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TOPIC: North meets South in a Templeton, MA Swamp
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/df6056111fe8a02e?hl=en
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== 1 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 3:24 am
From: "Mike Leonard"


In northern MA, some forestry professors have called this area the
"white pine-hardwood transitional forest" because northern hardwoods
(sugar maple, beech, and yellow birch) typical of northern New England
mix with oak hardwoods (red oak, white oak, black oak, black birch,
etc.) typical of southern New England along with white pine, hemlock,
and red maple. But there are also other types of mixing as well.

I just finished a Forest Cutting Plan for a 35 acre woodlot in a still
rural part of Templeton, MA. It has 2 forest types: white pine,
hardwoods (WH); and red maple, hardwoods (RM). In the WH type white
pine, red oak, and red maple are the most common overstory species with
some scattered cherry and hemlock. This stand was marked for a
high-grade cutting by a timber thief about 5 years ago. The crook marked
all of the nice red oak, white pine, and the few nice cherry.
Fortunately the Bureau of Forestry Service Forester saw a flaw in the
landowners' contract and helped them get out of it. This is what happens
when you allow the timber rustlers to run wild and let them do
"forestry" work. Our state officials think this is OK because they don't
want to infringe on "landowner rights". Yeah, like the right to get
ripped off? We consulting foresters should be the firewall against the
timber rustlers not the bureaucrats!
Well I marked most of the low quality red maple, some of the big bully
pine, and very little of the oak. So after thinning mostly from "below",
the stand will be mostly red oak and white pine. If it had been
high-graded, the residual stand would have been mostly red maple and
bully pine and its future economic as well as a lot of its ecological
values would have been destroyed. In fact rampant high-grading has
caused widespread detrimental changes in forest composition all across
the east as red maple replaces red oak. The landowner may not make much
on this timber sale, but she will be left with a beautiful forest of
high quality trees which will greatly increase her future property
value.

The RM type is most interesting. These swamps are commonly almost pure
red maple. In the past they were more diverse but the white pine, for
example, was high-graded out and red maple took over. But in this
Templeton swamp, in addition to red maple, there is white pine, black
spruce, hemlock, yellow birch, and some scattered black gum and larch.
Black spruce is common to the north up to tree line in the White
Mountains and in the boreal forest but it is only found in swamps around
here. White pine and hemlock can be found in swamps that were too wet to
harvest. Black gum is a southern tree and is very rare in New England;
only found in swamps here. There has been some very old black gum trees
discovered. Along the Black Gum Trail in Maynard Miller Municipal Forest
in Vernon, VT (extreme SE VT) there are some magnificent black gum trees
more than 400 years old. Apparently established 3,000 - 5,000 years ago
when the region's climate was far warmer these trees have managed to
adapt to a colder climate. (global warming back then?) The gum trees on
the Templeton lot aren't very big, ranging up to 10" DBH. Larch is a
component of the boreal forest to the north and is extremely rare here
in southern New England, but I found some here ranging up to 16" DBH.
Managing swamps is very difficult because the ground has to be very
frozen or very dry (from drought) for heavy logging machinery to
operate. I am praying that we can get some more cold weather this winter
before the next snowstorm because if you get deep snow first it will act
as an insulating blanket which will limit the freezing of the soil. I
marked about a 1/3 of the swamp for a thinning. Again it was mostly red
maple I marked. Some of the quality of the red maple is pretty good but
since the market is so poor and trucking costs are so high, it will go
into the firewood pile. The big danger in thinning swamps is increasing
the chance of windthrow in the residual stand. I'd be more concerned if
it was a pure white pine or spruce stand but I'm not concerned with this
mixed stand especially since I'm thinning from below (taking out 1/3 -
1/2 of the volume) and it's mostly red maple that will be cut. One of
the benefits to the landowner will be to have easier access to this
diverse swamp.

Well I'm off to the next one: an interesting 150 acre lot in Ashburnham
that has a significant spruce/fir component mixed with white pine,
hardwoods that was unfortunately high-graded 15 years ago. Now I get the
great job of marking and selling all the garbage that was left behind.
Question: how can BOF approve a high-grade on a lot that had a Ch.61
Forest Management Plan? I'm still waiting for an answer from the forest
bureaucrats.
There is no question that the hardest forestry job in the country is
being a consulting forester managing small woodlots especially working
under such a corrupt and crooked system.

Mike Leonard, Consulting Forester
http://www.northquabbinforestry.com   

== 2 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 4:26 am
From: "Gary A. Beluzo"


Mike,

I appreciate the level of consideration and effort you give to
managing these forests. You, and the late inimitable Karl Davies, are
in a class by yourselves. Keep the faith.

Gary

== 3 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 6:29 am
From: Ariel


It's really quite sad that a state forestry organization is doing such a poor job with the resource they are charged with managing. I can only speak for my own organization in PA, but rest assured that not all state forestry programs are managed that way.

In my district, you can SEE which are the state forest managed lands. Our management sticks out clearly amid the serially high-graded private forests. In my 10 years here, I've seen exactly ONE stand that was harvested properly by a consulting forester (and it was gorgeous, BTW), anything else that wasn't butchered was done by a state employed forester.

I wish we had more dedicated consulting foresters like you. In central PA at least, the 'consultants' are generally loggers who get themselves fancy business cards printed up (there is no licensing of foresters in PA so anyone can call themselves one). I'm the service forester here and I keep a list of consultants that I can vouch for (in regards to training at least) but there is such a culture of 'calling the logger in' first that most landowners don't even think to contact me. Sadly, even the ones who do can't always find a consultant willing to help them. Small lots don't pay much in returns and if a consultant has to choose between spending his time on a 400 acre lot or a 35 acre one, you can guess which gets his time.

A large part of my time is spent educating the public that there are better ways to manage forests than just calling the logger when it looks like there's something there to sell. I've made a LOT of progress in 10 years, but it would have been a lot easier if I had conscientious consulting foresters like yourself that I could refer landowners to.

Lin

== 4 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 10:15 am
From: dbhguru


Mike,

Hang in there. We're rooting for you, Joe, Michele, Russ, and other private consultants who are trying to do it right against great odds.

Bob

== 5 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 10:29 am
From: dbhguru


Lin,

Keep up the good work. It is obvious to me that when a valid forester licensing process has not been put into place, the result is loggers acting as foresters, and we know that just doesn't work. What has been amazing to me is how unwilling the forestry establishment has been to publicly acknowledge this sad state of affairs. In part I blame organizations like SAF (with exceptions duly noted) for pretending these problems don't exist or rhetorically dancing around them.

Bob

== 6 of 6 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 11:14 am
From: ForestRuss@aol.com


Lin:

In just the past day I had a long and lengthy discussion with a forester
about the state of our forests in this part of the world. I cannot go into much
detail about the nature of the discussion but one thing came out loud and
clear. The forester I spoke with and myself are at polar opposites in terms of
highgrading. The other forester wants to place all the blame related to
high grading on greedy shortsighted landowners. I choose to believe that the
forestry profession and more specifically, foresters are to blame for the
rampant highgrading witnessed all over the country.

In forestry school we had many more courses on economics than ethics and we
learned that information is a foresters' stock in trade and depending upon
who butters your bread, foresters are supposed to ethically bound to their
employer. The greatest fault I find with the premise is that an "environmental
ethic" might be regularly debated but it seems to be assumed that everyone is
born with an equal sufficient amount of environmental ethics.

The environmental ethic foresters often speak of is unfortunately all talk
and no walk.

That is why groups like ENTS are so important....

Russ