Exemplary Forestry
Integrating Climate Resilience, Biodiversity, and Wood Production
Editor’s Note: Bob Perschel, recently retired as Executive Director of New England Forestry Foundation, needs little introduction. Here, Bob reflects on how NEFF’s “Exemplary Forestry” combines ecological forestry with urgent climate goals, and he outlines a forest strategy for the New England region that is closely aligned with Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities. - Brian Donahue
Ten years ago, the New England Forestry Foundation’s Board of Directors asked our forestry team a simple question: How could the region manage its forests better to adapt to and mitigate climate change? We quickly found that the answer was a great deal more complicated than the question.
Mitigating climate change is only one of the goals for forestry. Can we meet climate goals without undermining the forest’s ecological values? And alongside those goals, we depend on our forests for renewable forest products. We have to maintain harvests, or we will condemn ourselves to using more concrete, steel, and plastic, exacerbating climate change even as we temporarily create more ecological value and carbon stored within the forest. It is not possible to maximize every forestry goal, but there are approaches that can optimize them together.
Photo courtesy of New England Forestry Foundation
Most of the forests in New England are even aged, the result of agricultural abandonment and hurricanes in southern New England, and heavy harvesting or spruce budworm devastation in northern New England. These forests have typically been managed with even-aged silviculture. On NEFF properties we have many forest stands that are 80–100 years old. Throughout the region there are now millions of acres of similar stands.
Our approach in the past would often be to regenerate these stands with two shelterwood harvests that would remove all the current trees over the next 20 years or so. That is perfectly acceptable sustainable forestry. But if you consider this type of stand from the middle of a biodiversity and climate crisis there are at least two problems. First, most of the carbon now locked in this forest will be lost in the near term. Second, the ecological values inherent in a more mature forest will also be lost.
“Mitigating climate change is only one of the goals for forestry. Can we meet climate goals without undermining the forest’s ecological values?”
Fortunately, there are a number of alternative forestry methods that can be used to serve both climate and ecological values. Regeneration harvests could be delayed, sacrificing near-term income but continuing to build up carbon stocks and some ecological values longer. Even-aged stands can be turned into uneven-aged stands by conducting patch cuts and then returning to expand those openings. During harvests, carbon-loaded legacy trees with wildlife benefits can be retained along with tops and limbs for deadwood. All of these solutions are more climate-friendly and ecologically sensitive than traditional approaches. Some can be integrated into business as usual; others come at a cost, and landowners would need to be subsidized to implement them at scale.
On-the-ground challenges like these caused us to reframe the original question to this: What approach to forestry is best suited to meet all the goals for our region’s forests in a time of crisis for biodiversity and climate change? Could such an approach be codified for other landowners to get predictable results at a regional scale?
Our answer was Exemplary Forestry—a set of standards that can deliver on each of these goals with real, measurable outcomes over the next 30 years. The 30-year timeframe is important. There is now a clear scientific consensus that the trajectory of climate change must be turned around within 30 years, or we will likely reach tipping points and set off feedback loops that we can’t recover from. If that happens, we meet none of our goals. We have to solve the climate problem within the next 30 years, and forests must play a critical role.
Climate-smart forestry, ecological forestry, and wood production must be integrated. This has implications for which forest management systems are implemented now. Some practices that were previously acceptable sustainable forestry may not be the right choice in a crisis with a 30-year deadline. Exemplary Forestry offers a new regional pathway that integrates these three goals:
Improve wildlife habitat and biodiversity. To address the biodiversity crisis, Exemplary Forestry draws on proven management approaches to enhance complexity of composition, age class, and structure to enrich habitats for native wildlife. It focuses on creating conditions to meet the habitat needs of most native species, and managing each forest stand in the context of the greater landscape.
Grow and harvest more wood. When we utilize forestry practices that sustain higher carbon storage we can also grow more wood—per acre, per year—that can be turned into forest products. There is a direct correlation between stocking and productivity. This is the magic in applying better forestry practices and growing the forest longer—we can also achieve higher productivity.
Enhance the role forests can play to mitigate climate change. These practices facilitate greater accumulation of carbon in the forest while enhancing the production of long-lived wood products. When modeled across the landscape of New England they would offset 646 million metric tons, or 30 percent of the region’s carbon reduction needs. NEFF calls this “the 30 percent solution,” and it targets the next 30 years, the critical period for global climate change.
Photo © Lauren Owens Lambert, courtesy of New England Forestry Foundation
Here is how we envision Exemplary Forestry being scaled up to address our regional issues. Many commercial lands in northern New England are low in stocking because they have been heavily harvested every 30–40 years. We can increase that stocking level by introducing pre-commercial thinning and other practices that will enable the landowners to allow these stands to more quickly reach sawtimber sizes, become more productive, and grow more valuable timber. The higher stocking stores more carbon, and it is correlated with higher biodiversity, especially if accomplished over millions of acres.
“What approach to forestry is best suited to meet all the goals for our region’s forests in a time of crisis for biodiversity and climate change?”
The larger trees produce more long-lived wood products, like engineered wood that can be used for affordable housing, which also helps mitigate climate change and connects forest to city. Everybody wins, but this will only happen by incentivizing the landowners to make investments that won’t pay off for decades. That is what NEFF is piloting with our Climate-Smart Commodities grant, and we already have six commercial and tribal landowners signed up.
Meanwhile, the family forest owners of central and southern New England already have high stocking and steadily improving ecological values for species dependent on older forests. But they aren’t harvesting their share of the wood products that also help with climate change. Exemplary Forestry offers approaches to these highly stocked stands that can make them more resilient to increasing threats from climate change while maintaining ecological values, harvesting wood, and preparing the aging forests to regenerate climate-adapted species. By bumping up wood production from southern New England forests, we can fill in partially for any temporary lowering of production from northern New England as we allow those stands to grow older.
“Climate-smart forestry, ecological forestry, and wood production must be integrated.”
The climate and biodiversity crises are driving foresters to utilize the entire silvicultural toolbox. New England is poised to become a global beacon for climate-smart, ecological, and productive forestry, but getting there will depend on the participation of private landowners who own most of the forestland. Incentive programs are now active throughout the region to help both commercial and family landowners make the transition. The next five years will allow us to test and determine how to truly take this new Exemplary Forestry to scale.
Robert (Bob) Perschel joined the New England Forestry Foundation in April 2012 and retired just this past year, in 2024, though he remains actively involved. In his 40 years as an environmental professional, he has worked on forestry, large landscape conservation, and wilderness issues. Bob worked for the forest industry before establishing his own forestry consulting business and founding the Land Ethic Institute. He then worked in leadership positions for The Wilderness Society and Forest Stewards Guild. Bob has a master’s degree in forestry from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a psychology degree from Yale College.