NORTHERN FOREST REVISITED

Ten years after a long and, at times, acrimonious, debate over the formation and goals of the Northern Forest Lands Council, a brief review of the work recently shows the states involved achieved some of the easy recommendations but only a few of the harder ones. Ten years is not a long time in the life of a forest, but it is long enough to suggest that the status quo isn’t working well enough.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York formed the lands council because state officials recognized some common problems could be better addressed regionally, and congressional delegations working together in Washington would be more powerful than working individually. The 26 million acres are primarily in Maine, and though the economies of the four states are different, the question of conservation land, investment by wood-based manufacturers and the economic health of rural communities are shared by all.

The 10th-anniversary report reviews the original work of the council, “Finding Common Ground: Conserving the Northern Forest.” It called for, among other things, public acquisition and conservation easements (often accomplished) and greater incentives for business to remain and invest in rural regions. Progress there, says Peter Triandafillou of Huber Resources Corp. and a member of the group reviewing the council’s work, “has been haphazard and uneven. We could be doing a lot better.”

The problem isn’t so much the production of paper – in many ways, the industry has found niche markets and is producing as much as it was 15 years ago. But it has done so by becoming more efficient – fewer people can produce the same amount of paper. Those increases in efficiency are inevitable if the industry is going to remain at all, but they demand that paper-industry states become more diversified economically or risk losing significant population. Maine and the other states have moved a bit in that direction over the last decade, expanding tourism, for instance, but not enough to sustain economies away from service centers.

The new recommendations urge the region to invest more in community and economic development, support private landowners who practice sustainable forestry and “identify specific economic development tools that work best.” Sensible enough, but all states have plans to encourage this sort of development – Gov. Baldacci’s Pine Tree Zones are an example. The region could profit from adding to these recommendations specific measures of achievement (raising rural incomes, say, to 95 percent of the state average by 2010) and identifying who is charged with working on the issue.

A decade and more ago, the lands council was feared by some to be a multi-state, government-heavy land grab. It hasn’t turned out that way, and most of the protests have quieted. The work remains, however, with some that’s been accomplished and plenty left to do.