MADISON – Loggers throughout Maine are worried that a law that was intended to curtail liquidation harvesting in the state’s forests will make it difficult for smaller operations to find wood when it takes effect next year.

Ushered through the Legislature by the Department of Conservation, the rule to eliminate liquidation harvesting puts strict limits on land transactions, and many loggers fear that may restrict profitable stumpage.

Liquidation harvesting is the purchase of timberland followed by a harvest that removes most or all commercial value in standing timber without regard to long-term forest-management principals, according to the Legislature.

But if such a law had been in effect when Thomas Dillon of Madison started his business 33 years ago, he said his company never would have grown.

“This is another blow to smaller loggers,” Dillon said. “The state has put an awful lot of people out of business.”

The Natural Resources Council of Maine pushed for the liquidation harvesting law. Diano Circo, North Woods outreach coordinator for the council, said the state is losing a huge percentage of its forests due to liquid harvesting.

And sustainability means keeping land in continual use. Circo said the law outlawing liquidation harvesting ensures a sustainable wood supply.

“There’s nothing wrong with development, but we’re trying to control where the development happens,” Circo said.

That position on sustainable forestry is one some loggers welcome.

Robert Linkletter, one of three family owners of Linkletter & Sons Inc. of Athens, says the liquidation harvesting law will not have much effect on the company. The family plans to keep their land acquisitions through generations.

“We’re trying to keep the land and let the trees grow back,” Linkletter said. “The little logger will get hurt. But most of us buy big pieces of land and it’s going to take us five years to cut it off anyway.”

The Linkletters have owned the logging outfit since 1970, when they started operating sawmills and eventually bought skidders to get wood to the mills.

The company now owns 43,000 acres in Maine and does 80 percent of its operations on that land. The Linkletters try to acquire 5,000 acres a year, in lots from 12,000 acres down to 50. Leased lots and access to bear-hunting rights help them pay the taxes on their land, Linkletter said.

Ambrose Tom McCarthy of Skowhegan, a buyer and seller of land, said the new law will affect not only his business, but people looking to build rural homes.

McCarthy also is concerned that the liquidation harvesting law will prohibit him from subdividing newly harvested land and affect the market for wood.

It is possible the law would push up the price of wood products because less land will be on the market, he said, adding less land means less wood for mills.