Fighting words

Greetings.

War has been declared over Maine’s forests and those who are not careful are going to be dragged into it, revisiting arguments of the past two years and accomplishing little. With an informative report on timber supply just released, now is the time, as Churchill might say, for jaw-jaw rather than war-war.

Who started this war — as with so many wars — is a matter of dispute, but it does not really matter. The Forest Ecology Network last week called for “armed resistence” against the paper industry’s “war on [the] forest.” FEN’s announcement, it made clear, wasn’t to be taken literally, but the tone adds one more barrier to a path already heavy with obstacles.

One of the biggest is the lingering resentments among the people who eat and breathe forestry regulation. The Ban Clearcutting folks still seem unhappy with the fact that some environmentalists sided with industry on the Compact for Maine’s Forests. Compact supporters are still angry that the Ban Clearcutting supporters helped kill the compact, setting up further defeat in the next legislative session. Industry is frustrated by the annual attacks on its business. And property-rights advocates seem distrustful of the entire debate for a variety of reasons, including lack of inclusion and respect during the last two campaigns.

These factions can carry their grudges to the next Legislature and relive the clear-cutting debate or Maine can accept that the argument so far has been less than ideal and vow to improve it. One of the ways to do that is to use the new Timber Supply Outlook for Maine, produced by the Department of Conservation, as a starting point.

The report is blunt: Current cutting practices are not sustainable. But it is also hopeful: Landowners have a wide range of options available to increase yield. The primary way to do that, the report says, is through improving the quality of partial cuts, a recommendation that all sides should be able to support.

After that, lesser measures for getting more wood from an acre of forest include plantation planting, herbicide use and pre-commercial thinning of trees. The first two of these are going to be matters of intense dispute — a recent report on Champion’s decision to increase the use of these techniques is what prompted FEN to prepare for war.

Having a lively, informative debate over the effects of increased plantation plantings and increased herbicide use would be beneficial to all sides. But it doesn’t have to be a war. It could be an education.