustainablyand be kind to the environment,”Lessard notes. “We have to.” Although only ten percent of thecompany’s wood comes from publicly-owned forestland, Lessard says theprospect of losing access to publicly-owned timber has major ramificationsfor overall timber supply in the region.“If you take away that 30 million boardfeet of sawlogs produced annually by theWhite Mountain National Forest,” heexplains, “it’s going to have to be
replaced by timber from private land,”thus putting a heavier burden on theprivately-owned resource. But the biggest challenge to futuretimber supplies may have alreadyoccurred. The infamous “Ice Storm of‘98” destroyed or severely damagedmillions of acres of public and privatetimberland across the Northern Forest.
Lessard believes “a whole generation oftimber may have been destroyed by thestorm. I may be sitting here at age 75wondering where all the sawlogs havegone,” he muses. Clearly, Rick Lessard fully expects tobe logging when he’s 75—some 68 yearsafter his first taste of the business.Ironically, today the tables have turnedand Lessard’s father is now working forhim, along with 21 other employees.“He tried to retire from logging butcouldn’t stay away,” Lessard explains,“so I said, ‘why not come work for me?’”
Andy Irish Rumford, Maine, is an old NewEngland papermill town, which is to saythat all life centers around the mill.Literally. That’s where all the good jobsare, and nearly all commerce enteringand leaving this little community on theAdroscoggin River is somehow related topaper production. Not surprisingly the
mill is, physically, right smack in themiddle of town. Andy Irish, 41, was born and raised inPeru, Maine, about a ten-mile drivesouth of Rumford. His dad and most ofhis acquaintances and relatives workedat the mill, but Irish got an early feel forthe logging business, working for aneighbor part-time through junior high
and high school.Upon graduation,he chose thewoods over thepapermill. Irish is still inthe loggingbusiness—nowwith his owncompany and 11employees—butit’s a differentindustry than theone he grew upin. Radicallydifferent. “Thewhole push todayis toward loggingprofessionalism,and it’s longoverdue,” heobserves. A few yearsago, Andy Irishnoticed that eventhough the worldwas changingrapidly, he andother loggersweren’t doing
much to prepare for the future. He sawenvironmentalists gaining ground onthe industry in Maine, public opiniongoing against timber harvesters onimportant state-wide issues, andproblems between industrial consumersof wood and the loggers who produce it.Many of these problems, he believed,were either being caused by loggersthemselves or aggravated by theirbehavior. In 1994, Andy Irish found what hewas looking for in the ProfessionalLogging Contractors of Maine, a tradeassociation with the main goal of raisingthe standard of professional loggers inthe state. The PLC’s mission is to:
• Promote professional conductamong loggers in Maine;
• Provide a forum for the resolutionof issues of concern through communi-cation, education and legislation;
• Promote compliance with forestryand harvesting practices that maintain
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Peter Gucker—Keesville, New York: “The thing is nobody’s buying white pine pulpwood, sowe decided to chip it for fuel, but that market is jammed up too, so I’ve got a lot of moneyinvested in this big pile of wood that may not move.”
sustainable forestry levels. PLC members agree to comply withall OSHA regulations and all state andfederal environmental laws. They alsopledge to maintain adequate insurancefor their operation, have a FederalEmployer ID Number, and “be respon-sible for the execution of all phases ofthe harvesting operation from stumpto roadside.” Provid-ing logger safetytraining and profes-sional certificationfor employees is oneof the most impor-tant requirements. “Our main goalhas always been tohave all our mem-bers obeying allapplicable laws,” saysIrish, who is thePLC treasurer. “Inaddition to that, wehave plenty of workto do on otherimportant issues,including training.”The PLC is affiliatedwith the AmericanLoggers’ Council,which is, amongother things, anational forum forloggers around thecountry to shareideas and concernsabout the future oftheir industry. Irishis also a director of the NortheasternLoggers’ Association, which is involvedin regional logger training, publicrelations and trade publishing efforts. Today, training and professional-ism in Maine isn’t limited to thosedirectly employed in the forestproducts industry. Irish’s teenage son,Jason, is enrolled in a special loggingvocational program through his localhigh school, where many of the sameskills and professional standardspromoted by the PLC are part of thecurriculum. Successful graduates willalready have their Maine CertifiedLogging Professional certificate, thus,making them immediately qualified inthe industry. “A few years ago things were not sogood in this industry and I wouldn’thave been happy to see Jason join mein the logging business,” Andy Irishsays, “but that’s changed now, and Ithink we’re back on the right track.”
Peter Gucker Peter Gucker is standing next toa huge, ugly pile of shattered whitepine logs, limbs and other “biomass,”which he hopes to see chipped andhauled away before the onset of hot,summer weather. Nearby, a hydrauliclog loader is salvaging what fewsawlogs the skidders are dragging
in from the adjacent woodlot andputting the rest of the material on thebiomass pile. It’s growing a lot fasterthan the pile of logs. Gucker explainsthat while he would prefer to becutting more profitable hardwoodsawlogs and pulpwood, he feels anobligation to help out this particularlandowner, whose woodlot was heavilydamaged during the January icestorm. Gucker has worked thisproperty in the past, and he is notabout to let his customer down whenthe going gets tough. “The thing is,” Gucker says,“nobody’s buying white pine pulp-wood, so we decided to chip it all forfuel, but that market’s jammed uptoo, so I’ve got a lot of money in-vested in this big pile of wood thatmay not move.” Gucker of Keesville, New York,in the northeast corner of theAdirondack State Park, has built a
respected mechanized loggingoperation, in part, on his reputationfor consistent quality and reliability.He also pays attention to operationaldetails. This becomes apparent evenafter a brief conversation. “The nicething about mechanized felling,” henotes, “is that it allows you to workfar enough ahead of the skidders to
that you canplan the mostefficient skidroute for thewood that’sbeen cut.” Thisnot only cutscosts becauseit means fewertrips by theskidders sobigger pay-loads, butminimizes therisk of residualstand damagebecause offewer, moredirect skids. Anotherdetail isemployeetraining.Through hisworkers’compensationinsurancecarrier, theNew YorkLumbermen’s
Insurance Trust Fund, Gucker hashad logging trainer John Adler on thejob helping his employees improvetheir working efficiency and safety.“John’s training has made a bigdifference for us,” Gucker says,adding that skilled workers tend tobe happier and more productive. Other recent training includedfacilitating the “Logger Rescue”program, which is a first-aid courseput on by the industry-sponsoredNew York Logger Training program.Gucker also trains his employees inmaximizing log values—getting themost value out of what is beingharvested—which he says is the mostimportant aspect of his entireoperation. A director of the North-eastern Loggers Association, PeterGucker says that one of the best waysto generate good public relations forthe industry is to maximize the valueand utilization of the forest resource.
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By Eric Johnson, EditorThe Northern Logger
The Ward Family:E
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Sidney Ward Jr. is sitting at hisdesk early one summer morning, in aspacious, wood-paneled new officesuite built directly over the companygarage. Through a large picturewindow just behind him, a wisp ofsmoke streams out of the stack of oneof the lumber company’s wood-firedboilers. Beyond that is a breathtakingview of the wooded mountains sur-rounding the small town of Jay, NewYork, home of Ward Lumber Company.
“This whole valley was stripped atone time,” Ward explains, “part of itby fire and the rest for farmland andtimber harvesting.” He pauses. “Now,of course, it’s all forest. That parcelback there,” he says, pointing overhis shoulder, “is some of our owntimberland.”
Looking around the valley from thecentral vantage point of the WardLumber log yard, the mountains todaylook almost pristine—untouched savefor the widespread damage recentlyinflicted by nature herself in thedevastating “Ice Storm of ‘98.”
Indeed, it would not be unreasonablefor tourists to think they were looking atvirgin forestland, following the AusableRiver as it winds through the valleydown from Lake Placid, a short drive tothe southwest. That’s because bothPlacid and the town of Jay are locatedwithin New York’s Adirondack Park—asix million-acre “forest preserve” inwhich timber harvesting is prohibited onthe roughly 2.5 million acres of state-owned land and restricted to some extenton the remaining 3.5 million privately-owned acres.
Visitors—most of whom are awarethat they are in a “forever wild” preservebut may not know that forest manage-ment is allowed on the private land in thePark—often confuse the two. To the
untrained eye, in fact, some of the landmanaged for timber production is moreinviting than the “forever wild” parcels.
Observers with a little more forestrysavvy, by contrast, see an obviousdistinction. State-owned land is domi-nated in many cases by over-aged timber,which, since the establishment of theAdirondack Park Forest Preserve morethan a century ago, has been allowed tofall over and decay. Many wildlife speciesprefer managed forests because theycontain more diversity and thus, moreopportunities for food and shelter.
“I think it’s a shame New York Statedoesn’t manage its land in the Park,” SidWard says simply.
Ward, who retired as full-time CEOtwo years ago at age 54, is the thirdgeneration to head up the family-ownedcompany. His sons, Sid III (“Jay”) andJeff, represent the fourth generation.He points to a child nestled in hermother’s arms in a family photo: Jay’sdaughter, Mollie. “She might be thefifth generation.”
Pioneers in New York’s Sawmill Industry
Sidney Ward Jr., the third generation of Wards to be in the sawmilling business of Jay, New York.The Ward Lumber Comany employs about 150. Small, family-owned sawmills supply the nationwith most of its lumber.
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The Ward Family: (L-R) Janet Ward (Mrs. Sid Ward Jr.), Ward’s son Jay (Sid III), Sid Ward Jr.,Mr. Ward’s mother, Agnes and the Ward’s other son, Jeff. Jay and Jeff, the fourth generation ofWards, now run the company. Most of America’s sawmills are still small, family-ownedoperations much like Ward Lumber Company.
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At age 80, Sid’s mother, Agnes Ward,still reports for work as companyTreasurer every morning, as does herson. But, Ward is quick to point out thathe and his mother are strictly supportpersonnel—Jay and Jeff now run thecompany, as President and Vice Presi-dent of Manufacturing, respectively.Their mother, Janet, served as companysecretary until joining her husband inretirement.
On onelevel—as afamily-ownedwhite pinesawmill—WardLumber Co. is afairly typicalenterprise in thenorthern PineBelt. Hundredsof companiesfitting thisnarrow descrip-tion are scat-tered across theregion stretch-ing from theAdirondacks tothe Atlanticcoast. Theycome in a widevariety of sizesand condi-tions—from 120million boardfoot per-yearbehemoths, tooperationssawing a million feet a year or less.Some are extremely successful, whileothers just barely hang in there. Manyhave become technological marvels,while a few still look more like some-thing out of the nineteenth century. Sizehas little to do with success or failure inthe modern pine business.
But beyond the superficial similari-ties with other operations, Ward LumberCo. is not a typical white pine sawmill.Over the generations, the company hasjoined an elite group of mills in theregion, combining creative utilization ofthe forest resource—white pine logs inthis case—with aggressive and imagina-tive marketing of the resulting lumberand all other byproducts.
In fact, the company is involved inevery aspect of converting white pineinto useful consumer products—fromgrowing the trees to selling what theyyield to the end user. As such, retail salesrepresent a big part of the company’s
recent growth. The Ward Lumber Co.hardware store and building center,located adjacent to the sawmill complex,has long provided a retail outlet for someof the mill’s finished products. Thecompany recently expanded retailoperations when it acquired a storefrom the defunct Grossman’s chainin Plattsburgh, a small city and majorpopulation center about 35 miles to thenorth on the Canadian border.
considered (and disposed of as) waste.Today, they’re called “byproducts”and can mean the difference betweenprofitability and bankruptcy. Virtuallyall white pine sawmills in the regiontoday have markets for non-lumber by-products.
What distinguishes Ward from mostother pine mills, however, is the lengthsto which it goes in producing andmarketing lumber. The two retail stores
are a good example.Sid Ward says thatthe combination ofproduct diversity,niche markets,production flexibilityand quality have beenessential to thecompany’s success.He points to large-dimension greentimbers, used in suchupscale projects aspost-and-beambuildings and loghomes. “Years agowhen we first got intothe log home marketI figured it was apassing fad,” he says,“but it’s become asteady, long-termmarket for us.” From the big-timber sorting area,he crosses the yard tothe planer mill, wherewide, dry pine boards
are being turned into different kinds ofsiding. At one end of the planer mill,pine clapboards are stacked. In another,cove siding emerges from the planer.A shipment of rustic pine siding is beingloaded onto one of the company’sdistinctive green trucks for shipmentto New England.
In a warehouse full of tongue-and-groove paneling and planed boards—thepremium stuff—Ward points to a palletstacked with short boards averagingabout one foot wide and two feet long.These, it turns out, are defectivesections trimmed from premium boardsto increase their grade and thus, theirvalue. “In the past we would havechipped these for the paper mill,”
Ward says of the short ends, “but we’vedeveloped a market for ‘hobbyist’ woodsold through retail outlets.”
The list of markets and potentialmarkets goes on and on. Some compa-nies specialize in trimming high-value
On a typical day, freshly-harvestedwhite pine logs enter the Ward log yardon trucks, and they are quickly turnedinto a dazzling array of useful products.Maximizing lumber production iseveryone’s main goal, of course, but thecompany also produces everything frompet bedding (dry planer shavings) tolivestock bedding (green sawdust) tolandscape mulch (ground bark) to chipsfor making paper (chipped slabwood)to fuel for the company’s lumber dryingkilns (various wood wastes).
Not long ago, these residues were
“I think it is a shameNew York Statedoesn’t manageits land in theAdirondack Park.”
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Ward Lumber Company operates its own retail lumberyard adjacent to its Jay, New Yorksawmill. Most family-owned lumber companies sell their products exclusively throughbrokers and wholesalers.
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sections out of knotty and other defect-laden boards. Ward has a supply of low-grade lumber ready for shipment to oneof these “chop-shops.” One big indus-trial customer uses low-grade pine tomake pallets and shipping crates for itsmachines. Ward employees sort out theright boards, accumulating loads to fillthe orders.
Where does all this wood come from?Sid Ward says that about 95 percent ofthe 11 millionboard feet of logssawn annually bythe companycome fromindependentloggers workingon privateforestland—muchof it in theAdirondack Park.Ward itself hasroughly 4,500acres of timber-land in the Jayarea, which ismanaged for thesustainableproduction ofpine. “Most of ourland was acquiredby my father inthe ‘50s,” henotes, “and a lot ofit was old farm-land that has beenplanted ornaturally regener-ated to pine. We don’t post our prop-erty,” he adds, “in part because webelieve people should be able to enjoymanaged forests.” And when huntingseason rolls around, “managed forestsare where you find the deer.”
The company has a full-time forester,Kendall Southard, who splits his timebetween managing company lands andbuying logs for the mill from loggingcontractors and landowners.
Lately, company woodlands have beencontributing a much larger share than fivepercent of the mill’s logs. The huge icestorm, which devastated millions of acresof productive timberland across northernNew York State and much of New Englandin January of 1998, took a heavy toll onthe forests around the mill. Ward has beensalvaging what it can from its ownproperty, resulting in smaller logs onaverage, than those usually supplied byindependent loggers. According to SidWard and others, the small-to-medium
sized pine trees took the biggest hit duringthe storm.
The immediate effect of processingsmaller logs has been a reduction in thenumber of big timbers sawn and a bigincrease in boards—narrower boards inparticular. Ward says the glut of smallerlogs has created both production andmarketing challenges, which have to bebalanced with the need to care for Wardtimberlands and salvage damaged
to generation, particularly as thedistance from the founder increases.
Ward Lumber Co. seems to beheaded in the opposite direction.
“Years ago, Jan and I didn’t knowif our sons would be interested in thebusiness, even though they grew uparound this mill and worked herethrough school,” Ward notes. But inthe late ‘80s both sons chose to bringtheir college degrees—Jeff’s is in
engineering andJay’s is in busi-ness—back to themill to focus ondifferent, butcomplementary,aspects of thefamily business.Their father isclearly pleased. In recent years,Jeff and Jay haveheaded up majorprojects—fromacquiring the storein Plattsburgh toinstalling a newwood-fired boilerfor the kiln dryingoperation. Thenext big step,according to SidWard, will probablybe replacing themain sawmillbuilding witha bigger, moreefficient and
productive place to turn raw logsinto lumber.
Walking through the Ward LumberCo. complex, Sid Ward discusses thechanges he’s seen and adapted to inthe business over his working life. Hemarvels at those he sees just ahead,that his sons will have to tackle. Hesays he’s proud that the new mill hebuilt in 1973 to cut one million boardfeet of pine annually is now turningout 11 million board feet, and proud ofhow the company payroll of 147 peoplepumps millions of dollars directly intothe regional economy every yearthrough paychecks.
“The last thing the State of NewYork needs is more publicly-ownedland,” he says. “What we really need todo is create more opportunities likethis—” he states, pointing to a truck-load of dry paneling, “—clean indus-tries that use renewable resources andprovide good jobs.”
timber from the property.There’s an old adage in business
circles that most family-owned and runcompanies don’t make it past the thirdgeneration. Part of this has to do withproblems common to dividing upestates, such as steep inheritance taxesand complicated legal maneuvering.But changing personalities within thecompany and attitudes towards thebusiness are perhaps even moreimportant. It’s just tough to sustain theinterest in, and commitment to, afamily-owned business from generation
“Most of our land(was) old farmlandthat had beenplanted or naturallyregenerated.”
A B Logging Inc.A. & A. Brochu, Inc.A.W. Madden, Inc.Adirondack League ClubAllard Lumber Co.Andy Wood LoggingAngelica Forest Products, Inc.Arnold Moore LoggingBailey Manufacturing Corp.Baillie Lumber CompanyBannish Lumber Inc.Beach Timber Co.Bell-Gates Lumber Corp.Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker - BangorBerry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker - PortlandBethel Furniture Stock, Inc.Bickford Chipping Inc.Blumenstock, Helen & BudBowater-Great Northern Paper, Inc.Boyce Highlands Inc.Brian Bower, Certified ForesterBurlington Electric - McNeil StationCaledonia Kiln Corp.Catawissa Lumber & Specialty Co., Inc.Chadbourne Tree FarmsChadwick-BaRoss, Inc.Champion International CorporationChamplain Hardwoods, Inc.Chester Forest Products, Inc.Claire Lathrop Bandmill Inc.Columbia Forest ProductsConestoga Wood Specialties Inc.Cote Hardwood Products, Inc.Craig H. McNeely LoggingDecoster, Lester A.DeGolyer Lumber Co.Delmhorst Instrument Co.Diaz, VincentDrive-O-Rama, Inc.Dunkley’s Custom SawingDunn Timberlands, Inc.E.D. Bessey & SonE.G. Blake & Son, Inc.Edwin Johnson & SonsEthan Allen Inc.- Beecher FallsEthan Allen: Inc. - Andover Wood Products, Inc.F E Hale Mfg Co.F W Turner, Inc.Falcon Rule-Falcon Printing & GraphicsFarm Credit of Maine, ACAFinch, Pruyn & Co., IncFitzpatrick & Weller, Inc.Fleet, David A.Fort Mountain Land & Timber Co., Inc.Fred C. Weld, LoggingFred P Saunders Co.French, Robert L.V.G & S LoggingG. H. Evarts & Co., Inc.Gardner Logging Services, Inc.Garlands SawmillGeorgia-Pacific CorporationGestion Raymond Blanchet, Inc.
Peter C. Herman, Inc.Pingree Associates-NFL ProjectPlumb Lumber Co, Inc.Pomeroy Lumber Inc.Potter Lumber Co, Inc.Prentiss & Carlisle Company, Inc.Pride Manufacturing Co.Quality Hardwoods, Inc.R C Lavin Corp.R J Moore Hardwoods Inc.R L Fournier, Inc.R. A. Berg, Inc.R.H. Wales & Son, Inc.Rice, William W. Sr.Richard S Ward Lumber Co.Richard Smith Lumber Sales, Inc.Richard Walker SawmillRobbins Lumber, Inc.Robert J. Sweet, Inc.Roberts Bros. Lumber Co., Inc.Ruch, James D.S. Bent & Bros, Inc.S.J. Bailey & Sons, Inc.Saunder’s BrothersSeavey, Inc.Seven Islands Land CompanySewall CompanySheds USAStetson Timberlands, Inc.Stowell, John D.Stratton Lumber, Inc.Sunday River Skiway Corp.Sylvandale ForestryTerian Inc.The A Johnson CompanyThe Baker McMillen CompanyThe Cincinnati Dowel & Wood Products Co.The Oliver StoresThe Sharp Tool Co., Inc.The Timber CompanyThomas Hammond & SonThompson TruckingTimberland ImprovementsTommila Bros., Inc.U-C CoatingsVan Buren Madawaska Corp.Vermont Precision WoodworksW J Cox Associates, Inc.Wagner Forest ManagementWagner LumberWard Clapboard Mill, Inc.Ward Lumber Company, Inc.Watauga Wood Products, Inc.Webb & Sons Inc - Lok-N-Logs, Inc.Weston, Peter B.Weston, William N.Wheelabrator Technologies Inc.White Mountain Lumber CompanyWholesale Forest ProductsWiner, Herbert I.Wood Component Manufacturers Assn.Wood Products Manufacturers Assn.Woodward Timber, Inc.
Glenn S. Viles & Sons, Inc.GIVIC Hardwoods, Inc.Grant Forest Products, Inc.Great Northern Paper, Inc.Green Mt. Wood Products, Inc.Hammond Lumber Co.Hancock Lumber Company, Inc.Hancock Timber Resource GroupHannington Brothers, Inc.Hardwood Products Co. LPHaskell Lumber, Inc.Houlton International CorporationHull Forest Products, Inc.Industrial Hardwood Inc.International PaperIreland Lumber Co., Inc.Irish, AndrewJ & S Logging, Inc.J A. Yansick Lumber Co, Inc.J.M. Huber CorporationJ.Paul Levesque & SonsJack Frost Logging, Inc.JB Logging, Inc.JM Champeau Inc.Katahdin Federal Credit UnionKatahdin Forest Products Co.Kel Log Inc.Kelley Wood Products, Inc.Keystone Wood Specialties Inc.Kingfield Wood ProductsKlein & Sons Logging, Inc.Lamell Lumber CorporationLandVest, Inc.Lassiter Properties, Inc.Leonard Lumber Co.Limington Lumber CompanyLovell Lumber Co., Inc.Lumber & Bldg. Mater. Dealers FoundationM E Pratt Lumber Co. Ltd.MacKinnon, JamesMadison Paper IndustriesMaibec Logging Inc.Maine Financial Services, Inc.Maine Forest Products CouncilMaine Wood Turning, Inc.Mead Oxford CorporationMeadowsend Timberlands Ltd.Milliken, RogerMonadnock Forest ProductsMonadnock Paper Mills, Inc.Moose River Lumber Co., Inc.Multiple Use AssociationNew England Forestry ConsultantsNew England Kiln Drying Assn.New Hampshire Timberland Owners Assn.Niebling, CharlesNortheast Wood ProductsNortheastern Logger’s Association, IncNortheastern Lumber Manufacturers Inst.Northern Forest Products Co. Inc.Northfield Wood ProductsOscar & Reuben Lumbra, Inc.Penley Corporation-NFL Project
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Volume 9 • Number 20