Recent Spotlight on the Power of Protecting Maine’s Forests

The television news program, Chronicle from WCVB-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, recently aired a series on conservation, forestry, and recreation in the remote North Maine Woods. The episode follows the experiences of local and regional residents, advocates, and innovators like Wildlands & Woodlands partner, the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF), who are dedicated to advancing forest conservation and fighting climate change in New England. View the recent spotlight on the power of protecting Maine’s forests as embedded videos below or visit the Chronicle website to view segment one, segment two, segment three, and segment four.

Begin by meeting Igor and Karen Sikorsky, of Bradford Camps on the shores of Munsungan Lake, Maine. They are stewards and partners with the New England Forestry Foundation for the Pingree Partnership, the largest conservation easement in the history of the United States, permanently protecting 762,192 Maine forest acres from development. NEFF’s executive director, Robert Perschel, and senior forest science and policy fellow Alec Giffen suggest NEFF’s Exemplary Forestry standards as a way to manage New England’s forests and maximize their carbon storage potential as a significant climate solution.

Segment two sets the scene on the other side of Mount Katahdin, where a healthy forest was clear cut and replaced by monocultured trees by a South African logging company in the 1980s. Ownership of that forestland was transferred to the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). Steve Tatko, AMC’s director of conservation and land management, shares their approach to sustainable management of almost 75,000 forest acres south of Katahdin in Maine’s Hundred-Mile Wilderness after more than a century of intensive harvesting.

*Note: Although the segment title indicates deforestation, we offer the correction that forest harvesting, even when intensive, is not the same as deforestation. Deforestation is restricted to replacing a forest with another land cover like pavement or buildings.

Learn how nature regenerates forests and how careful, deliberate forestry like those in NEFF’s Exemplary Forestry Initiative applies the ecological ways nature improves wildlife habitat, grows better wood for commercial markets, and helps mitigate climate change all at the same time.

Now that we know how trees are powerful for absorbing carbon, we are introduced to wooden buildings, where carbon can be stored in our cities and towns. Next, Chronicle visits Dr. Peggi Clouston, a professor of timber engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She shares how cross-laminated timber or mass timber replaces the use of heavy greenhouse gas emitting concrete and steel processes.