The Deeper Dig is a biweekly podcast from the VTDigger newsroom, hosted and produced by Sam Gale Rosen. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
There’s a story about forests that you’ve probably heard. Some environmentalists want to protect old trees, and leave the forests alone to sequester carbon. Others say there are good reasons for humans to actively manage forests. Those advocates include loggers and foresters, who earn their livelihoods from the land, but also scientists and other members of the environmental movement.
But amid a heated scientific debate about what is best for forests, and for people, some researchers warn against a false dichotomy. A bill is now working its way through the Vermont Legislature. It seeks a delicate, three-part balance, setting aside sections of forest with varied degrees of permanent protection. Some would become “forever wild.” Other tracts would allow some human intervention and sustainable forestry.
In this episode, VTDigger reporter Emma Cotton explains the different schools of thought in forest conservation. Bill Keeton, a professor of forest ecology and forestry at the University of Vermont, describes the benefits of mixed-method conservation. Sam Lincoln, formerly the deputy commissioner of Vermont’s Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation and owner of Lincoln Farm Timber Harvesting, discusses some of the ethical and economic challenges of permanent easements. Ecologist Shelby Perry guides us through “forever-wild” forest.
Below is a partial transcript, edited for length and clarity.
Riley Robinson: What does it mean to conserve forests? When is human intervention helpful, and when should we just leave the trees alone? It’s an age-old debate in the field of forestry. And it cuts to the heart of a bill before Vermont state lawmakers.
As it turns out, a lot of folks working in forestry don’t see it as an either / or situation. It’s not a competition between preservation and logging, or wildlands vs. active management.
I spoke with my colleague, Emma Cotton, about this complicated balancing act.
Riley Robinson: So you went out trekking around with Shelby Perry, who’s a wildlife ecologist. And you’re out in Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserves. What was Shelby looking for out there?
Emma Cotton: The Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve is this 6,000-acre stretch of land in Woodbury, and it has recently been preserved by the Northeast Wilderness Trust as a forever wildland. So there’s very limited human intervention that would ever happen in those woods. It’s protected from logging. It’s open for some types of recreation, and that’s pretty much it.
Shelby Perry: So we’re approaching very steep, which is good news for old forests and bad news for tired legs …
Emma Cotton: We were roaming around, looking for old forests, to see whether the land contained patches of trees that were 100 to 150 years old, to see if there were places where there were complex structures in the ecosystem. She was looking for sort of mossy, spongy soil and downed trees and all of the things that a forest would do on its own, when it hasn’t been touched by people.
Shelby Perry: This forest is a teenager. And the forest, you know, when it’s all grown up, feels really, really different. And we have a handful of places where that’s already true, but we don’t have very many, and they’re really really hard to get to. And so most people don’t get to experience that.
Emma Cotton: Shelby had a knack for just looking around and taking stock of what was there. She also was coring some trees. So when she thought that a tree might be a certain age, she would sit down next to it and take out her corer, which is like this thin metal rod. She would sort of twist it into the tree trunk and pull out a very thin sliver of the tree’s flesh and count its rings.
Shelby Perry: So that’s 70. We’ll add maybe 8 to ten for the ones we missed in the middle of the core, and however long it took the tree to get to this height. So we’re probably looking at a roughly 100-year-old tree, which is not quite 150. But it’s an old tree.
Riley Robinson: When did this land become part of this wilderness trust?
Emma Cotton: The sale became finalized the day that we were walking around out there.
This land has entered the Northeast Wilderness Trust portfolio alongside a lot of other lands across the region. They’re finding that people are becoming more and more interested in conserving land in this specific way, which is to set it aside entirely and not let people log it, which is rare. They’re the only regional-scale land trust that conserves land this way. Other land trusts allow other types of human activity, like logging, (on) that land. So this is a very specific type of conservation easement, and the interest — they’re reporting — is growing.
Riley: Generally, why did you go out to the forest in Woodbury?
Emma: I was really interested in this movement that I sort of see taking place across Vermont, and parts of the region, where people are becoming more interested in using forest in a different way than we have in the past.
So if we just rewind really quickly — in the 1800s, Vermont was clear cut. Almost all of Vermont’s forests were clear cut for agriculture, for farming. And since then, Vermont has experienced a really huge change. And now 78% of the land is covered in forest. So we’ve come back from that in a big way.
That is due in part to the Green Mountain National Forest becoming established in the state in the 1930s. And also, the state has a program called current use, which allows property owners to be taxed on their undeveloped value of their property rather than on its value in the marketplace.
Vermont has valued working forests for a really long time and, and almost all of our forests have been involved in the logging, the timber industry, in some way, for a really long time. And people are starting to feel like that should change.
And that is due, in large part, due to climate change, because the forest is often recognized as a climate solution. It sequesters a lot of carbon. It stores a lot of carbon. And it can be seen as sort of an easy way — quote, unquote, easy. Some people see this as an easy way to have the solution: We just leave forests alone, and they do all this work. They suck all this carbon out of the atmosphere.
And then I think wildlife is another huge reason why people have been interested in conserving forests in many different ways. When we have large swathes of connected forest, it allows species to migrate.
And for some people, it’s more philosophical than that. It’s sort of a matter of letting a forest be a forest for whatever purposes might exist. Just sort of allowing it to grow old on its own terms, allowing it to support its own ecology.
Shelby Perry: Northeast Wilderness Trust would take that forest and say, you live on tree time. We’re gonna let you play out your processes on tree time. And, it’s hard for humans to do that sometimes because we live on human time, and so that doesn’t feel like much in our lifetimes. But our lifetime is not much compared to a lifetime of a tree.
So I think it can come down to personal philosophy, too. If nature’s left to its own devices, it’s gonna get back to a state of health, eventually. And do we want to, or are we willing, to wait for that to happen? Or do we want to speed it up for ecological, personal, climate change, whatever our reasons might be?
Emma Cotton: There’s a lot going on, and I think it’s safe to say that in this conversation, very few people agree about anything. Everyone has a really different perspective about what should happen and why. And as one forester told me, you know, we’re having some really difficult conversations about what we believe forests are and how we want to use them.
Riley Robinson: So there’s this philosophical debate, and this scientific investigation, into what forests could or should look like. But this is also playing out politically, right? Can you walk me through what the big political movement has been about forests in Vermont?
Emma Cotton: Sure. So there are movements that are happening in the state and there are movements happening nationally that touch Vermont. One example is an executive order that President (Joe) Biden issued last year, where he set the intention of conserving mature and old growth forest across the country. That executive order hasn’t come yet, with a set of policies that really affect change on the ground — I think a lot is being debated — because, again, people don’t agree on a lot of things, even you know, such as the definition of what a mature forest is or what an old growth forest is. So there’s a lot that needs to be ironed out there.
But that executive order has the potential to impact projects that are going on in Vermont, for example, there’s a project in Rutland County, where more than 11,000 acres of land would be opened up for logging, and a lot of that’s taking place on mature forest, on what’s considered old forest. So that could be impacted.
Riley Robinson: I want to ask you about old growth. I know you’ve used the term, just, old forest. I’ve heard this term “old growth forests” for forever, but I am not really clear on what it means. So like, what is old growth?
Emma Cotton: That’s such a good question. No one agrees on what old growth means. Everyone has a different definition. I think, I think the strictest definition, that the most people could probably get behind, is that old growth forests are forests that have never been touched by human intervention, and that have never been touched by natural disturbance, definitely qualify. Those are old growth forests. Trees that have been standing for hundreds of years that have escaped all types of disturbance qualifies as old growth.
Some people argue that a forest impacted by natural disturbance still counts, because it’s still, that’s a natural process. And disturbance, you know, as part of a healthy ecosystem and forest. So if there’s a hurricane that came and knocked a bunch of trees down, those trees will dissolve into the soil and create, you know, healthy complex structures for different types of wildlife.
Other people say that, that doesn’t count. And some people think that old growth forests can be forest that were once entirely cleared, and 300 years from now, will eventually have their own type of complexity and will have grown old. So there are a lot of different definitions. This is partly why, when people say, “We need to protect old growth forests,” it becomes so intense and prickly — because nobody agrees on what that means.
Riley Robinson: Do we have pockets of old growth in Vermont?
Emma Cotton: We do have pockets of old growth in Vermont. Typically, where it’s impossible for logging equipment to reach those areas, so in really steep ravines on really steep, you know, mountain sides, that’s where you’re gonna see, quote, unquote, old growth forest. Most people say it is less than 1% of the composition of the forest in the state. Because so much of it was clear cut when the Europeans came and settled in Vermont.
Riley Robinson: I also wanted to ask you about this. I think a lot of people, when they hear logging, they think you just cut down everything. What does it actually look like?
Emma Cotton: It looks different depending on the circumstance. There is definitely clear cutting that happens in Vermont. There’s also a lot of logging in Vermont that isn’t clear cutting. I did a field trip with a logger, Sam Lincoln, who owns a business in Randolph center.
Sam Lincoln: Each of the four sides of the log is called a face. So he’s trying to make sure that he has two clear faces on a log that’s gonna go to a sawmill.
Emma Cotton: And he had this machine that would sort of very precisely move in between trees and, you know, take one tree down, and then extract that tree so it didn’t touch any of the others on its way out.
And, you know, in some areas, there are patch cuts, so you’re clearing, you know, a certain amount of forest and leaving others. So there are a lot of different approaches. I do think clear cutting is probably the most widely talked about in the media and elsewhere, as sort of a symbol of what can be damaging.
But then Sam Lincoln, you know, mentioned that some of the clear cuts he does are to create pasture for organic farms. And, you know, I think there’s a lot of nuance to every piece of this. But it looks entirely different depending on the logging job and what is requested from the landowner.
Riley Robinson: So I know we had a couple sidebars here on old growth and what that means, but to bring it back to policy — you’ve told me a bit about what’s going on at the federal level, but can you tell me more about what’s going on in the state of Vermont?
Emma Cotton: On a statewide level, there’s a few different initiatives that are going on.
One is a bill that has already become a law that passed last session, which creates a new category in the state’s current use program. So that tax incentive for property owners to keep undeveloped land undeveloped, that has historically applied to working forests and agriculture. There’s a new category that would allow property owners to only manage their lands for ecological benefits.
And this is really interesting, too, because, you know, it’s been a trade for a long time. People have received a tax incentive in exchange for providing an economic benefit. I will get a little bit off my taxes, and I’ll sell, I’ll participate in the wood products industry. But now, these ecological benefits are sort of being seen as a public good, so it’s sort of a shift in the way that we think about forests and what they can do for us.
Riley Robinson: And then tell me about the bill that you’re watching right now.
Emma: So H.126 is a state bill, working through the Statehouse in Vermont, that proposes conserving 30% of Vermont’s land by 2030.
And this bill passed both chambers last session but was vetoed by the governor.
It proposes conserving 30% of Vermont’s land by 2030, which has echoes of President Biden’s initiative. And this bill gets into the weeds of the debate of forest ecology right now. So it basically would require state officials to implement a document that they created, which is called “Vermont Conservation Design.” And it makes specific recommendations for how we should manage forests in the state.
It says that we should set around 9% of the state’s forest aside to be forever wild, so not touched, not part of the timber industry. And then there are other categories. Some of the forest that is conserved would have logging take place on it. Some of it would be open for humans to alter the forest based on ecological benefits.
The bill has gotten a lot of feedback. A lot of people appreciate that it walks the line of including those three different categories. But there are a lot of opinions about the bill.
Riley: It sounds like one of the big questions here is: What should conservation mean? Like how much human intervention is good for forests? If the debate is: Are forests best left untouched, or can humans do a better job at managing them than nature on its own? Is logging a form of conservation in itself, in forest management? Am I like, reading the room right here?
Emma: Yes. All of those questions are being asked. I think people are wondering what conservation means in this context. And I think the answer, in many ways, is that it means a lot of different things. And one of the words that I heard over and over, from every single person I interviewed on this was “balance.” Everyone wants balance, but everyone wants a different kind of balance.
I spoke with Bill Keeton, who is a researcher at UVM, who has studied old growth forests for a long time. He calls himself an old growth advocate. He also advocates for a mixed approach, so he believes that we should set pieces of the forest aside to never be touched, and then we should complement that by having pieces of the forest where we alter it for ecosystem benefits.
And then he also believes that there is a place for sustainable timber harvesting.
Bill Keeton: I see these as complementary approaches, wilderness and wildlands and sustainably managed working forests. We need both. They go together.
Emma: So Bill, and others in the state, frequently get really frustrated by this — what they call a false dichotomy that has sort of been taking place across the the media landscape, across forums where this has been discussed, where people think you either have to set forest aside or you have to actively, intensively manage it, and it’s an either/or situation. Their argument is that we can accomplish a lot of these goals across the landscape in different ways.
Bill Keeton: The danger is simplifying this issue by advocating that there shouldn’t be only one solution, or one solution is the best, when in fact, there’s science that supports all of these solutions. And each one carries risks, and pros and cons and trade-offs, which is probably why we need a portfolio of approaches.
So yeah, the science is complicated. The science is contentious. Scientists themselves disagree about many of these things. There’s an active debate within the scientific community. And that’s exactly why in a situation like this, we shouldn’t put all of our eggs in one basket. We need to spread the risk.
Riley: Can you tell me a little bit more about some loggers’ perspective on this? Like, how do they see their work as fitting into this conservation mission?
Emma Cotton: So in Vermont, forest-based businesses, including maple syrup, Christmas trees and the forest products industry, contribute $861 million in sales to the state’s economy every year. That’s according to the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation. The industry also employs about 6,600 people. Of course, all of those people are gonna have a different perspective about how forests should be managed and how this conservation work should go.
Sam Lincoln actually testified on this bill, H.126, that proposes different levels of forest conservation across the state. He is not a fan. For some nuanced reasons, I think. His argument is that landowners across Vermont have been voluntarily conserving their forests for a long time.
Through the current use program, and through landowners’ forestry plans that they have for their property, they are voluntarily choosing not to clear cut their forests, not to put housing developments on their land, that kind of thing. So he’s sort of saying, property owners should be able to decide what they want to do with their land.
And a really important asterisk here is that 80% of forests in the state of Vermont are privately owned. So whatever we do needs to have agreement from landowners. So he says he’s an advocate for property rights, and that landowners should be able to choose and that landowners are already doing a lot of good work. He’s also concerned about the reserved forest land piece of this, that 10% would be set aside.
He said that he isn’t opposed to, you know, old growth forests or older forests being conserved. But he sees that wood product demand for wood products is rising.
Sam Lincoln: When all these people are saying, well, we’re just going to stop logging. We’ve decided we’re going to use forests to sequester carbon, and that’s it. And we’re going to stop logging. To me, that is totally uninformed. A lack of awareness. And it doesn’t, like I said, it doesn’t mean we should cut every tree in every place all the time. By no means am I saying that. But it means like, it just means if we’re not not cutting trees he re, it’s not a net decrease of cutting trees in the region or on the planet. That fiber is going to be used to create those essential goods from somewhere.
Emma: We’re sort of exporting our burden somewhere else if we don’t cut these trees here.
Riley: Just so I understand — he has some concerns about private property rights. With this bill, is it telling private landowners what to do with their land? What exactly is going on there?
Emma: This bill is setting a goal of conserving 30% of the total landmass of Vermont by 2030. But if you think about the fact that 80% of the forest land in Vermont is privately owned, you can assume that some of that protected land is going to have to be on private property.
Riley: So I wanted to ask you, does this bill come out on one side of the debate, whether to leave the forests be or to manage them with human intervention. But it seems like that question is too simple.
Emma: I think what we can say is that the bill prioritizes permanent conservation, which some people are concerned about because we wouldn’t be able to take that conservation protection away later, if we need to. In terms of the people who are having a debate about how our forests should be used — so environmentalists and the people involved in sustainable management — people among that school of thought are excited about the fact that the bill has different options for conservation. So we’re gonna set some pieces aside. Some pieces are going to be available for continued management.
So it doesn’t say that 70% of the land in Vermont is going to be permanently protected and set aside forever. But I think there is a lot of nuance when you think about it, you know — how this might impact the wood products industry in the state?
So your question was, does it come out on one side or the other, and I think that the tricky part is that there are so many different sides. There are so many different people with different perspectives on this bill. A lot of people say that it does strike a good balance. A lot of people don’t.