Letters to the Editors - Spring 2005
The People of Tug Hill
To the Editors:
Once again an excellent issue. Your article on working in blowdowns strikes a particular cord with me, having worked in the aftermath of the Ice Storm of 1998 in New Hampshire and then observing the damage in northern New York. I was taught the method of cutting wood under compression – some call these springpoles, too – by shaving the stem with the chainsaw bar and chain running almost, if not fully, parallel to the stem. In the Game of Logging, participants are instructed in this method, and I would encourage anyone, old or young, to take the Game of Logging courses, even if they have had chainsaw training. This training is invaluable for those wishing to be productive and safe while cutting wood.
Regarding your pictorial about the Tug Hill Plateau, the photographs are beautiful, but I’d hate for people outside of the region to get the wrong idea and think that Tug Hill is a perfectly pristine landscape or part of the Adirondack State Park. Tug Hill has many wild and special places. Many are protected by private landholders and the state; it is, however, a landscape where people and their lives are part of it, too. Two big movers of lives here are forestry and farming. Forestry and farming are integrally woven into the natural landscape pattern of Tug Hill. Yet, I didn’t see one picture of a barn, cow, skidder, snowmobile, or even a Walter Snow Fighter, a snowplow rig bucking a drift. But, you hit the nail on the head with the amount of water.
Brendan Kelly, Lowville, New York
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Wilderness, Wildlife, and Wood Products
To the Editors:
As a professional forester, ex-U.S. Forest Service employee, and an advocate for sustainable forestry and wilderness, I first want to thank you deeply for consistently publishing one of the best forestry magazines in the world. As executive director of Forest Watch (http://www.forestwatch.org), I find it informative, inspiring, and thought provoking.
I write now to respond to Put Blodgett’s commentary in the Winter 2004 issue, “No! To Congressionally Designated Wilderness.” I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Blodgett’s reasons for promoting sustainable forestry, but I take issue with the false dichotomy he creates between timber production and wilderness. Although sustainable timber production and wilderness cannot co-exist on the same acre of land, they can certainly co-exist across the Northeast and the rest of the planet. They each provide essential ecological, economic, and social values.
Citizens do a great disservice to the forests, wildlife, and future generations by thinking that it is a choice of either sustainable timber production or wilderness, and that people must be for one and against the other. Thinking that way is overly simplistic and eliminates the possibility of productive dialogue and creative solutions.
We can and must have both sustainable forestry and wilderness across the Northeast, but wilderness is what the region lacks most today. Public lands are the best – if not only – places where more wilderness can be established. Advocates for sustainable forestry and wilderness need to learn to talk and work together to promote their mutually compatible and interdependent interests.
I agree with Mr. Blodgett’s assertions that: early successional habitat is valuable and needed; a growing global population needs more wood products; per-capita resource consumption needs reduction, especially in the U.S.; invasive plants and pests are threatening forest health and integrity; national forests have an important role to play in timber production; and land and resource conditions should influence if and where timber is cut. Together, we can deal with these challenges and establish more wilderness.
Private forest lands, covering the vast majority of the Northeast, are easily capable of meeting the region’s needs for timber, early successional habitat, and motorized recreation, if managed properly.
The region’s scarce and precious public lands can play two important, complementary roles: (1) demonstrating on appropriate sites the very best sustainable forestry practices to small private landowners, and (2) providing large blocks of unroaded, unlogged wilderness for people and wildlife to enjoy. The lives of future generations will be immensely richer if we do both.
In 2005, the 25th anniversary of the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act, let’s work thoughtfully and cooperatively for more sustainable forestry and wilderness.
Jim Northup, Bristol, Vermont
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Wilderness, Wildlife, and Wood Products
To the Editors:
Putnam’s Blodgett’s Another View, “No! To Congressionally Designated Wilderness” highlights the problem with the wilderness debate. It, unfortunately, has become so black and white. Mr. Blodgett portrays wilderness advocates as “environmental extremists” who oppose proper forest management and early successional habitat. Conversely, as exemplified in the title of his essay, anti-wilderness advocates take the extreme viewpoint that there should never be another acre of congressionally designated wilderness. As forest and biodiversity program director of Vermont Natural Resources Council, I must disagree.
Fortunately, there is room for both sustainable timber harvesting and additional wilderness in our region if we recognize the unique opportunities on both public and private lands. In my opinion, the strength of public lands is that they offer the last best opportunities for large-scale wilderness areas that replicate the type of landscape that once existed. Public lands can help exhibit the expansive nature of old-growth forests, which historically covered nearly two-thirds of the northern New England landscape prior to European settlement.
However, Mr. Blodgett is concerned that wilderness is not friendly to wildlife. He asserts, “from the perspective of wildlife, wilderness is not necessarily a good procedure.” Wilderness areas and old-growth forests are not biological deserts. Many species thrive in mature, unfragmented forests. Furthermore, wilderness areas promote healthy watershed functions, support the development of coarse woody debris, and minimize threats of invasive plant species by limiting roads that can serve as a conduit for invasive species.
Congress should be proud of its responsibility in designating additional wilderness on national forest lands for the benefit of both wildlife and the people who live in our region who overwhelmingly support its designation.
Much can and should be done by working together to promote both conserved and properly managed forests. The dominant threat to the working landscape is not wilderness in national forests. It is the rapid pace of parcelization and fragmentation on privately owned land from development pressures.
Better for us to unite around improving use-value appraisal programs and landowner incentives for promoting working and conserved forestlands. Such sustainable forestry programs on private land could help reduce the importation of wood products in our region and create the early-successional habitat that certain wildlife species desire.
Finally, national forests and public lands have a role to play in supporting sustainable forestry and the creation of early-successional habitat. Most importantly, this management can coexist with more wilderness on the forest.
Jamey Fidel, Waitsfield, Vermont
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Green-Certified Cost and Value
To the Editors:
I have been a subscriber to Northern Woodlands and its predecessor publication for many years and wish to comment on the editorial written by Virginia Barlow in the Autumn issue.
As an owner of 300 acres of mixed woods in southern Vermont, I do not understand why any owner of a small timber lot would spend their hard-earned money, from other sources, to get their woodlot green certified. I purchased my property from a large forest products company in 1999. Seventy-five percent of the timber stand had been overcut. With the exception of restoring a 7-acre portion of a historic meadow, I have cut no timber. According to the plan of my consulting forester, we are allowing the forest to heal and restore itself to good health.
Who are my customers for the timber that I will eventually cut? The answer is: timber processors from Quebec, Canada. Does any reader think that these buyers want to inspect my green certificate from the U.S.? The answer is no. They could care less where the wood came from, or how the forest was (mis)managed. My buyers will not pay one penny more for wood from a certified woodlot.
Unless you are directly selling to a U.S. sawmill, who is reselling processed material from your woods to Home Depot, no one cares about your forest stewardship program. And, the greatest irony is that 90 percent or more of the U.S. timber processed in Canada is returned here in some form of building product.
All of this reminds me of the judge who told the lawyer: “Yes, your motion is granted. But, please do not draft an order for me to sign, which requires your opponent to ‘be good.’” Good people will do the right thing. Bad people will find a way to circumvent any rule and continue to rape the land.
Peter Engelhardt, Summit, New Jersey
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Green-Certified Cost and Value
To the Editors:
While I was very happy to see your support for the forest certification movement in the U.S., I was also surprised to see you failed to mention the certification available through the American Tree Farm System (ATFS).
As the vice chair of the Vermont Tree Farm Committee, I wanted you to know that ATFS has been promoting sustainable forestry since 1941. Sponsored by the American Forest Foundation, the ATFS has been recognized by the SFI as “certified” since 2000. ATFS is also currently seeking recognition from the Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification Systems, perhaps the largest European certification organization.
And as you noted, paperwork is required. But with the ATFS, the paperwork is minimal; local foresters do the management plans and inspections, and the system favors small parcels – as little as 10 acres. Costs are also minimal – generally only the cost of a management plan. Members receive Tree Farmer magazine free the first year, and it’s only $15 per year after.
More information is available, including state-specific points of contact, at the ATFS website: www.treefarmsystems.org.
Alan Robertson, Sheffield, Vermont
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Black Locust
To the Editors:
All due respect to Dave Gell, who claims to have worked with black locust as an alternative to pressure-treated lumber, but that wood is hard as nails. In fact, shipbuilders used to make nails from black locust that could easily be driven through softwood like pine, spruce, or hemlock. If you’ve ever tried driving a steel nail into dry black locust, you know how hard this wood is. It’s unlikely the nail will penetrate even a one-inch-thick board without it bending or breaking (please wear eye protection if you’re going to try it), and if it does go through, chances are it’s because the wood has split. This wood is extremely heavy, too. A deck made from black locust would probably require a more substantial foundation, and every piece would have to be drilled before a nail or deck screw could go through it. Black locust is a beautiful, golden-colored wood that might work well for hardwood flooring or furniture, and it burns like coal in a woodstove, but if Dave Gell can hammer a nail through black locust, he’s got a harder and more accurate swing than I do. I wonder how far he can hit a golf ball.
Paul Sachs, Newbury, Vermont
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Black Locust
To the Editors:
Eben McLane’s article in your last issue on using black locust to replace pressure-treated wood was quite interesting. There are many other northeastern species whose heartwood has varying degrees of rot-resistance. (Sapwood is generally not rot-resistant, no matter what the species.) One that should be of considerable commercial interest is tamarack. It is very common in some areas, is much easier to work than locust, and it is mostly heartwood. During World War II, creosote-treated power poles were not available, so tamarack was used as a substitute here in Vermont. Some of them were still in use in the early 1970s. A 30-year lifespan is quite respectable for a power pole!
Arthur Krueger, Cuttingsville, Vermont
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The Grant
To the Editors:
We enjoyed Jere Daniell’s contribution to A Place in Mind in your Winter 2004 issue. Living close by, we are fortunate to enjoy fishing, hiking, and biking in “The Grant.” It is a wonderful natural area. Also, to all of us who marvel at the rigors and ingenuity of logging here in the Northeast at the turn of the century, the Hell Gate area is a historic Mecca. We enjoy searching for evidence of the area’s logging history but also marvel at Nature’s ability to erase evidence of man’s sometimes heavy-handed intrusions.
Mr. Daniell did not mention that “The Grant” is gated and thus accessible only to those so privileged with a key or to those willing and fit enough to visit the area on foot or mountain bike. On the Maine side of the New Hampshire border, gates also restrict access to some of our natural treasures, including Parmachenee Lake, Kennebago Lake and the Rapid River.
Each of these places has a unique history as the land was conveyed from an area rich in logging lore ultimately into a gated parcel. We get involved in the debate of whether or not the gates preserve natural beauty or insure private preserves for the privileged. We have yet to see any of these lands being offered back by owners or trustees to their respective states as potential parks or public lands for preservation and so that more people may enjoy them. Regardless, we are thankful that these lands are accessible to us, at least by foot. We will continue to enjoy “The Grant” and other accessible gated woodlands as long as we are physically able to do so.
Steve Dudley, Rangeley Plantation, Maine
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Atomic Power is Not Benign
To the Editors:
To my amazement, Mr. Stone in his Winter 2004 Letter to the Editors wrongly states, “People talk about the hazards of atomic power, but it is all in their imaginations.” Does he mean that the as-yet incomplete disposal of nuclear waste in this country is of no concern?
Better minds know better than that!
Henry Dillenbeck, Winslow, Maine
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