Time running out for Maine’s big trees

It’s been more than a year since the alarm sounded about the loss of big trees and old forests in Maine. The good news a year ago was that Maine still had many more big trees and much more ecologically valuable old forest than anyone thought at the time. The bad news was that these old stands, sprinkled throughout Maine’s working forest, were being cut so fast that they would be gone within a few years.

Forests do not have to be scientifically “old growth” in order to provide homes for species that prefer big old trees or big fallen logs on the forest floor. A forest with many big trees 100 or 200 years old will do. These forests are technically not “old growth” but are much older than commercially managed forests today.

Today’s good news. Major forest landowners have helped fund scientists at Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, an independent non-profit environmental research center, to develop a rapid assessment procedure that now allows foresters to quickly and efficiently identify these ecologically valuable old forests. This procedure is called the “late successional index.” With the index, foresters can identify and maintain these stands of trees. This is one of the most important environmental obligations of sustainable forestry – maintaining Maine’s native plants and animals.

Unfortunately, today’s bad news is that the late successional index is ready to go, but no one has yet committed to using it. The index takes less than 30 minutes to use in the field. It can be used at any time of year, even in a winter like this one. The index takes into account the practical time and money constraints faced by landowners.

The clock is ticking down fast for Maine to protect remaining big trees and old forest stands and the species that depend on them. Once these stands are lost it could take more than a century, if ever, for the forest to recover the species that are lost. And that assumes landowners of the future will allow some portion of the forest to reach ages of 100 or 200. It simply makes no sense to lose something that is so easily identified and protect now and that is literally irreplaceable in the next three or four human generations.

It is time for landowners, public and private, to step up to the plate and protect these big trees and old forests. Protecting, even enhancing the amount of old forests in Maine is a key part of sustainable forestry, which virtually all large landowners espouse these days. No one can call the continuing loss of late-successional forest “sustainable forestry.” Every landowner that is engaged in sustainable forestry should have a written management policy for conserving and managing these old forests, just as they have for protecting Maine’s lakes and streams.

We, at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, believe that future generations deserve the opportunity to enjoy big, old trees, and the wildlife that rely on them, in Maine’s great outdoors.

That is why we need an action plan in Maine for old forests – one that puts to use the scientific tools that have now been tailor-made for foresters and landowners, and one that recognizes the narrow window of opportunity we have to protect these old forests before they are cut.

The time for action is now before all the remaining big trees are cut.

Catherine B. Johnson is North Woods Project Director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine.