The Maine Woods Initiative
The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Approach to Ecological Forestry
Editor’s Note: Degraded by a century of relentless industrial mining of its forest capital, northern Maine represents one of the bleakest landscapes in New England, and at the same time offers the region’s greatest potential for future timber production, carbon storage, and Wildland conservation. The question looms: how to rehabilitate vast forests that retain so little timber value and growing stock. To its great credit, the Appalachian Mountain Club has taken on this challenge and is advancing a balanced solution that advances both passively managed Wildlands and carefully harvested Woodlands. - David Foster
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is a conservation organization focused on fostering the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the outdoors. AMC began a landscape-scale conservation effort in the 100-Mile Wilderness region of Maine in 2003, with the intent of facilitating ecological restoration through both passive and active forest management. Since purchasing the 37,000-acre Katahdin Iron Works tract, the AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative (MWI) has grown to a total of 114,000 acres of forest land in the 100-Mile Wilderness.
The MWI project’s goal has been to create a new economic model for forestland ownership based on the principles of multiple use: responsible forestry, permanent public access and outdoor recreation, and the resilience of local communities. The AMC purchased former industrial timberland from various owners, all with a history of production-oriented even-aged management. For over 20 years, AMC’s MWI lands and innovative business model have been restoring ecosystem functionality while sustaining local and regional economies, all through ecological forest management.
“By growing our forest into a larger, more mature ecosystem, the AMC is working toward meeting its goals of ecological restoration and climate resiliency through increased carbon sequestration and storage on the landscape.”
The MWI model uses both a passive and active approach to achieve its management goals while supplying revenue to cover operational expenses and pay property taxes. Currently, around 60 percent of the property is in active timber management, while 40 percent is set aside as permanently protected ecological reserves or retention areas. In areas suitable for forest management, the AMC has taken an ecologically responsible approach to forestry guided by several key objectives:
Harvest less than growth. The AMC sets the annual allowable harvest volume at two-thirds the rate of annual timber growth on the managed portion of the property, allowing for accumulation of stock over time.
Practice multi-aged forest management. To produce a future forest with at least three age classes, we use prescriptions and silvicultural treatments to break up current even-aged structures.
Retain large trees in the forest. As a practice, we do not harvest trees over 18 inches in diameter (DBH) except in special circumstances.
Allow for the recruitment of old and dead standing trees. Dead woody material is crucial for a suite of ecological values in the forest, from wildlife habitat to storing carbon.
Target poor-quality stems for removal and preserve the longer-lived and more resilient species. The AMC prioritizes the removal of poor-quality stems, short-lived species (e.g. balsam fir over red spruce), non-native species (e.g. Norway spruce), or species planted on inappropriate sites (certain plantations) to retain and promote the growth of longer-lived species and better quality stocking for both genetics and future products.
Prioritize watershed integrity and connectivity. AMC’s lands protect the West Branch of the Pleasant River, home to one of the last endangered Atlantic salmon runs in the eastern United States.
Steve Tatko, AMC’s Vice President of Conservation reviewing a softwood thinning harvest on the MWI property. Photo by Andy Gagne, courtesy of AMC
Much of the MWI property is composed of young, even-aged forests, split between northern hardwood (50 percent), mixed-wood (30 percent), and softwood (20 percent) composition. As part of our ecological restoration and climate resiliency efforts, the AMC has been investing in precommercial treatments in both softwood and hardwood stands to reallocate growth to long-lived species and to improve timber quality. Through precommercial thinning and hardwood crop tree treatments, the AMC is prioritizing late successional species and high-quality stems to increase overall stand volume over time. As American beech continues to degrade across the landscape, the AMC has been working to preserve important wildlife trees while using harvesting techniques to encourage yellow birch and sugar maple regeneration to augment this compromised component.
By implementing silvicultural practices and prescriptions that promote the establishment of multi-aged forest systems, the AMC tends to have lighter commercial entries into a forest stand when harvesting. This allows for more frequent entries over time to break up the even-aged stand structure through multiple harvests. Lighter entry also allows for the acreage to have a lower volume removal but a steadier flow of wood across time. The AMC has seen an increase in average stocking on the property through this management approach, from 12.5 cords per acre in 2010 to 16.2 cords per acre in 2020. By growing our forest into a larger, more mature ecosystem, the AMC is working toward meeting its goals of ecological restoration and climate resiliency through increased carbon sequestration and storage on the landscape.
Forest around the Benson Ponds, an area set aside as an ecological reserve on the Barnard Forest Tract, part of AMC’s ownership in the 100-Mile Wilderness Region. Photo by The Conservation Fund | © Jerry Monkman Eco Photography
Practicing ecological forestry comes with economic trade-offs for the sake of advancing broader ecological or societal objectives. The AMC sees financial success from the MWI project as the ability to cover operational expenses and property taxes for the property on an annual basis from the timber revenue, while sustaining local and regional forest products businesses. So far, we have been able to meet our financial goals through our management ethic. The current challenge, which many landowners in the northeastern United States face, is the lack of markets and economic incentives to harvest low-grade products, an essential part of forest management in the Northeast. The revenue is often marginal in degraded northern hardwood and softwood stands, making it challenging to adhere to our harvest goals and to employ local logging crews.
The AMC is faced with the same challenges as other landowners. We must balance our two competing goals: growing and harvesting timber in an economically efficient and productive manner and protecting the ecological and social values of the forest. The balance of these goals depends on the landowner and their motivations for owning their land. The AMC started the MWI mission as a mechanism for conservation at the landscape scale. Our motivations have always been, and will continue to be, rooted in the ecological restoration and recovery of the lands that we steward, and the resilience of the local communities sustained by these forests. We view the forgone economic profit as a necessary “tax to the Earth” that we are willing to pay to honor and protect this landscape and the people that depend on it into the future.
Carolyn Ziegra is a Forest Manager with the Appalachian Mountain Club and joined the organization in 2022. She is a graduate of the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine, where she contributed to research related to late-successional forest species in Maine’s Acadian forest type. Carolyn both oversees daily operations on the Maine Woods Initiative property and is responsible for the long-term planning for the property in northern Maine. She was born and raised along the coast of Maine and now calls Piscataquis County home.