Studies show that only 15 to 20 percent of private owners seek professional assistance when making decisions about their forests. Photo: {inercia} via Flickr
By LAUREN WALKER
LANSING –Access to forest education and management assistance is one of the biggest hurdles for private forest owners, experts say.
Privately owned forests account for nearly 65 percent of the state’s 19 million acres of forest land, according to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Non-industrial owners have 8.4 million of them.
Lauri Elbing, a policy associate for the Nature Conservancy, said most non-industrial owners list recreation and aesthetics as their main interests and that most owners manage their property to meet those goals.
However, that approach often results in owners applying no forest management at all, or only responding to pests, diseases and invasive species – often after the damage has been done.
She said that such poor forest management decisions result from a lack of access and knowledge about technical assistance.
Rick Lucas, district forester for the Osceola-Lake Conservation District in Reed City, said technical assistance programs from DNR, U.S. Department of Agriculture, county conservation districts and private consultants often receive low legislative priority and are victims of budget cuts.
He added that cooperation among these agencies, special interest groups and the forest industry is necessary to make technical aid readily available.
“What’s lacking out there is a spearheaded effort to point everybody in the same direction, to pique their interests in the value of being an active decision-maker for their property,” he said.
He said studies show that only 15 to 20 percent of private owners seek professional assistance when making decisions about their forests. The rest contribute to some of the greatest dangers to private forest health.
“Doing nothing on your property can be a real threat in that you’re not recognizing insect and disease potentials, invasive plants and other threats that we’re very concerned about,” he said.
The president of the Michigan Forest Association, Collin Burnett of Parma, said that some owner inaction is due to misinformation.
“There’s a lot of inaccuracies, particularly in our younger school system, that works against us very badly. Frequently kids are taught that it’s not good to cut a tree, and basically it depends on the whole complex interaction of a forest,” he said.
He said that effective land management tries to mimic the ways nature manages forests on its own. For example, the survival of some species that many forest owners desire, such as oak and walnut, require the removal of old growth, which nature does through natural disasters and fire.
Bill Botti, executive director of the Forest Association, said lack of thinning – failure to remove old growth – is a big problem because it creates crowded conditions that prevent quality trees and plants from growing.
A related problem is the lack of markets for thinned-out trees and plants in Michigan, he said.
“In some parts of the country where there’s a market for biomass fuel, the material can be thinned out and sold, but in most places in Michigan we don’t have that kind of market and so the woods are overcrowded,” he said.
Burnett, who owns about 400 acres of forested land, said priority should go to owners who lack experience managing a forest.
The range of private owners goes from people who are expert forest managers with an understanding of what’s going on in the ecology of the forest to brand-new owners, he said.
“Our problem is getting the relatively uneducated folks educated to the point where they have a concept of what’s going on in the forest,” he said.
Burnett advises new forest owners “to make it their business to learn about forestry and how forests work.”
“The wise thing to do would be to learn first,” he said.
I’m not against forest management, but I not all forests are not the same and they shouldn’t all be treated or managed the same (translated: not all of Michigan forests are aspen just waiting to be clearcut). Yes, it does make sense to cut in some forests, but not all, and there are lots of different kinds of cutting that can be great in the appropriate place and for appropriate reasons (forest type, land use, etc). But to say generally that “cutting (all) forests” is going to be better for wildlife or make the forest healthier, or that “old growth forests provide great birding cover (whatever that means) but little else,” is not true and unsubstantiated. Deer don’t need help increasing their numbers. We have more deer now than we ever have in the State of Michigan because we have increased suitable habitat and we harvest a quarter of the population a year and they are still thriving. Those three species that you mentioned are *common*, and they are not the only animals that are important or for which our forests should be solely managed for. There are other important considerations out there too, including carbon storage, biodiversity, ecosystem health, songbirds, threatened and endangered species, to just name a few.
Work with county or state foresters, not private companies, when deciding what to cut. Cutting IS essential to healthy forests! Old growth forests provide great birding cover, but little else, for wildlife. Small clear cuts and extensive select cuts done under the advice of professional foresters will get you far more deer, ruffed grouse, wild turkeys and other wonderful species.
There is a difference between drier forests that burn, and moist forests that typically do not. Thinning does make sense in some forests that burn (but not all, and some pine forests that are old growth do just fine – Hartwick Pines is pretty amazing). But this isn’t the great wide open west here. While we do have some areas with pine forests, we don’t have millions of acres of Ponderosa or slash pine infested with invasive pine beetles like they do out west. (See this article:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:z61_qqbzRlEJ:e360.yale.edu/feature/whats_killing_the_great_forests_of_the_american_west/2252/+pine+forests+die+off+invasive+species&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com).
Many of our forests self-thin themselves and don’t need people to come in and decide which one stays and which one goes, and when that happens in a normally functioning forest left to its own devices, those trees become habitat, burn up , or decay, providing important nutrients to soils.
Leaving old growth in a forst is not a bad thing. “The thinning” that is being referred to in this article most often means “high grading,” which is taking the most mature, best-formed trees with the best genetics (and removing the chance that they can produce more high quality genetically superior fruit). This “thinning,” often results in a hackjob patchwork checkerboard of forests with horribly formed trees. Often, these private landowners are not aware of what they have and get “taken” by these companies, which take more trees than they say they will or admit to. In other words, many private landowners that do highgrading *get HAD* – they don’t know any better and they are losing money on it. And the forest that they are left with is in worse shape, where many of the understory trees are damaged by the process of modern thinning with heavy machinery, setting up the next forests for mediocrity.
Thinning forests that would be dense and shaded like maple forests also causes the forest floor to “dry up.” Mature shaded maple forests to be fairly dark and moist – the moisture is important for the trees, for the forest floor, the plants that live there. Opening them up doesn’t create more or better habitat for sugar maple, and it doesn’t “increase the health of the forest.” Have you ever seen an old grown maple forest?? Ever heard of “birds eye maple??” It’s one of the most sought after wood products out there – and it’s OLD GROWTH. Yes, there are still old growth maple woods out there, MANY HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD. Go educate yourselves people.
Sure you can selectively cut diseased trees or invasive species, but where is the evidence that thinning the forest actually reduces this chance? When you cut diseased and dead trees or trees with invasives, do you think these companies are employing best management practices to reduce the chance of transmission of these pests and diseases? No. Do they sterilize their chains and trucks in between cutting stands with EAB and stands with beech bark disease? No! Do they keep all cut materials onsite? No! They take them somewhere else (like the wetland by my house) and dump them, so they help move the diseases and pests around. They just go to the next stand and further transmit them. They probably help their own case actually – by helping these diseases along to increase the chance they will have more work to do soon.
Lastly, more continuous forests (less patchy) are less likely to be damaged from windthrow – like when we do get big storms every so often with epic high qinds and downbursts – those forests that have been opened up are more exposed and vulnerable. They are also less likely to be invaded by nasty invasive species. The old mature trees (standing and downed) also provide very important habitat services for wildlife.
Unfortunately, some of the most mismanaged forests are the result of so-called “professional” advice. Look at how our state forest land is managed. Google Earth reveals checkerboard clear cuts in several state forests, including the one northwest of Oscoda. A patchwork of square, 10-acre clearcuts mars the landscape. This checkerboard pattern in no way mimics a natural process, and it truly opens up interior forest to invasive species, cowbirds and a whole host of other problems.