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Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Joint federal-tribal longleaf pine restoration project benefits birds, baskets

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Sovereign Nation of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana worked together to plant longleaf pine seedlings on several hundred acres of tribal land in central Louisiana. Photo: Andrew Dolan, USFWS.

Before the United States was settled by Europeans, longleaf pine forests covered about 90 million acres of the Southeast.

Post-settlement, most of these forests were logged for turpentine and lumber, and by 1975 they had been reduced to about 5 million acres.

Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with private landowners, state and federal agencies and conservation groups to restore the glory of the longleaf.

The motivation for many of these conservationists is to help the many at-risk and endangered birds and wildlife that thrive in longleaf forests, from the red-cockaded woodpecker to the gopher tortoise.

The Sovereign Nation of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana has an additional motive: basket-weaving, a significant part of its heritage. [Read more…]

Low energy prices force New England wood heat pioneers to pivot

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Advanced wood heat — automated wood pellet and wood chip heating systems — makes sense in New England for a host of reasons. Photo: Biomass Thermal Energy Council

It was May of 2014 and Charlie Niebling was feeling pretty good. As the wood buyer for New England Wood Pellets and a modern wood heat pioneer, he had reason to be optimistic. New England’s automated wood heat industry was finally beginning to hum.

For years, high energy prices were the driving force behind adoption of residential pellets stoves, spurring investment in wood pellet manufacturing and, concurrently, leading to the installation of hundreds of commercial wood-fired heating systems across Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

“By 2014 with the return of $4 a gallon heating oil and expensive propane, despite the declining price of natural gas, we had a solid core of wood heat vendors,” said Niebling, principal and partner at Innovative Natural Resource Solutions in Concord, N.H. “Companies had invested in pellet trucks (allowing automated delivery to homes and buildings). In New Hampshire alone, we had over 100 commercial and institutional pellet and chip installations in the five years prior. Basically, it was all systems go.” [Read more…]

Today’s timber markets: Who will buy Northeast’s low-grade wood?

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Forest thinning in Claremont, N.H. (Stillwater Forestry)
Forest thinning in Claremont, N.H. (Stillwater Forestry)

Van Webb, a logger and farmer from Sunapee, harvested from a mostly white pine lot on a 57-acre property in Unity, N.H., in 2016.

Many of the pine trees he harvested were low-grade — meaning the logs could not be sawed into boards at a sawmill. Instead, he sent the wood to the biomass plant in Springfield, N.H., where it was burned to create electricity.

Without a local market for this low-grade material, the harvest would probably not have been possible.

“I don’t know what we’d do if the Springfield wood energy plant was gone. In this part of the state, there is no other low-grade market for pine.” Webb said. “Without that market, this landowner would not have been able to have this property harvested — or at least not in a way that removes the low-quality trees along with some of the good trees — and leave a shelterwood forest of good quality that can now regenerate naturally with new seedlings.” [Read more…]

On Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island, wood heat pays social, economic dividends

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A student shows off the cord wood used to a heat schools on Prince of Wales Island.
A student shows off the cord wood used to a heat schools on Prince of Wales Island. The switch to wood heat has lowered the district’s energy bill and provided jobs for students and residents alike. Photo: Dan Bihn

Prince of Wales Island sits at the southern tip of Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, its dense forests and tiny communities accessible only by boat or an hour’s float plane flight from Ketchikan.

In this sylvan isle, 10 is a magic number. If 10 students enroll in October, you have a school. If the community musters just nine students, there is no school.

As with many remote rural places, a public school is the difference between a community and a ghost town.

“At one time, we had 21 schools and now we’re down to 8,” said Lauren Burch, superintendent of the Southeast Island School District. “And once the schools shutter, they don’t come back. Now those places fade into summer homes and ghost towns.

“In our world, the school’s the community hub and often the only employer in the winter time. It’s the glue that holds the town together. We have an obligation to these communities to help them stay viable. I have to know those 10 kids are sticking through the year. The best way to do that is if papa’s got a job.”

At six public schools across the island, the installation of modern wood heating systems has fueled a surge of energy savings, student entrepreneurship and, surprisingly, improved nutrition.
[Read more…]

Northwestern Montana forest provides Capitol’s 79-foot-tall Christmas spruce

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Trucker Larry Spiekermeier pulled into the nation’s capital a little after 4 a.m. Monday, delivering his 79-foot-tall cargo. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

Grown to the height of a high-rise on northwestern Montana’s remote Kootenai National Forest, the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree reached its destination Monday after a 3,460-mile journey across the country.

Trucker Larry Spiekermeier made his delivery before dawn, after a stop Sunday at Joint Base Andrews, where members of the U.S. Air Force helped to unwrap the tree before the final few miles of its travels.

On Monday, a crane hoisted the tree into place on the west side of the Capitol, where a lighting ceremony – led by Montana Sen. Jon Tester – is planned for Dec. 6. [Read more…]