069OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we 33 news items from: Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Texas, Minnesota, Louisiana, Ohio, New England, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Canada, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Panama, Brazil, Solomon Islands, India, Philippines and Indonesia.

Alaska:

1) Anywhere else on Earth, Berners Bay would be recognized as a national treasure. The severe wall of Lion’s Head dominates the north, a sharp ridgeline closes in the east and the turbulent Chilkat Mountains tear up the western horizon. The waters erupt every spring in a food-web-wide celebration of hooligan, herring, gulls, eagles, seals, sea lions and humpback whales. Native Alaskan ancestral burial grounds lie in the forest. Moose hunters explore the Antler and Lace Rivers. The bay offers excellent fishing opportunities, including a steelhead run close to Juneau. Kayakers and boaters camp out in secluded coves. And we are going to build a highway through it. Many of us live here because we value the wild character of Southeast Alaska and places such as Berners Bay. Unroaded nature is integral to our quality of life and we treasure the prosperity it provides: habitat for game hunting and wildlife viewing; salmon spawning grounds that support commercial, sport and subsistence fishing; ecosystems that give us clean air, water and food for gathering; scenery which attracts tourists who support our businesses; serene places where we get away from it all; waters and mountains that allow us to challenge ourselves; wild places where we bond with family and friends on backpacking, boating, flying, kayaking, skiing or snowmobiling trips. For us, and for the millions who dream of visiting, Alaska is the last place to embrace the wilderness experience that defined the rugged, independent and reliable American character. The Juneau access road will spawn development and additional roads on the private and corporate lands of Berners Bay and beyond. As for the state and federal lands, the road is known as “The Road to Resources.” It will facilitate the exportation of logs and minerals. This will foster new rounds of roading roadless areas to log old-growth forests and to extract hard-rock minerals. Most Americans dream of visiting the wild Alaska of Berners Bay. It would be a travesty if we too had to dream of someday traveling far away to appreciate wild Alaska. Note: The Department of Transportation is accepting comments on the final Juneau Access study through March 13. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/022206/opi_20060222052.shtml

British Columbia:

2) This bulletin is about the new approach to public consultation under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). Everyone – forest companies, the public and government – has a role in ensuring that public review and comment is effective. FRPA took effect in 2004, but most forest companies are continuing to operate with forest development plans approved under the previous Forest Practices Code. That will end in the next year or so as those companies switch to forest stewardship plans approved under FRPA. The new consultation process will come into effect as these plans are prepared in the coming months. Forest stewardship plans must be available for public review and government approval. Unlike forest development plans, forest stewardship plans do not have to include a map of proposed cutblocks and roads. A forest stewardship plan can simply identify one large area in which logging may occur over the next five years. In other words, instead of responding to specific logging proposals in a forest stewardship plan, the public will have to identify all of its concerns for the entire area of potential development, which can be quite large – over 300,000 hectares in many of the plans submitted so far. Whether public concerns about specific forest activities are resolved is now a matter of negotiation between the public and the forest companies. That means more work for the public in dealing directly with forest companies, with no recourse to government. Under FRPA, it is up to ndividual British Columbians to ensure that their concerns, as expressed in the forest stewardship plan review and comment procedure, are eventually and adequately accommodated on-the-ground. It is too early to tell whether the public will be content with these reduced consultation provisions. Effective consultation is dependent on the efforts and relationships of the individuals involved. Members of the public must now make their own efforts to stay informed, must focus their comments on substantial matters of influence to forest planning, and must follow-up with forest companies at the site plan stage to ensure that provided input has been satisfactorily addressed. –Forest Practices Board Bulletin, Volume 7

Washington:

3) But foresters and biologists alike agree that new state rules governing logging roads are paying dividends for fish and reducing road maintenance costs at the same time. Since 2001, a logging road improvement program, which is part of the state Forests & Fish law regulated by DNR, has required forestland owners to inventory their roads and repair the ones that are prone to failure and send sediment into streams. They have until mid-2006 to complete the inventories and until 2016 to finish the work. Green Diamond, formerly known as Simpson Timber Co., has completed an inventory of its 3,000 miles of logging roads and made significant progress in remedying its worst roads across its 320,000 acres in Thurston, Mason, Grays Harbor, Lewis and Pacific counties. “Green Diamond’s right up there, going the extra mile,” said Don Nauer, a biologist working on Forests & Fish for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Overall, the inventory of private industry and DNR logging roads is nearly complete, and the 2016 deadline could be reached, Graves said. What happened this winter is a case in point of progress on the ground. Over a 35-day period spanning December and January, 36 inches to 45 inches of rain dumped on Green Diamond forestlands, noted Keith Simmons, Green Diamond manager of harvest planning and engineering. “We could have seen $200,000 of damage to logging roads,” he said of the onslaught of rain. Due largely to the road upgrades, the damage was limited to $30,000, and most of that was from two landslides that had nothing to do with old road construction, he said. Green Diamond road builder Frank Schmidt uses an excavator, rather than a bulldozer, these days to carve new roads out of the forest. It means less disturbance of the soil and a construction path than follows the natural terrain. “We’re moving the minimum amount of material as possible,” Simmons said. “Our job is to minimize the human footprint.” Schmidt uses the excavator bucket to pluck stumps out of the 12-foot-wide path of the road and smooth the roadway of mounded dirt and woody debris. “Oftentimes, the conservation values of the road improvement work have maintenance benefits, too,” Simmons said. The Road Maintenance and Abandonment Program called for in Forests & Fish is paying off in water quality and fish habitat benefits almost overnight, Nauer said. “It’s been the number one success story of Forests & Fish,” he said. http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060220/NEWS05/60220012&SearchID=73236573158760

Oregon:

4) GRANTS PASS – A federal judge has dismissed a legal challenge to logging trees in roadless areas killed by the 2002 Biscuit Fire, but it remains questionable whether timber companies will want to buy burned trees rotting on the stump for nearly four years. Following the recommendations of a magistrate, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan in Eugene on Tuesday dismissed consolidated lawsuits that challenged logging in old growth forest reserves and roadless areas on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. U.S. Magistrate John Cooney in Medford had recommended dismissal last July after rejecting all the claims of environmental groups that the Forest Service had failed to adequately protect old growth forest reserves, roadless areas and fish habitat from the harm caused by intensive logging. Environmentalists and many scientists argue that roadless areas offer a prime source of clean water and the best habitat for fish and wildlife. After a wildfire, they say, large dead trees offer valuable habitat and a legacy for new forests. Companies were offered sales in old growth reserves, designated primarily for fish and wildlife habitat, and matrix areas, designated for timber harvest. At last estimate, the Forest Service figured about 67 million board feet of roadless timber remained sound enough for sale. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/02/23/e2.or.biscuitfire.0223.p1.php?section=nation_world

5) MEDFORD — Oregon State University researcher Dan Donato faced the heat of a congressional hearing Friday, defending his research as well as his ethics in connection with a controversial study on post-wildfire logging. At the nearly four-hour hearing in Medford City Hall, U.S. House members met with forest experts, including scientists from OSU, to discuss proposed forest legislation, conflicting research on logging, and the relationship between science and policy. Eleven people testified before members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. It was standing-room only, with those in attendance widely divided on salvage logging and the recent study by Donato and a team of researchers that brought academic freedom, research integrity and the peer review process into the media spotlight. Some in attendance wore green ribbons, indicating solidarity with the timber industry and post-fire logging advocates. Others sported pins reading “Support Science Not Special Interest,” or held signs proclaiming “Science Not $cience.” U.S. Rep. Greg Walden chairs the subcommittee. The Oregon Republican scheduled Friday’s field hearing at the request of New Mexico Rep. Tom Udall, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. Last fall, Walden, along with Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., introduced the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, legislation that proposes pre-approved forest management plans to speed responses — sometimes logging — to wildfires and other natural disasters.
“We’ve observed that more research is needed on post-fire management,” Walden said, asking the experts for their opinions on the effects of salvage logging on burned areas, and the best timeline for post-catastrophe logging. Several witnesses, including Stephen Hobbs, chairman of the Oregon Board of Forestry and executive associate dean of OSU’s College of Forestry, and Hal Salwasser, dean of OSU’s College of Forestry, testified that forest management legislation also must provide consistent funding for long-term research and forest maintenance. They also called for more partnerships between government agencies and universities to assemble teams dedicated to forest research, outreach and education. The experts didn’t all agree on the best forest practices after wildfires. Some advocated leaving the land alone to regenerate on its own, while others supported salvage logging. Selective salvage logging, and logging combined with replanting also drew proponents. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., criticized the bill introduced by Walden, Baird and Herseth, saying it will take science out of forestry decisions by rushing responses to fires and other disasters. He also questioned the level of funding. http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/02/25/news/community/sat02.txt

California:

6) WASHINGTON – California contractors that hire Latino forest workers will face increased scrutiny this spring as part of an intensified campaign to crack down on abuses, Labor Department officials said Wednesday. Officials working out of Sacramento plan to conduct 10 to 15 “directed investigations” targeting forest contractors throughout the state. The complex and time-consuming investigations are prompted by industry-wide problems rather than complaints filed about specific contractors. “Forestry investigations are some of the most complicated investigations that we have,” David Minsky, chief of staff for the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, said at a Capitol Hill briefing. “The workers tend to be fearful of government, and we don’t get many complaints from them.” Beneath the surface, though, the problems are manifold for the workers called pineros – men of the pines. Shabby housing, dangerous work conditions, low pay and fatally bad transportation bedevil the roughly 10,000 Latino forest workers employed under the H2B visa program. The Labor Department began quietly planning its new “directed investigation” of the industry in April, Minsky said at the briefing for congressional staffers. But officials acknowledged Wednesday that the 90-minute briefing itself, as well as some of the other agency and congressional efforts now under way, come in response to a Bee investigation published in November.

7) The discussion was sparked by a proposed $17,000 fine faced by John Fitzhenry of Dollar Point, who TRPA officials said admitted to poisoning three trees and removing live limbs from another to improve the view from his north Tahoe home. Fitzhenry admitted to drilling holes in the base of the three 40- to 50-foot tall Jeffrey pines and applying herbicide, officials said. The trees are in a failing state. “The punishment should fit the crime, and in this case, it’s a very egregious act,” said Julie Motamedi, a California governor appointee to the TRPA governing board. The board delayed any decision until after the penalty process is examined in a workshop next month. Agency officials earlier proposed fining Fitzhenry $5,000 for each of the trees poisoned and $2,000 for illegal removal of limbs from the fourth tree, with the amounts based on standard assessments for violations of TRPA rules. But some agency governors said the proposed fine was insufficient and should be at least doubled to $34,000, a move they said agency rules allow for particularly egregious violations. “This is not inadvertence or simple negligence. It was willful. It was near criminal,” said Jerome Waldie, a former congressman who serves as the California Senate’s TRPA appointee. Michael Donahoe of the Tahoe chapter of the Sierra Club argued that many wealthy Tahoe residents could view fines faced for removing or thinning trees as “chump change.” Environmentalists told land-use regulators that fines imposed on Lake Tahoe landowners who illegally remove trees to enhance views amount to “chump change” too small to serve as a deterrent. Some governors of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency agreed Wednesday the fines may need to be increased to be effective and called for re-examination of the agency’s policy. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060223-1356-nv-laketahoe-fines.html

Idaho:

8) If you want to locate the best fishing in our national forests, find the logging roads; then go somewhere else. Roads are mortality sinks for all manner of fish and wildlife. They fragment habitat; they cause landslides; they block fish migration with their frequently impassible culverts; they serve as delivery systems for silt that bleeds off clearcuts; they provide conduits for invasions of cowbirds and invasive exotic plants. Consider Deer Creek in Idaho’s Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Because it is in part of the forest that, until recently, was officially roadless. So pristine was Deer Creek that, in August 2003, a Forest Service survey crew determined that it should be used as the standard of excellence, “a reference area for comparison to streams impacted by various land uses.” That recommendation certainly is in keeping with the Forest Service’s stated “fish mission” for the 150,000 stream miles and 2.5 million lake acres we’ve entrusted it with: “World-class fishing depends on world-class habitats, and the US Forest Service together with other federal, state and local partners, is working hard to protect, restore and enhance your streams and lakes.” Well, not really. Deer Creek, along with other pristine trout streams in the Sage Creek Roadless Area, had been protected by President Clinton’s roadless rule. Last August-two months after the Bush administration rescinded that rule-Deer Creek became the first victim of the administration’s substitute, which relies on “local control” for roadless-area management. In Idaho, dominated by timber and mining interests and with more roadless national forestland than any state other than Alaska, that’s like asking two racoons and a hen to vote on what to have for lunch. A major road was punched into the Deer Creek watershed for the benefit of J.R. Simplot Company, which will now drill 25 exploration holes and, if it finds the phosphate its geologists say is there, will expand its open-pit strip mine for another 6.5 miles-through the Deer Creek drainage and the drainages of Manning, Wells Canyon, and upper Crow creeks, all prime cutthroat habitat. “The Sage Creek Roadless Area, which protected the headwaters of what I consider some of the best cutthroat trout streams in the state, is no longer a roadless area,” laments Pete Zimowsky in The Idaho Statesman. he story starts in the late 1990’s when a young, utterly aberrant bureaucrat was running the US Forest Service. His background was not in timber extraction but in fishing, guiding, teaching and fisheries biology. His name was Michael Dombeck, and he understood what no chief before or since has understood-that the most valuable resource produced by our national forests is water. Dombeck also understood that the best of that water comes from the healthiest woods, woods undefiled by roads, and that there aren’t a lot of that kind left. http://www.flyrodreel.com/index.php/page/issues/sku/FRR2006_04/id/19084

Texas:

9) Ray Lott, president of Ray Lott & Associates Inc., is a forestry consultant—a job unfamiliar to most people.“When I tell people what I do, I very often get quizzical expressions” he said. “Just an average person on the street equates being a forester with being a forest ranger, which really only exists on TV, or a guy that sits in a fire tower or a guy that buys timber. Forest management, and certainly forestry consulting, is not understood at all by the public at large. However, forestry probably represents the largest single faction of our area economy.” Lott can identify with people who don’t understand his career. “In high school I had never heard of a forester and didn’t know there was such a thing as forestry until a counselor told me about it,” he said. Lott manages timberland as large as thousands of acres down to tens of acres. It is a responsibility that can last a lifetime. When he received his degree in 1965, Lott had mastered such aspects of his future career as surveying, dendrology (the study of identifying tree species), studies of soils and courses in sylvaculture (science of growing trees). He learned about all the things that affect the growth of trees. He also studied timber cruising, or mensuration. He explained, “Mensuration is a statistical study of populations by sampling. You take random samples through a timber population in the woods. You take that sample and expand it to fit the whole area, and you are able to tell what is on that property.” He explained that a Gallup Poll is the same thing, except that it takes opinions from people instead of samples from trees. http://www.texarkanagazette.com/articles/2006/02/23/local_news/features/features07.txt

Minnesota:

10) In a surprise move, Gunflint District Ranger Dennis Neitzke approved both proposed routes for the South Fowl Lake Snowmobile Access with one caveat. The approval extends to one route at a time. First, the shorter Northern Route, which was recommended by snowmobliers but opposed by environmentalists, who claim it is too close to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and will cause environmental degradation if built, will be constructed. But, and this is a big but, if four sets of criteria are not met when the trail comes into use, then the Northern Route will be obliterated and replaced by the longer Southern Route, Neitzke said. The criteria? The Northern Route will be closed if: 1) ATVs and other off-road vehicles use it 2) snowmobiles make incursions into the BWCAW from the new trail 3) over-use resulting in resource damage and/or excessive interaction between snowmobiles 4) the state, county and Forest Service decide to construct connecting trails from Grand Portage to the McFarland or South Fowl Lakes area. In the 88-page report, which will be mailed to the more than 540 people who commented on the proposal and is available to the public, Neitzke outlines the history of the area and considers the alternatives in detail. Maps and photographs are liberally sprinkled throughout. “There are really good reasons for everybody to get along on this one — to keep a quiet little trail and kind of work together,” he said. http://www.grandmarais-mn.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=215624

Louisiana:

11) Chain saws and logging equipment have inundated the woods in and around the Florida parishes of Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina as landowners try to get what they can for their fallen trees before they lose any more timber to forest fires caused by this year’s dry winter. The Florida parishes alone have lost about 3 billion board feet of both softwood and hardwoods because of Katrina, and on the other side of the state, Hurricane Rita destroyed about 1.2 billion board feet of timber. Combined together, timber losses exceeded $1 billion. “We’ve got several pieces of land and about every five years we cut a piece and that money goes to education, homes and stuff like that,” Macias said. “It’s a huge loss – we estimate we lost about 80 percent of it.” The majority of these landowners attending the meeting were investment foresters who plant trees on their land, manage them and then harvest them in 20 to 30 years. Others are traders, or the more active foresters, who have multiple tracts of land like Macias who spend most of their time managing and overseeing their stands. According to Paul Spiller, a Monroe-area tax attorney, the more active types of foresters are likely to see more tax relief from the federal government. He said smaller landowners who suffered losses are eligible for some financial assistance or tax provisions as a result of the hurricanes, but it would be limited. “Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot in the tax laws that’s going to compensate them for all these losses,” Spiller said. “However, there are some extremely important tax provisions that if the landowner will take advantage of, even if it would not fully compensate him for his losses, it might be a large step in the right direction.” In the meantime, state Forester Paul Frey said the state’s mills are doing everything they can to take on the huge amounts of extra timber, but the real threat to landowners remains fallen timber rotting on the ground. Frey said the industry and state officials hope to recover 40 percent of the state’s fallen timber. However, he said if they recover 30 percent of it, he’ll be happy. http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060225/BUSINESS01/602250339/1046

Ohio:

12) Next month, supporters of the forest advocacy group the Buckeye Forest Council will have a chance to recognize a woman who’s been involved with the organization for more than a decade. Susan Heitker started as a volunteer and ended up as BFC’s director by 2002. The group was started in Columbus in the early 1990s by Joe Hazelbaker, then a student and now an Athens attorney. After having moved to Athens shortly after its inception, it has now returned its headquarters to Columbus. Heitker, now 33, is relocating to New England. Heitker was an Ohio University geology student when she started as a volunteer for the BFC in fall of 1995. At the time, she recalled, environmental protection was “kind of a side interest” for her, but one that grew in importance as she worked with the group, and she graduated to a staff position by 1998. Over the years, Heitker was involved in various campaigns by the BFC to stop logging and resource extraction on state and federal forests, and block coal mining under Dysart Woods, an old-growth forest that OU owns in Belmont County. Undoubtedly her highest-profile moment was in fall 2001 when she and two other activists staged a tree-sit protest in an attempt to block a 292-acre logging project in Zaleski State Forest. The three protesters mounted platforms that were set up so they blocked an access road, and that if tampered with, might collapse and injure or kill the protesters. After a week, Heitker and fellow activist Matt Glass were arrested when they voluntarily descended from their perches. (The third person had already left the area without being identified.) As loggers were preparing to cut a new road, the demonstrators said they came down to avoid any more damage to the forest. Heitker paid a fine and served a month in jail, while Glass served a week. Carol Kuhre, founder and former director of the non-profit Rural Action, said she remembers Heitker from her days as a VISTA with that group in the early 1990s. “She was just a quiet little woman who showed up every day and did grant research,” Kuhre said. “Kind of studious, and very unassuming. I had no idea the fire was in her belly.” http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=23510

New England:

13) Between 1997 and 2002 in Maine, employment in the forest industry fell by 23 percent, with a loss of more than 5,000 jobs. The prognosis for New England’s outlying counties, which once lived off the fat of the forest, is not favorable: one in four residents in Maine’s Somerset County and one in five in Washington County now live in poverty. Communities at the fringe of New England’s timberlands are fraying. What’s more, across the region land is being carved up and sold off, which some see as a dagger in the heart of the old economy. Investment trusts and wealthy families have acquired their own fiefdoms — the new owners are locally called “kingdom buyers” — and longtime timberland owners are getting out of the tree business. Nearly one acre in four in Maine has changed hands in the past decade. Nationwide, about 30 million acres, or half the private industrial forestland, has been sold since 1996. So where does the timberland economy go from here? Increasingly, communities are reclaiming their working woods, with residents and towns banding together to purchase tracts for two purposes: to protect the land and to bolster the local economy. In some cases, the land is set aside specifically for low-income residents. As sustainable forestry advocate David Brynn puts it, “Something interesting is happening in New England.” When a 115-acre hillside forest came up for sale in rural western Vermont last year, about 60 potential buyers showed up at three different sales events to learn how they could get a piece of it. The clamor for the land was no surprise — the parcel, on Little Hogback Mountain, is home to stands of lovely red oaks, along with beech and maple, and has a footpath that winds up to a rocky outcropping with valley views. And it came on the market amid a small land rush, with real-estate prices soaring locally, as they have elsewhere in New England. What’s surprising about the everyday event is this: those interested parties were exploring the idea of buying the land with others. If all goes as planned, not one but 16 people will end up owning it. Not as individual lots for second homes, but as a communal forest, to be kept undivided and undeveloped. The buyers, each of whom will pay $3,000 for a share, will have access to the land for firewood and recreation. Every 10 to 15 years, a commercial harvest will be carried out, with the proceeds paying forest-management fees and property taxes. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/23/curtis/index.html?source=daily

14) The largest project in the region of late has been the May 2005 purchase of a 27,000-acre community forest by the five-year-old Downeast Lakes Land Trust, in cooperation with the New England Forestry Foundation. The land lies just west of the remote village of Grand Lake Stream, and the buyers are now seeking certification from the Forest Stewardship Council. A 3,560-acre ecological reserve has been set aside within the forest, and 312,000 adjacent acres will be protected by a conservation easement. Hundreds of miles of wild shorefront will be managed for recreation, with the goal of bringing outdoor travelers here to patronize local businesses, including a number of historic sporting lodges. The forest is viewed as an economic engine to keep the community running. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/23/curtis/index.html?source=daily

New Hampshire:

15) Other acquisitions have included the purchase by Randolph, N.H., of a 10,000-acre forest it feared was destined for development. And late last year, a 5,300-acre community forest known as the 13 Mile Woods was purchased by the town of Errol, N.H., with the assistance of the Trust for Public Land. Rural New England, in effect, has become a laboratory for a series of landscape-sized experiments in building new bridges between forests and their communities. “The community forest movement is growing rapidly nationwide,” says Jeffrey Campbell, head of the Ford Foundation’s Community Forestry Initiative. “People are realizing this offers an opportunity for a social and economic benefit.” “Community forestry” is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase. It’s one thing in Mexico, another in Switzerland, another in Nepal. In the United States, it varies from one coast to the other, and on the lands in between. In the Pacific Northwest, where the federal government owns roughly half the land, the phrase often refers to a process in which loggers, environmentalists, and others come together to craft a vision for the management of public lands. In the six New England states, which together could fit inside Washington state, only 5 percent of the land is owned by the federal government. Industrial landowners, investment trusts, schools, towns, and states own and manage the rest. So community forestry means something very different in this patchwork of ownerships, and approaches are as varied as the ecosystems and communities from which they spring. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/23/curtis/index.html?source=daily

Vermont:

16) In Vermont, for instance, it’s estimated that about 120 of the state’s 251 municipalities already own a total of 140 forests. These “town forests” are a New England tradition: In the early 20th century, all six states passed laws allowing the establishment of such forests, which were acquired through donation, purchase, or seizure when tax bills went unpaid. Most were set aside for a combination of recreation and forestry. Few people have paid much attention to these pockets for a half-century or more — local forestry simply fell out of fashion. But that’s been gradually changing, thanks to both rising interest in their economic potential, and — in Vermont — to the Vermont Town Forest Project, a concept that emerged two years ago during a meeting of conservation groups. Jad Daley, campaign director of the Northern Forest Alliance, heads up the town forest project and said he’s hoping it produces “cross-pollination” — showing how communities with existing town forests can benefit, and encouraging those without to consider acquiring them. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/23/curtis/index.html?source=daily

Maryland:

17) SALISBURY — Officials at the Salisbury-Ocean City: Wicomico Regional Airport intend to keep airspace leading to its runways clear of growing trees — whether the property owners who own the land underneath that airspace like it or not. The airport is beginning a once-every-10-years recovery of all the airspace granted to it in 1946, when the rights to the airspace on both ends of its runways was purchased by the federal government in the form of an easement. Airport managers held a public meeting Tuesday to notify nearby landowners and homeowners that the county would be exercising its right to cut down tall trees on the properties in question beginning in 2007. Airport Manager Robert Bryant said the airspace will be made treeless as a safety precaution to give planes enough room to take off and land. The protected airspace rises by 1 foot for every 40 feet traveled away from the end of a runway as far as 3,000 feet, where any trees taller than 75 feet will have to be cut down. “It’s not a popular project, but unfortunately it’s one that’s required by federal law,” Bryant said. “I can’t tell people what they want to hear.” Bryant said the airport will not be required to compensate for the deforestation by planting trees elsewhere in the county because the Forest Conservation Act, which would normally require it, has an exemption for trees cut down in the name of flight safety. http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060223/NEWS01/602230302/1002

Massachusetts:

18) Approximately 40 percent of the 13-acre Belmont Uplands silver maple forest is proposed for removal, a stand that makes up the only forested area of the Alewife Reservation, binding wetland to upland, and providing an ideal environment for plants, animals and birds. Not only will trees be lost, but also many environmental services the trees provide to the fuller reservation and to society. “The Uplands,” once the Hill family’s historic Belmont farm on flat rich land where Lydia Ogilby collected arrowheads and watched geese and pheasants, is a tiny remaining fragment of what was once the “Great Swamp” that stretched from Fresh Pond to the Mystic River. William Brewster, world-renowned ornithologist, observed birds there as a boy, and in doing so established this area as the oldest birding area in the U.S. “The forest now makes a climate and wildlife contribution far beyond the percentage of the total preserved land mass of which it is part. It is essentially a pure stand – very unusual for silver maples, which usually occurs in mixed hardwood stands along active flood plains. As a pure stand, it is unique in this part of the country. There is nothing else like it in anywhere in Eastern Massachusetts. It averages 40 to 50 feet in height, and is fully stocked, rich and dense with trees at 80 to 100 square feet of trees per acre of coverage.” (Charles Katuska, PWS forest specialist) Because the forest is block-shaped, rather than long and narrow, it is especially valuable as habitat and refuge. Forest interior species, such as thrushes, warblers, and flying squirrels thrive in this unique core habitat. Pollutants and added storm-water volume will increase the system’s core burden, adjacent habitat will be lost; and air quality will be diminished. Finally, a unique and regionally significant flood plain forest will be lost forever. http://www2.townonline.com/belmont/opinion/view.bg?articleid=435207&format=&page=2

Tennessee:

19) If you live in the Baileyton area and search the skies over the next week or so, you might spot a military-looking helicopter flying above the hill country and dangling some timber logs on a 100-foot nylon rope. Don’t be alarmed. That helicopter you see is a Boeing Vertol 107 (or BV-107), and though it’s similar to helicopters flown by the Marines and the Air Force, it is in fact a civilian helicopter owned by Columbia Helicopters of Oregon. The logs you see it carrying are parts of poplar, oak, or hickory trees recently cut on about 200 acres located one mile outside Baileyton along Van Hill Road. It’s called “helicopter logging.” It is considered environmentally friendly, because it eliminates the need for building unsightly access roads into forest land to reach cut timber. “You can hardly tell an area’s been logged,” said Terry Porter last Thursday as he watched the helicopter take off for yet another aerial run to get some logs. Porter is the regional timber manager for Indiana Hardwoods, which is overseeing the airlifting of cut logs out of the Baileyton area tract of land. After a little processing on the ground, the logs are transported by truck to either a saw mill in Appalachia, Va.; or to rail cars in Mt. Carmel, then are taken to a plywood mill in Georgia. “Aesthetically, it’s a very attractive way to do it,” said Porter of helicopter logging. Quick-Paced Work It is fast-paced work. This reporter watched the red and white striped helicopter lift off from the ground and fly to one of five sites in surrounding hill country. The helicopter dangled a 100-foot canvas-covered nylon rope below it. Within one minute, the two-man crew and their helicopter disappeared over a ridge. One minute later, they reappeared with three logs dangling from their rope, making sure to fly high enough to clear the tops of trees. One minute later, the first of the three logs was lowered to a clearing in the area, and less than one minute later, the helicopter took off to its next site to retrieve more cut logs. http://www.greene.xtn.net/index.php?table=news&template=news.view.subscriber&newsid=128509