By Noah Gleason-Hart In a low-impact forestry system, humans have an active role to play as forest consumers and stewards as long as we acknowledge our limited understanding of forest ecosystems. LIF recognizes that forest ecosystems are more complex than we currently understand and therefore operates thoughtfully with caution and humility as core principles. Another
By Noah Gleason-Hart As MOFGA members, we all recognize that eating local, sustainably grown food is good for us, good for the environment, and good for our communities. However, we sometimes forget to extend our view beyond the field edge to see that local wood provides similar benefits. “Know you farmer” is a catchphrase folks
By Mitch Lansky If the future really mattered, how would forests be managed to improve, rather than degrade, future timber values? How would trees be cut to minimize damage to the residual forest? How would foresters measure success toward minimizing damage? How would loggers be paid to lower logging impacts? How would forests be managed
By Noah Gleason-Hart, MOFGA’s Low-Impact Forestry Specialist Like many landowners in Maine, MOFGA has a significant and growing non-native and invasive plant population in our forest. We’ve carried out some control work in the past, but the recommendations in our recently updated forest management plan made it clear that if we intend to maintain an
By Mitch Lansky To meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, countries that are major carbon dioxide sources will have to greatly reduce the majority of their fossil-fuel carbon emissions in just a few decades. Many scientists have concluded, however, that emission reductions are not enough. Carbon dioxide can
By Noah Gleason-Hart “Low-impact forestry is all about logging with horses, right?” is a question I often hear when I talk about the work I do at MOFGA with the Low-Impact Forestry (LIF) Program. It’s a question I always appreciate, both because it highlights how low-impact forestry is perceived within the larger community, and because
By Noah Gleason-Hart If thoughtful forest stewardship is a long, winding road, then a forest management plan (FMP) is the map that can lead to a healthy, complex and productive forest. These documents – written by licensed foresters – describe the current state of a forest, define the landowner’s objectives and prescribe actions a landowner
By Noah Gleason-Hart Logging is our most dramatic opportunity to create change, either destructive or restorative in our woodlots, so we focus much of our low-impact forestry work on promoting careful harvest practices. However, commercial logging is a relatively infrequent event on a given property, perhaps every 10 to 15 years. A landowner may see
By Denny Gallaudet – March 2020 I have the good fortune to be the owner of a 25 acre woodland in Southern Maine. Abandoned as a pasture in the late 1930’s, it is now a flourishing and well stocked forest of the oak-pine variety. In 2016 I conducted a timber inventory and found that carbon
A beech tree severely affected by beech bark disease. Postharvest view of a gap created during winter 2020 firewood cutting. Slash has been cut small and will decompose over the next few years; think of it as fertilizer for the next generation of trees. First flush of shiitake mushrooms on beech logs after a spring rain
