Forestry by the numbers

Referring to the letter by Judy Berk of the Natural Resource Council of Maine on Jan. 8, “Facts about forests,” it goes to show you what happens when non-foresters try to do forestry.

NRCM continues to misquote from a Maine Forest Service report – manipulating numbers from one category and applying them to another – and saying this is seventh-grade math.

The facts show that there has been an increase in the number of trees in Maine – up by 11 percent since 1995, 17 percent since 1990 and 37.5 percent since 1959. The Maine Forest Service inventory released in October shows we have more trees today than we did five years ago. This report counters NRCM’s bitter accusations. It continues to count all the trees that are cut, but only a portion of the trees that are growing – trees that have a diameter width over 4.5 inches. Forestry experts don’t make this sort of mistake.

NRCM thinks if it keeps saying that harvesting is a problem in Maine that somehow it will be true. This is a cheap trick, especially when the director of the Maine Forest Service recently said “there is no crisis in Maine’s woods.”

James L. Robbins

Searsmont