Region Archives: US East

Kathy Hochul

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the “30:30 by 2030” state legislation whose objective is, in line with national goals, to bring New York State’s percentage of protected lands and waters up to 30 percent by 2030. The eminent, late biologist and ecologist E.O. Wilson urged that the nations of the world protect 50% of the lands, freshwaters and oceans under their jurisdiction in order to slow the loss of habitats and species dependent on them. …However, since we can’t reach 50% until we reach 30%, New York’s is a good, urgently needed, if modest, goal.  The practical difficulty is staffing. From start to finish, every acre of conserved land and water requires a lot of personnel with different skill sets. And DEC personnel have been cut to the bone. …And now, comes Governor Hochul’s first full term.

ELKINS, West Virginia — A small crowd gathered in front of the U.S, Forest Service office near downtown Elkins. …They were there to protest a plan by the U.S. Forest Service to timber nearly 3,500 acres of the nearby Monongahela National Forest — and were concerned about erosion and flooding, not to mention what a long-term mistake it could be to raze large blocks of trees that store our carbon emissions. “This madness has to stop!” said Judy Rodd, of Friends of the Blackwater. The U.S. Forest Service has proposed to clear-cut and burn a number of areas of the Monongahela National Forest near the Upper Cheat River. The Forest Service says that it seeks to make the forest more resilient by growing more trees that are younger in age, and enhancing wildlife habitat by creating openings in the forest.

Maybe it was Jason Lentz’s genetic destiny to become one of the world’s best lumberjacks. His father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather, who had worked the Great Depression-era logging camps in Oregon, were all elite lumberjacks. …Either way, his story can be said to begin in 1981, when his father, Melvin Lentz, showed up at the Webster County Woodchopping Festival in West Virginia. After a weekend of wielding his huge seven-pound ax… Mel won the contest. Being a lumberjack, in the woods as well as competitions, was all he had wanted for himself since he was a kid and saw his own father win trophies, and at 21, he was already on his way to becoming the most decorated American athlete in the history of his peculiar sport. [to access the full story a NY Times subscription is required]

COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M Forest Service is soliciting applications for a pair of $50,000 grants to promote healthy trees and forests. The agency’s Community Forestry Grants Program seeks to fund community forestry-focused projects in two areas: climate resiliency and community equity. To be eligible, applicants must be public or non-profit organizations and can include state and local government agencies, educational institutions, non-government organizations and public utility districts. Individuals, businesses and federal agencies are not eligible. Proposals that complement existing initiatives that address issues facing community forests in Texas are encouraged. The deadline to apply is Feb. 15. Organizations can apply for both grants, but only one will be awarded per entity. Gretchen Riley, Texas A&M Forest Service Forest Systems Department Head, said the scope of the proposals can be varied and far-reaching. 

As a way of getting around, flying has a lot to offer. …Only three kinds of creatures that exist in the modern world have evolved as true flyers: birds, insects, and bats. But the benefits of flight are huge, and dozens of living things have evolved ways to get some of those advantages for themselves.  …With its big dark eyes and round ears, our own Northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus macrotis) is about the cutest of such “flying” animals. …Once a common sight in the northern tier of Pennsylvania, the Northern flying squirrel is now endangered in our state (although it is secure nationally). A detailed survey from 2003 – 2007 found only 33 individuals, all but two of them in the Poconos.Habitat destruction is the culprit.The rich old-growth hemlock and spruce forests that once swept across Pennsylvania have been lost to development, or reduced to small fragments. 

Directors of nine federal and state agencies came together to sign a shared stewardship agreement at a ceremony held on Harbison State Forest. Shared stewardship agreements between federal and state agencies establish a framework to improve collaboration, accomplish mutual goals, further common interests and effectively respond to the increasing ecological challenges and natural resource concerns. The agreement will use the best available science to manage and enhance private and public lands within the Palmetto State. South Carolina’s forests will benefit from strengthened partnerships between these agencies following the signing. …This was the largest group of agency partners (9) ever to convene to sign a shared stewardship memorandum of understanding within a state.

For many decades, urban society and its “illusion of preservation” has continued to obstruct and suppress our rural communities and their use of the land and natural resources. We are seeing the elimination of our cultural heritage in our time. In southern New Jersey, by government legislation, 1.2 million acres of the landscape has been reserved and protected in what is designated as the Pinelands National Reserve. This reserve includes all aspects of the land ownership both public and private. Two of the primary reasons for designating the Pine Barrens for protection was to perpetuate and sustain the unique ecological natural heritage and the indigenous local cultural heritage. We understand the essential need to sustain and conserve the ecological integrity of the land and the natural systems it supports.

Matt Carothers

HAZELHURST – A lot of people with whom northern Wisconsin forester Matt Carothers work remind him of his own family. Growing up, Carothers’ parents bought a small, wooded lot in Barron County that their family could use for hunting, fishing, skiing and other outdoor activities. They also built a cabin on the 40-acre property, into which his parents moved when they retired. …Like the Carothers family, most private forest landowners in Wisconsin bought their property for recreational purposes — to enjoy wildlife, go hunting or to have some privacy — rather than to manage and sell the timber growing on it, according to Wisconsin’s 2020 State Forest Action Plan report. …The majority of Wisconsin’s forests are privately owned, and family forest owners make up about 9.7 million acres of those 11.5 million private acres, according to the state report. County forests, meanwhile, account for the largest share — 2.4 million acres — of the 5.2 million acres owned by public entities.

A new study found bird diversity increased in North Carolina mountain forest areas severely burned by wildfire in 2016, reinforcing that while wildfire can pose risks to safety and property, it can be beneficial to wildlife. The study results could help forest managers better predict bird responses to wildfire, and manage forests to benefit birds. …When they compared the numbers of birds in areas of different fire severity, they found an increase over time in the number of birds, as well as greater bird diversity, in forest areas where wildfire severity was high. By the fifth year, the total abundance of birds and the species richness… in areas of high-severity burns were twice as high as that in unburned areas. While it seems counterintuitive that high-severity patches supported more bird species, researchers said that’s because few species avoided the high-severity patches, but several species were more abundant or occurred only in those patches. 

A recent study found that increasing global demand for timber products, as well as paying landowners to store carbon in their trees, could help to dramatically increase the amount of forestland around the world. Published in the journal Global Environmental Change, the study also suggests that forests would remain a carbon sink across many of the economic and climate change policy scenarios they projected between 2015 and 2105. However, researchers say there are outstanding questions about how major climate change events like severe drought or wildfire may impact forest health. “Growth in demand for timber products from the energy sector, in combination with a carbon price incentive, create unique complementary effects where you’re using biomass for energy, investing in more forests, and increasing the forest carbon sink globally,” said study co-author Justin Baker, associate professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State and director of the Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium.

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have reached an agreement over how and why logging will be conducted on Minnesota State Wildlife Management Areas and Aquatic Management Areas.  Pushed by some state elected leaders, DNR officials in recent years were moving to cut more trees in WMAs, as well as in state forests, to help feed the state’s timber industry appetite.  But critics, including many current and former wildlife managers, said the logging was poorly planned and overlooked wildlife habitat and public access, the primary purposes for having WMAs. Several state biologists said the planned level of intensive logging would jeopardize habitat for several species, including deer and bear in some areas.  

PLANO, Texas & SEATTLE, Washington — Denbury and Weyerhaeuser announced an agreement for the evaluation and potential development of a CO2 sequestration site in Mississippi. The lease agreement provides Denbury with the exclusive right to develop and operate approximately 16,000 acres of subsurface pore space owned by Weyerhaeuser in Mississippi. The site is located directly adjacent to Denbury’s NEJD Pipeline in Mississippi. Denbury is planning to utilize the site to permanently sequester industrial CO2 in secure underground geologic formations. Weyerhaeuser will continue to manage the timberland acreage as a sustainable working forest. …The site represents Denbury’s first planned CO2 sequestration location in Mississippi, expanding its storage portfolio that already includes sites along the U.S. Gulf Coast in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. …Weyerhaeuser has identified multiple locations for potential sequestration projects across a portion of its 7-million-acre footprint in the U.S. South using proprietary geological data covering its lands.

Nineteen Maine forestry companies will share $14 million in state grants for a range of improvement projects, Gov. Janet Mills announced. Funding comes from the final round of the $20 million Forest Recovery Initiative of the governor’s Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan. Recipients include ND Paper in Rumford, which will receive $1 million to boost the efficiency of its R15 paper machine. Also receiving $1 million are Louisiana-Pacific Corp. for improvements at LP Houlton in Aroostook County; Bright Wood Corp. for a project in Waterville; Casco-based Hancock Lumber and wood-fiber insulation firm GO Lab. The Forest Recovery Initiative, unveiled by Mills in November 2021, aims to support Maine’s forest products industry and the people it employs, create and sustain jobs in rural Maine, and strengthen the state’s economy. In March, the first round of awards provided $6 million in financial relief to 219 forest products businesses that saw negative impacts from the pandemic. 

A recent study heightens the importance of trees for keeping cities from flooding. Removing a single tree can increase stormwater runoff by 1,585 gallons, researchers reported in the Urban Forestry and Urban Greening journal. Understanding these numbers is important in the context of climate change and the increase of frequency and severity of storms, said James Kruegler, lead author of the study. Stormwater management solutions are timely in Michigan as Detroit experienced its second 500-year flood event in seven years in June of last year. As the frequency of these storms increases, the aged public infrastructure becomes more prevalent… Using trees to lessen the impact of these storms offer an easy solution. …Results from the research papers help realize the extent of ecosystem services that trees provide, Kruegler said. This allows environment organizations to back up their advocacy with real numbers.

Beavers bring much-needed water back to the land, and their wetlands slow, store, and cleanse water — water that residents need to fill their wells, water plants and crops, and, yes, fight the coming wildfires. …Wildfires are growing worse as climate change brings hotter, drier weather and longer fire seasons. …New England has an overlooked and generally abundant firefighting ally: Castor canadensis, the North American beaver. …The idea that a relatively small rodent could impact a wildfire moving at terrifying speeds seems improbable, but Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at California State University and other researchers published a study in 2020 that documented the extent to which beavers and beaver wetlands had created refugia in even some of the worst of the recent wildfires out West. She and other scientists also documented the ways many beaver damming complexes in those fire-ravaged zones played a critical role in post-fire recovery by cleansing the water of ash.

It’s all good and well to sell a carbon credit, but if you chop down the tree representing that credit as soon as the money hits the bank account, it’s not exactly a win for the planet. Gaia AI is building a tool that can be used for that, and other aspects of forest management, using technologies usually seen in the autonomous vehicle space. The company just closed a $3 million round of pre-seed investment. The company is currently using lidar and computer vision tech to gather data, but is ultimately building a data platform to tackle some of the big questions in forestry. The company is working to give foresters the tools they need to make data-driven decisions to optimize their bottom line. …Trees are a renewable resource, and optimal utilization is better for the planet. That sort of optimization exists at the mill, but not out in the forest, Gaia AI points out.