Region Archives: US East

Gov. Jared Polis Polis traveled across the Western Slope on Monday to sign several bills, ranging from issues like highway safety, wildfire mitigation and species conservation. Polis signed Senate Bill 171, which facilitates the reintroduction of wolverines to Colorado Colorado Parks and Wildlife will introduce 30 female and 15 male wolverines over a three-year period in hopes of boosting the species’ population, as only about 300 wolverines remain in the contiguous United States. . …At Colorado Fire Rescue Station #64 in New Castle, he signed House Bills 1006 and 1024. Bill 1006 creates a rural grant navigator program through the Colorado State Forest Service, providing funding to non-government organizations that assist rural communities in applying for state or federal wildfire mitigation and preparedness grants. Starting in 2026, the Forest Service will be required to report on the program’s progress to the Colorado General Assembly every two years. The bill appropriates $200,000 from the general fund to implement the program. 

CONCORD, New Hampshire — Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic filed suit today in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire on behalf of forest protection group Standing Trees. The suit challenges commercial logging projects recently approved by the United States Forest Service in the White Mountain National Forest, in Piermont and Gorham, New Hampshire. The challenged projects — known as the Tarleton and Peabody West Integrated Resource Projects — include nearly 3,000 acres of commercial logging and more than 11 miles of permanent road construction in two irreplaceable landscapes traversed by the Appalachian Trail and enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year. …“The Forest Service has displayed zero interest in collaborating with the public to improve either one of these reckless logging projects,” Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, said.

WLY, Minnesota – Dry, tall grass crunches underneath the boots of more than a dozen students, who are dressed in firefighting gear. The Wildland Fire Control and Management class at Minnesota North College’s Vermilion campus is setting fire to a five-acre field outside of Ely. It’s the second prescribed burn the class has performed this spring. …While dry conditions and dead, diseased trees are putting some of the state’s most treasured lands at risk, officials say a nationwide shortage of wildland firefighters could mean fewer resources dedicated to Minnesota to put them out. …The Forest Service acknowledges it’s struggling to hire firefighters all over the country. In early April, the agency said it had only signed on 76% of its total goal of crews for the summer.

KENTUCKY—After decades of challenging fire seasons, the Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky is beginning to see a decline wildfire incidents. This can be attributed to the Daniel Boone National Forest Law Enforcement and Investigations team’s proactive, interagency approach to reducing human-caused wildfire. Over 98% of wildfires in Kentucky are human-caused and nearly 60% can be directly attributed to arson. …In 2016, the forest law enforcement team began conducting interagency fire investigation training with the Kentucky Division of Forestry and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources resulting in a skilled law enforcement team. …Eight years later, Daniel Boone National Forest law enforcement officers serve as trusted resources for incident reports and are supported in their wildfire investigations in communities where they were previously opposed. As communities engage with law enforcement … human-caused wildfires continue to decline, are being successfully prosecuted in court and restitution funds are returning to impacted areas.  

CRAWFORD COUNTY, Michigan — In March, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office said Norman Kasubowski ran two timber harvesting companies. Kasubowski was charged with embezzlement for intentionally underreporting harvests and lying to land owners to avoid paying them what their timber was worth. …It’s been almost a decade since Kasubowski came to Edith Nelson’s property. They had an agreement to do a select cut of the 160 acres. In 2017, Kasubowski started harvesting timber and told her some of the costs were more than he expected. So they agreed to a trade: he could harvest some cedar trees to cover the extra costs. Edith said he took the cedars and the other trees behind. When Kasubowski didn’t pay Edith what she was really owed or remove the trees, she and others took legal action. After an investigation by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, Kasubowski took a plea deal for embezzlement.

The Agency of Natural Resources Departments of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Forests, Parks, and Recreation (FPR) announced that Thomson Timber Harvesting and Trucking was fined $32,550 for violating the Vermont Wetland Rules and failing to follow Acceptable Management Practices (AMPs) for Maintaining Water Quality on Logging Jobs in Vermont. …AMPs for Maintaining Water Quality on Logging Jobs in Vermont are designed to protect water quality and ensure that loggers are in compliance. …Agency staff observed several discharges caused by the failure to properly install stream crossings, construct waterbars, smooth ruts, and seed and mulch exposed soils. Agency staff also observed alterations to wetland and vernal pool habitat and hydrology from excessive brush and rutting. Thompson Timber completed remediation of the sites in the summer of 2021 with the help of Agency oversight.

In related coverage: Logger Matt McAllister has seen nearly everything that can go wrong.

With Hurricane Preparedness Week kicking off today, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers are preparing for hurricane season with state-of-the-art monitoring equipment that will help them determine how extensively forests are damaged during individual hurricanes. …Getting an accurate assessment for how much timber is damaged by hurricanes is essential for environmental management decisions, salvaging logging operations, tree farms’ insurance estimates and climate change studies, but so far, it’s been a vexing puzzle. …These data help them know which areas were most affected and need help immediately, as well as which would benefit from specialized action at a later time – such as where to do salvage logging operations. …Additional data are collected with ground-based lidar scanners attached to all-terrain vehicles and a backpack apparatus to make high-resolution 3D maps of the forest.

Loggers said their operating conditions have never been more difficult, with recent storms, heavy rain and mild conditions over the last 18 months. A recent survey found that 50 Maine harvesters and haulers lost at least $2.6 million in income from the Dec. 18 storm. And Dana Doran, director of Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast, said most Maine loggers worked just four weeks this winter. “Most of them had to shut down by the last week of February for the winter, so it’s just been a rollercoaster of a ride for all of them, starting with that Dec. 18 storm, but really going back to the winter of 2022-2023, because we never had frozen ground then, either,” he said. Doran compared the last 18 months to mud season, where the ground was too soft and saturated, and loggers couldn’t access the land they needed to harvest. When snow did fall this winter, it melted quickly.

Exhibit space sales for the 38th Forest Products Machinery & Equipment Exposition (Forest Products EXPO 2025), presented by the Southern Forest Products Association, are scheduled to open Tuesday, May 14. The three-day biennial tradeshow, to be held August 6-8, 2025, will return to the Music City Center in Nashville and provide attendees with solutions for nearly every stage of manufacturing. Sponsored and conducted by SFPA every two years since 1950, EXPO includes many of the biggest names in the forestry industry. Exhibitors display everything from sawmill machinery to materials handling equipment, attracting key representatives from the nation’s largest wood and wood products manufacturers. From raw material handling to crane operations; metal detection and scanning technologies; log optimization, drying, grading, sorting, packaging, and distribution, customers new and old will be waiting to explore these solutions with you face to face.

Wisconsin — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has detected the presence of emerald ash borer (EAB) for the first time in Washburn and Taylor counties. Burnett is now the only county without a detection since EAB was first discovered in Wisconsin in 2008. DNR staff members collected larvae samples in the town of Springbrook and the city of Medford. A USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service identifier confirmed these larvae as EAB. The detections will not result in regulatory changes because EAB was federally deregulated on Jan. 14, 2021, and Wisconsin rescinded its statewide quarantine effective July 1, 2023. EAB will continue to spread in northern Wisconsin, significantly impacting the state’s ash resource. This is a good time to review the DNR’s updated EAB webpage for information and resources on this invasive species and the EAB Silviculture Guidelines to understand ash management options.

NORTH CAROLINA — Conservation groups argue flaws in the 2023 Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan will put endangered forest bats at risk, according to a recent lawsuit filed against the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests in western North Carolina provide habitat for four critically endangered bats: the northern long-eared bat, the Indiana bat, the Virginia big-eared bat, and the gray bat. The lawsuit argues that the Forest Service consulted with Fish and Wildlife Services because these bats were likely to be impacted by the Forest Plan. But that consultation was flawed and in violation of the Endangered Species Act. “The Act required the best scientific data available to inform the consultation. Instead, the Forest Service gave information it knew was inaccurate and incomplete,” according to the lawsuit. …The Forest Service now faces three lawsuits related to the Forest Plan.

Longleaf pine conservation is considered a key part of climate resilience for Florida and the Southeast. But when it comes to climate change, longleaf pines are not out of the woods. …The longleaf is an emblem of the Southeast, historically spanning close to 92 million acres from Virginia down through north and central Florida and eastern Texas. …But the legacy of the longleaf pine is also one of mutilation and mismanagement, as loggers axed millions of acres of trees to build the nation’s buildings, boats and bridges in the nineteenth century. Today, less than five percent of their original acreage remains. …Still, the biggest threat to the longleaf pine is dwindling opportunities for prescribed fire. …The longleaf pine is a tree built for and by fire. …Despite the odds, the future of the longleaf pine is a hopeful one — at least according to Steve Jack, executive director of east Texas’ Boggy Slough Conservation Area.

ESCANABA, Michigan — In recent years, the number of sawmills and pulp and paper mills in the United States has been rapidly diminishing. Shutdowns have hurt not only domestic loggers who provide timber for production, but also workers in other fields connected by the ripple effect — like packaging manufacturing and printing — when their employers have gone out of business or been forced to make cutbacks. …“When one mill closes, whether it’s in Wisconsin or Michigan or whatever, people think, ‘well, that’s terrible for that community, but at least it’s an isolated event,’” said American Loggers Council Executive Director Scott Dane. Except that it isn’t. Speaking at the recent Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association meeting, Dane continued to say that mills have been shutting down around the nation and that “we are experiencing challenges that we haven’t experienced in decades.”

Collaboration is critical to ensure the sustainability of our planet. People and organizations are seeking solutions that ensure our forests, through responsible management, make positive contributions to the long-term health of people and the planet. The 2024 Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Annual Conference, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, from June 4-7, embraces this potential under the theme “Forests for the Future: Nature and Community Grown Solutions.” Join us in celebrating how far we’ve come in promoting sustainable forestry while setting a vision for creating an even better tomorrow through proactive forest stewardship today. From forestry professionals and government policymakers to Indigenous communities, conservationists, and researchers, everyone has a role to play in the future of our forests. …The agenda aligns with the top priorities of state forestry agencies, such as climate resiliency, biodiversity conservation, community engagement, and more.

If you know of a particularly large tree, it might be notable statewide. The Maine Forest Service keeps a registry of champion large trees across the state, and accepts resident nominations. The program was started in 1967 under then-state forester Austin Wilkins and currently lists more than 140 trees across 138 species. Every few years, an updated publication lists all the registry’s trees; the most recent is from 2020 and a new version should be released later this year. The registry is also an opportunity for public involvement and connection to trees, coordinator Jan Ames Santerre said. “Trees just capture people’s imagination when they attain large size,” she said. Pine, spruce, walnut, maple, oak, elm, birch and other large trees are well-represented, but the program also includes some plants that most often grow as shrubs, like shadbush and juniper.

Throughout the Southeast, foresters and activists are coming together to restore America’s longleaf pine forests. The Nature Conservancy reports that longleaf pines once dominated the coastal plain, covering more than 90 million acres. Now there are just 5.2 million acres. In Mississippi, more than two million longleaf pine seedlings have been planted in the past several years, according to the Natural Forest Foundation. This state-wide replanting has restored about 4,000 acres of natural habitat, stretching across the DeSoto, Bienville and Homochitto National Forests. Greene County timber company owner Dillon McInnis is part of the movement to restore the longleaf species to Mississippi’s landscape.