Further Considerations: The Benefits of Forest Conservation Easements
I am grateful to my colleagues Mark Berry, Bob Perschel, Steve Tatko, and Karin Tilberg for contributing to the conversations in From the Ground Up, and for their leadership in advancing land protection and conservation management across northern New England. I fully agree with them concerning the importance of Maine forests and the critical role of conservation easements in securing the benefits of our forests for nature and society. My personal commitment to conservation easements includes working over 20 years to place a conservation easement on the 650 forested acres in northern Vermont owned and managed by my family since the 1960s. That easement, held by the Vermont Land Trust, has strict forestry guidelines ensuring that our management rises well above the environmental standards of state law, and well above practices conducted on much of the surrounding ownership. The easement and our enrollment in the Vermont Current Use program also allow us to designate a portion of that land (currently 10 percent) to passive management as Wildland.
However, my colleagues’ commentary is silent on the major concern and conclusion of the research by Jonathan Thompson’s lab at the Harvard Forest and my review of the lab’s recent study in From the Ground Up. Thompson’s publication Do Working Forest Easements Work for Conservation? examines whether industrially owned forests in northern Maine under conservation easements differ significantly from adjoining unconserved industrial lands in two critical aspects — forest loss and harvesting. The study does not question the general benefits of working forest conservation easements (WFCEs), but its conclusions concerning these two essential qualities are stark: “WFCEs have not produced substantial additional ecological benefits by reducing forest loss or harvest rates compared to status quo commercial timber operations.”
Fortunately, there are alternatives to the weak easements that do little to improve ecological outcomes while transferring significant funds to the corporate timber investors who own these lands. Thompson’s report indicates that “Effectiveness could be increased with changes in easement design and enforcement that prioritize areas under active threat from conversion and strengthen restrictions on unsustainable harvest practices.” As the study notes, some recent working forest easements in the region appear to show improvements. An alternative approach that provides public and local control and benefit is proposed in Wildlands of New England and Children of the Northern Forest, which were also reviewed in From the Ground Up: purchase and transfer of ownership of much of the 12 million acres of industrial forest to tribal, public, community, and nonprofit entities for the establishment of large wildlands and ecologically managed timberlands.
Conservation organizations and advocates can also play a more active role in improving the condition of these vast northern forests. Great examples include the purchase of corporate lands by The Nature Conservancy (Upper St. John River Preserve and others); the establishment of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument by the Quimby family; the purchase and integrated management of wildlands and timberlands by the Appalachian Mountain Club in the 100-Mile Wilderness region; and the ongoing collaboration between Forest Society of Maine and Northeast Wilderness Trust to achieve a similar integrated outcome, exemplified by the Grafton Forest project. Meanwhile, Exemplary Forestry advanced by New England Forestry Foundation presents approaches and standards that would improve these industrial forest lands significantly.
The Northern Forest of New England should be the ecological jewel of the Northeast. It deserves a future more akin to the integrated public-private wildland and woodland condition of Adirondack Park in New York than its current domination by absentee investor ownership and intensive management. Greatly improving working forest conservation easements — putting them to work to protect ecological features, connectivity, and forest integrity over the long run — is but one critical step toward that goal.
Forest ownership and the last three decades of forest harvesting in Maine. Ownership is colored as red – corporate; orange – non-profit, purple – state, and green – federal. Forest harvesting data comes from remote sensing analyses by Dr. Val Pasquerella working in collaboration with the Thompson Lab at the Harvard Forest. Figure provided by J. Thompson.
David Foster is an ecologist, Director Emeritus of the Harvard Forest, and President Emeritus of the Highstead Foundation. He co-founded the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities initiative in 2010 and was lead writer of Wildlands in New England: Past, Present, and Future in 2023. David has written and edited books including Thoreau’s Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape; Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1000 Years of Change in New England; Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge; and A Meeting of Land and Sea: The Nature and Future of Martha’s Vineyard.