Forest management is the planned approach a person or organization takes to the long-term stewardship of a forest’s natural resources to meet specific goals. Goals can vary widely depending on the management project and may include harvesting trees for wood, improving wildlife habitat, and protecting a forest’s streams and wetlands.
Forest management and forestry are umbrella terms that encompass many different ways of treating a forest.
Since 1944, New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) has been devoted to the practice, teaching and promotion of sustainable forestry that accounts for the many ways forests benefit the world—like by cleaning water as it runs through forests toward rivers and streams—rather than just wood production alone. Over time, the science-based sustainable forestry NEFF chose to not only practice on its own lands but also test and improve upon became Exemplary Forestry: a carbon-storing powerhouse that prioritizes forests’ long-term health. Exemplary Forestry is designed to work in balance with unharvested wildlands that serve as ecological reserves.
Here in New England, NEFF has a plan for wide-scale implementation of Exemplary Forestry that would simultaneously increase the amount of carbon stored in forests and produce sustainably grown wood—some of which can be used to make products that substitute for carbon-intensive building materials like steel and concrete.
Exemplary Forestry is a landscape-scale forestry approach that sets high standards for sustainability while addressing three key goals: mitigating climate change, improving wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and growing and harvesting more sustainably produced wood.
NEFF has applied to the USDA’s newly launched Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) program, and anticipates a decision this fall. If successful, NEFF’s AMP project will run through March 2028 and seek to incentivize improved forest management on approximately 50,000 acres across New England, with an emphasis on supporting long-term forest health, ecological integrity, and timber productivity. The project will also build markets for regional wood.
In the 1930s and 40s, an eclectic group of foresters and outdoor enthusiasts grew concerned about destructive overharvesting on private New England forests, and founded NEFF in 1944 in response. Learn more, including about the management of some of our early forests, like the pictured then-and-now Lincoln Davis Memorial Forest.
