Forest for the Future: AMC’s Maine forestry plan takes the long view

AMC Outdoors, October 2005

Blade whirling, hydraulics pumping, the timber harvester grasps a 60-foot high beech with massive metal pincers. In a matter of seconds, it snips the tree like a dandelion, hoists it vertically, and then lays it gently on the forest floor. Onward it trundles, clearing a path up the flanks of Benson Mountain on AMC’s Katahdin Iron Works (KIW) property.

Ted Shina, project supervisor, races up the slope to get ahead of the marching machine. “It’s kind of like approaching a hungry tiger,” he notes warily. Positioning himself upslope, in line with the fast-approaching blade, he finally succeeds in capturing the driver’s attention with a small flashlight. Out of the cockpit climbs Wayne Peters, a local sub-contractor who is helping turn AMC’s sustainable forestry plans into reality.

AMC is managing 16,000 acres of its 37,000-acre KIW property for long-term sustainable timber production. Each year AMC will harvest trees from a portion of this designated area, and sell the wood to local mills for pulp and lumber. In so doing, AMC is working to accomplish several key objectives of its Maine Woods Initiative (MWI): demonstrate a multiple-use model for conservation, support the economies of local communities, and generate revenue to offset the costs of managing the entire property. To oversee its operations, AMC has contracted with Maine-based Huber Resources Corporation. As one of Huber’s senior operations foresters, Shina coordinates the efforts here, and explains that the KIW property has long been managed as industrial timberland. Virtually all accessible forest on the property has been harvested over the past 150 years, from clear-cutting to selective logging for only the most valuable trees. As a result, very little of the landscape is in its original natural condition.

“This lack of mature forest is a real ecological concern,” says AMC senior staff scientist Dave Publicover. “Our goal is to return the forest to a more natural, multi-aged state.” The first step of this process is the removal of beech trees afflicted by the nectria fungus, an introduced pathogen that is slowly killing more than 95 percent of beech on the property. This opens up the forest to more sunlight, concentrates growth on fewer, more valuable trees, and over time will lead to a net increase in wood volume on the property. A variety of techniques are utilized to minimize the operation’s environmental impact. Skid trails and loading areas are kept to a minimum, mature overstory trees are left intact, and strict no-harvest zones are established around streams, ponds, and wetlands. “We’re basically just practicing good forestry,” says Publicover.

Over the next five years, AMC will cut roughly 6,000 cords annually, 90 percent of it diseased beech. This year, 6,800 cords will be harvested over 1,500 acres and then sold as hardwood pulp to as many as seven local mills. Funds generated by these sales help support operating costs on the property, including recreation planning and conservation research.

“This is a model of how timber harvesting can co-exist with a high level of recreation use and conservation,” Publicover says, pointing out that plans also include a 10,000-acre ecological preserve on the property, and a growing network of hiking trails. “But we want to continue traditional economic uses of the land, and help support the regional economy.”

As evidence of this, Peters is currently leading a seven-member crew from surrounding communities. As he stands below the purring harvester, rolling a small twig back and forth between his teeth, he muses on his work here. “AMC’s doing it right. They’ve got a good plan going. I just want to do ’em a good job.”

 - Matt Heid is Senior Editor of AMC Outdoors