Exemplary Forestry Focuses on Select Umbrella Species to Enhance Habitat for a Wide Range of Wildlife

NEFF’s Acadian Exemplary Forestry habitat standards are based on the needs of two wide-ranging species of the Acadian Forest—the American Marten and Canada Lynx.

Snowshoe Hares’ preferred habitat is young and dense softwood forests, and where Snowshoe Hares go, Canada Lynx follow. In northern New England, this type of forest forms primarily as regeneration following harvests or large-scale natural disturbances. In contrast to lynx, marten need large tracts of mature forest and a latticework of tree cover, and their preferred habitat combined with that of the lynx represents a wide range of forest ecosystems. Forests that are managed to protect the habitat of both species will collectively benefit more than 75 percent of other forest mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.

Working with leading forest scientists, NEFF’s Alec Giffin led a comparison of those habitats with the needs of other vertebrates native to the region, and then worked with NEFF employee Mike Pounch to analyze the actual habitats that currently exist. The Exemplary Forestry standards are intended to correct the imbalance between needed and existing habitats, and then to maintain the needed habitats into the future. This analysis revealed existing conditions do not match well with the recommendations of forest science.

Exemplary Forestry’s Threefold Approach to Climate Change

Forest Protection and Adaptation

Implementing Exemplary Forestry leads to older, more diverse forests with a mix of tree age classes, which research suggests makes the forests more resilient to climate changes’ impacts and better able to adapt to them. On NEFF lands, tailored management plans also account for each forest’s climate-related needs.

Increased Carbon Sequestration

Forests grow a high volume of wood under Exemplary Forest management, which increases the amount of carbon the forest can sequester. For example, an Exemplary Forestry approach in northern Maine would maintain about 25 cords of wood per acre, while current levels in northwestern Maine average only about 15 cords per acre.

The following real-world examples from NEFF properties illustrate that it is possible, through more intensive forest management, to simultaneously increase stocking in the forest while continuing to accomplish harvest over several decades. In each case, stocking increased over a 30 year period. In some cases, this was in conjunction with substantial harvesting (at least an average of one-third of a cord per acre per year), while in a few cases the harvest volume was not as significant, but the increase in stocking could have accommodated a greater harvest volume if desired (while still continuing to increase stocking over time). This graphic is also available for download as a PDF.

Sustainable Wood Products

Exemplary Forestry keeps as much carbon in the forest as possible while producing wood for engineered timber products that can safely substitute for steel and concrete in building construction. The energy-intensive production processes for steel and concrete emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, and each material is also reliant on mining for components.

Exemplary Forestry Grows More and Better-Quality Wood While Simultaneously Improving the Environment

Increasing wood production and harvesting under Exemplary Forest management benefits rural economies tied to the forest products industry, provides reliable and modest financial returns to landowners, and keeps private land forested thanks in part to those financial returns—landowners who make revenue from timber have less reason to sell their land for development.

How Do You Grow More and Better-Quality Wood?

NEFF’s forestry experts have distilled the Acadian Forest Exemplary Forestry practices into an overview that describes how they should be implemented and lists standards and metrics. The full document is available here, but the standards and metrics specific to tree growth and wood production are included below.

Practicing Exemplary Forestry results in: 

• Continuously improving forest stands over time in terms of both quality and quantity. 
• A diverse size class distribution of 5-15% of stands in seedlings, 30-40% in saplings and poles, 40-50% sawtimber (including 10% of the total area in large diameter multi-storied stands—note 9% of NEFF’s existing lands are, or will become, such stands over time).
• Growing tree species well suited to each site, e.g., matched to soil and physiographic conditions as well as expected changes in climatic conditions.
• Stocking that fully occupies the sites; this is an average at least “B” line stocking for stands not currently being regenerated. For example, in 8-10” diameter stands of mixed wood this would be approximately 20 cords/acre.
• Growing and harvesting quality timber at an average of 0.5 cords/acre/year, and targeting increasing the stocking of high-quality products.

If you’re unfamiliar with the technical aspects of forestry, this glossary of terms as used by NEFF may prove useful when reading the various Exemplary Forestry documents found under the download tab, or the preceding tab about growing wood. NEFF staff provided the italicized definitions, and non-italicized definitions were taken from Thom J. McEvoy’s Introduction to Forest Ecology and Silviculture-Third Edition. Note: Dbh is an abbreviation for “diameter at breast height,” or 4.5 feet above ground.

B-line stocking: The number of trees per acre for any given mean diameter that results in trees having no crown competition, but also no wasted space.

Best Management Practices: Guidelines for how to conduct an activity in an environmentally responsible manner, such as installing drainage control on a forest road. Best management practices are typically defined by state agencies in each state.

Board foot: The surface measure of a cubic volume of lumber that is equivalent to a rough sawn board one inch thick and one square foot in surface area.

Cord: The volume of wood equivalent to that found in firewood stacked 4’x4’x8’, or 128 cubic feet of wood.

Even-aged management: A timber management method that produces a forest or stand composed of trees having relatively small differences in age. The difference in age between trees forming the main canopy level of a stand usually does not exceed 20 percent of the age of the stand at rotation age.

Forest stand: A community of trees occupying a specific area and sufficiently uniform in composition, age, arrangement, and condition as to be distinguishable from the forest on adjacent areas.

Patch irregular shelterwood: Creating small gaps in the canopy (generally between one-quarter acre to two acres in size) to regenerate a forest stand in patches which are expanded over time.

Pole timer: A Dbh size class representing trees that are usually more than four inches Dbh but less than ten.

Saplings: Generally refers to a tree at least six feet tall but with a Dbh less than five inches and greater than one inch.

Sawtimber: Trees that have obtained a minimum Dbh that can be felled and processed into sawlogs.

Seedlings: Generally refers to a tree at least six feet tall but with a Dbh less than five inches and greater than one inch.

Silviculture: The art and science of growing forest timber and other values.

Stocking: The amount of wood growing on a given area of land, calculated based on the number of trees per unit area and their combined basal area. Stocking is typically measured as volume per unit of area, for example cords per acre, and is typically used to compare current levels of growing timber on a property to a management goal.

Uneven-aged or all-aged management: A timber management method that produces a stand composed of a wide range of ages and sizes.

Third-party certification: An official review of management practices on a particular property by an independent body for adherence to standards for sustainability.

Wood quality: Higher-quality timber includes logs suitable for veneer and sawlogs without significant defects like knots. Lower-quality timber includes pulpwood and, at the extreme end, wood suitable only to be used as fuel or ground for mulch.