OUR
COMMENTS - JULY, 1999
My comments this month have a philosophical slant that might best be titled "Tree Farms, Woodlots, and Timberland Owners". Visitors to these web pages should already be aware of our intentions for First Mountain Forest and recognize that our most important objective is to preserve our mountain forest as an open wild land free of development, while also enjoying use of the land during our life-times.
Many similar tracts of forest land in New Hampshire are referred to by their owners as tree farms, woodlots, or timberland. I have independently studied forestry, read numerous guides to managing timberlands and tree farms, and even attended a "Granite State Woodlot and Wildlife Management Course". Still, I have resisted using any of the above terms to describe our own forest land. I call our land the First Mountain Forest, recognizing that it is a relatively small tract of woodland, but can never think of it as a woodlot, a tree farm, or a timberland. I find those terms too confining and they seem to me to be much too limited in describing our land with its steep mountain cliffs, spring fed streams, moose inhabited wetlands, and hemlock covered deer yard.
The national Tree Farm program has influenced many forest land owners nationwide to manage their lands responsibly, and the New Hampshire Timberland Owner's Association (NHTOA) has also achieved a similar success in their state. Yet, while I support their efforts and wholeheartedly agree with most of their tenets, I have not joined either organization and likely will not do so. The primary focus of most woodlot owners, Tree Farm participants, and NHTOA members is to grow trees for harvesting. There is nothing wrong with harvesting trees, providing the harvesting is accomplished using best management practices, and lands growing trees for commercial harvesting can also be managed to aid wildlife.
Many private owners have now adopted the multiple use doctrine of the U.S. Forest Service and manage their timberlands for timber, wildlife, recreation, and esthetics. Most of those owners accommodate wildlife needs and esthetics where possible, but it is still only an accommodation and the primary focus is to produce the most marketable trees for harvesting at a point in their growth cycle when they generate the greatest financial return to the owner. That point is usually when the tree has reached its maximum growth rate and when future growth falls below the level of current interest rates. That may well be when an individual tree has reached an age of only 60 to 80 years, yet unharvested the tree might reach its full maturity a century or more later.
For this reason, most of our forest land today is comprised of very young trees and the only "old growth" forests remaining are pockets of land preserved by public agencies and a few overlooked and inaccessible tracts. Very little of our nation's forest land is allowed to follow a natural progression of succession where trees die of old age and return as nutrients to the soil from whence they came. In today's world such a natural progression is considered a waste of resources, and only time will tell whether the disruption of the natural cycles will have severe consequences on our environment.
We are members of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, which does harvest timber on many of its protected parcels and also allows harvesting on its easement lands. However, the Society uses the proceeds from those harvests to protect those very same forest lands from development, and to fully protect additional tracts with wildlife or other values from development or harvesting disturbance.
There are also now many private forest land owners like ourselves, whose primary focus is to maintain a healthy forest ecosystem rather than for the production of timber for harvest. We are lucky that we can also afford to do so and not have to rely upon our land for a financial return. We encourage other land owners to follow our steps, but also respect the forest owners who need to receive an income from their property, and harvest the trees on their land while insuring the protection of the forest and wildlife habitats through good management practices.
Larry
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