Region Archives: US East

Gov. Brian Kemp recognized three corporate forest landowners today for their stewardship and land management practices benefiting wildlife across Georgia. Weyerhaeuser, Forest Investment Associates, and Georgia Power are the agency’s 2023 Forestry for Wildlife partners. Coordinated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division, the Forestry for Wildlife Partnership is a voluntary program that has promoted sustainable forest and wildlife conservation as part of forest management for some 25 years. Partner projects focus on improvements that sync with Georgia’s Bobwhite Quail Initiative and State Wildlife Action Plan, two statewide strategies. This year’s partners were recognized at the state Capitol by Gov. Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp and lauded by DNR Deputy Commissioner Walter Rabon and Wildlife Resources Division leaders.

ALABAMA — While wildfires are commonly associated with the West Coast, “there’s a culture of fire” in the Southeastern US as well, Alexander says. The longleaf pine ecosystem that historically covered the majority of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas and patches of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia requires natural fires every two to three years. From the late 1800s to the 1970s, fire-suppression laws prevented many natural burns from occurring and hindered the longleaf pine’s ability to reproduce, along with many other plants and animals that depend on them. The native evergreen, known for its finger-like needles that can grow longer than a foot, owes its existence to recurrent fires; efforts to restore the species and the ecosystem it underpins have vastly improved since the mid-1990s. These sunny forests that once characterized the Southeast will never fully return, but the remaining fragments can still be tended and hopefully, expanded.

FLORIDA – A 534-acre prescribed burn is being conducted today in the Ocala National Forest, and Marion County motorists are being urged to use caution in the area. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the location of the prescribed burn is “south of FSR 66-5.9B, east of 66-5.9 and north of NFR 66.” Motorists should be aware of prescribed burn notice signs, potential road closures, and detours when traveling around this area. Motorists are encouraged to drive with extra caution and be prepared to stop for any wildlife that has been temporarily displaced. A prescribed burn is the controlled application of fire by a team of fire experts under specified weather conditions. The purpose of the burn is to restore health to ecosystems that depend on fire. In addition to improving wildlife habitat, the prescribed burn helps to eliminate vegetation build up while reducing the threat of future wildfires.

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) introduced the Safe Routes Act of 2023. This commonsense legislation allows logging trucks that meet state requirements to drive up to 150 miles on federal highways. Current laws limit logging trucks from using interstate highways when traveling from harvest sites to storage or processing facilities. “The forestry and timber industry is important for many Wisconsin counties. Yet logging trucks are forced to take longer and more dangerous routes through towns and local two lane roads,” Sen. Johnson said. “My bill fixes this problem by opening federal highways to logging trucks, allowing them to take safer routes to the mills and more efficiently deliver for the people of Wisconsin.”

Lovers often carve their initials in the smooth gray bark of beech trees. Now those beloved trees—which can reach nearly 40 meters tall, live up to 400 years and are among the most abundant forest trees in the Northeast and Midwestern U.S.—are increasingly threatened by beech leaf disease. In 2012, a Greater Cleveland naturalist noticed odd, dark, leathery stripes between some veins of a few beech leaves. Since then, beech leaf disease has spread faster and faster around the lower Great Lakes and the Northeast, ravaging one of the region’s most vital trees. By 2019, the disease was found in 106 counties in four states and Ontario. Through 2022, as both the disease and its detection rose, the numbers reached 487 counties in 12 states, Ontario and D.C., which counts statistically as a county. Those states are Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and all of New England but Vermont.

As a caterpillar, the invasive spongy moth consumes as much leaf tissue as it can, as fast as it can, threatening the lives of whole forests across the upper Midwest. But Illinois continues to stand on the front lines when it comes to slowing the westward spread of this insect with a voracious appetite. To protect our trees and contain the insect’s migration, county forest preserve districts are working with the Illinois Department of Agriculture to treat various natural areas in the greater Chicago region, including in Aurora, Lemont and Naperville. Historically known as the “gypsy moth,” spongy moth caterpillars have a feeding period that lasts seven to 10 weeks through the spring and summer. A single spongy moth caterpillar can eat 11 square feet of vegetation during its lifetime, and its host plants include more than 300 tree and shrub species.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Visitors from Pennsylvania and surrounding states interested in the forest-products industry and the sustainable management of forest resources will gather at the 2023 Forest Products Equipment and Technology Exposition, June 9-10 at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days site at Rock Springs. Known as Timber 2023, the biennial trade exposition is aimed primarily at loggers, foresters, sawmill operators, value-added processors and forest landowners. The event is hosted by the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association. Parking and admission are free. “Timber 2023 is a great opportunity for people involved in the forest-products industry to learn about emerging technologies, network with other professionals, develop their workforce and see the latest equipment in action,” said Jesse Darlington, Ag Progress Days manager, who also oversees the timber expo.

The loblolly pine is a trademark feature of south Arkansas’ landscape, but something is attacking and, in some cases, even killing Arkansas’ state tree. This threat has consequences not only for the pine, but for the timber industry that planted large swaths of the tree decades before. Forestry experts from across the region say they have several ideas about what’s responsible for this new affliction. They’ve yet to establish concrete answers, though. The mystery has kept researchers busy and timber companies anxious, as all wait to hear what testing of the affected trees might reveal. Symptoms of the ailment appear to include a browning and dropping off of a pine’s needles, and sometimes it ends in the death of the tree. Similar indicators have been seen in trees outside of Arkansas, including in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. …The state Department of Agriculture hasn’t yet determined the scope of pine mortality.

OCALA, Fla. — A non-profit organization is one step closer to preserving one of Florida’s largest remaining old-growth longleaf pine forests that had not been preserved. The North Florida Land Trust is closer to preserving 541 acres in Marion County known as Swan Smiley Big Pine Preserve after Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet voted to approve the purchase of the property last week. Swan Smiley Big Pine Preserve is in the O2O Wildlife Corridor, adjacent to Lake Kerr and near the Salt Spring Recreation Area. The O2O is a 1.6-million-acre corridor of public and private lands that connects the Ocala and Osceola National Forests. The private lands of Swan Smiley Big Pine Preserve are surrounded by Ocala National Forest which is home to many imperiled species including the Florida scrub-jay and the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Elisa Schine

Elisa Schine, a graduate student in forestry at the University of Maine, is accustomed to being in predominantly male academic and professional settings. Although forestry has become much more inclusive of women during the past several decades, it remains, after all, a majority male profession. So Schine was excited …attended the inaugural Women’s Forest Congress, held this past October in Minneapolis. This event was something new: a major national gathering focused on issues related to women’s roles in forests’ future, including strategies to increase recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in the forest sector. …The three foresters profiled here include Schine; Barrie Brusila, a highly regarded Maine forester, now winding up a long and successful career; and, between them, Maren Granstrom, who at 31 has completed a comprehensive apprenticeship under Brusila’s watchful eye and soon will be taking over her business.