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Sustainable Forest Management For Private Lands |
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SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY FOR PRIVATE FOREST LANDOWNERS
Sustainable Forestry: An important concept for private forest landowners
Sustainable forest management, as the name implies, is management that allows continuous harvesting of timber products from the same timber stand periodically over a very long time span. I find that landowners have many different ideas about what sustainable forestry is, how to go about it and how it affects them.
Sustainable forestry has several different aspects. They are social, economical, ethical and ecological. The socio-economic aspects of sustainable forestry involve jobs (timber and related industry is one of Pennsylvania’s biggest employers,) recreation and stability of rural communities. The economical aspect implies that this management strategy provides better overall income for landowners and steady jobs for the industry. Ethical and ecological aspects suggest that it is the responsibility of current landowners to protect the resource for both monetary and environmental reasons for future generations.
Forest landowners are not obligated to, but have a choice to maintain their forest as a sustainable productive system to provide future benefits to society. In most cases they do not make an effort to use sustainable management. I find that attitudes toward this subject are varied. In my master’s degree research, I did a study of forest landowners’ attitudes toward harvesting timber. I found that very few were opposed to harvesting. The number one reason for not harvesting was that they felt the timber was not mature. Number two was that they thought harvesting would ruin the scenery on their land. This reason was more important to owners of smaller tracts.
Another study of recent harvests across the State, found that the vast majority of timber stands that were harvested were not done in a way that would ensure sustainable timber production. Eighty percent of harvested land will not produce timber again anytime in the near future. Interestingly, the same percentage of harvests done in the State are done without any professional advice.
So, private landowners generally will sell timber when they feel it is mature and there is a market, or when they need money and not as part of a long term management plan. It is the rare landowner who takes an ongoing interest in managing his timber stand. Managing a timber stand is a lot like taking care of a garden. A good gardener constantly weeds her garden and favors her best plants in order to produce quality food and maximize the quantity of food harvested from the garden every season. Similar efforts in a timber stand will produce similar results. Even if the landowner is interested in long term management, they often express this to the sawmill or logger that buys the timber and they end up with a stand that will not produce any more quality timber products. I often hear from landowners who say they had a harvest done 15 years ago and they instructed the harvester to cut it so they can cut more in the future. When I get there, as expected, I usually see a stand that won’t produce quality timber for centuries.
The average non-industrial private forest landowner (NIPF) doesn’t own land for timber production, they own for recreation, aesthetic enjoyment and as part of a farm or residence. Sustainable forest management fits in well with these reasons for owning. Taking an active part in forest management increases the owner’s enjoyment of ownership. I see a lot of pride in landowners who take an active role and are “doing it right.” They enjoy planting trees, performing non-commercial timber stand improvement cuttings and working along side forestry professionals, both private consultants and state foresters. People who take advantage of the training and experience of professionals will make more money from their timber and be able to achieve their goals of having good aesthetics and recreational opportunities in the form of hunting, hiking, bird watching or whatever they like to do on their land.
I have one client who is an avid birder. She bemoans the fact that she does not see this or that bird on her land that she used to see years ago. But, looking out through the forest of very mature hardwoods with no understory, it is obvious that there is no nesting habitat for songbirds whose nesting habits require midstory plants and summer fruiting plants. Some regeneration is required to create this midstory, including overstory thinning, herbicide application of the thick fern cover on the ground and a deer exclusion fence. Properly done, a harvest of some of the overstory, while preparing the forest floor to produce new trees, will maintain and improve the aesthetics of the property. At the same time, the timber stand will become a consistent producer of quality black cherry timber. We are also planting wildlife shrubs to replace native plants missing from the land that were there before deer overabundance eliminated them from the landscape.
Other areas on this large property were harvested without any professional advice. A logger cut every quality tree of valuable species on a 300-acre section, leaving 300 acres of what I like to call “green junk.” The stand had its composition changed from high value trees to low value trees, both in ecological and economical terms. Without very expensive and severe regeneration efforts, this stand will never grow another cherry or oak tree to provide income, jobs, wildlife feed and beauty for future generations. If this stand was managed under a sustainable timber production system, it would probably be ready for some more overstory harvesting and new high-value trees would be well-established and free to grow into mature quality sawtimber. Through federal and state cost share grants and some heavy investment of timber sale income back into the land, we have been able to regenerate 40 acres of this stand and are on the way to having a good wildlife tract in the near future and good timber for future generations.
Diameter limit cutting, prejudice against clear cuts and fire, along with overabundance of deer over the past half century has severely altered the productivity of Pennsylvania’s forests. To ensure future economic and cultural benefits, private woodland owners must be better stewards of their land while they own it. Responsible landowners will educate themselves and seek professional advice to accomplish sustainable forest management on their properties.
Stephen Chilcote is a forestry consultant. For more information on this or other forestry and wildlife issues.
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