This commentary is by Jonathan Leibowitz, president and CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust, a Montpelier-based regional land trust that focuses on wilderness conservation.
Whether you find solace in the woods on a mountain bike, on foot, with a rifle or chainsaw in hand, or peering through binoculars, forests are a great commonality among Vermonters, and, I would argue, our greatest asset. But opinions about how to use or preserve them have grown more heated in recent years.
This debate, however, is nothing new. Storied American conservationists John Muir and Gifford Pinchot wrestled with this very question in the early 1900s. Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, argued that a “wise use” philosophy should guide our approach to natural resource management. Muir, the great naturalist and grandfather of the wilderness movement, believed wild places are sacred, possessing intrinsic value worth protecting from exploitation.
A century later, the conversation in Vermont over our relationship with the state’s forests continues, but it has evolved. Many of us in the conservation field no longer see wise use versus preservation as an either/or question; we see it as a both/and opportunity. A chance to collaborate and find common ground for the betterment of people, wildlife, and the planet. We recognize that forests supply essential, beloved resources and serve as the irreplaceable homes of the wild species with whom we share this beautiful landscape. We know that a wild forest does not supply firewood or pulp for the mill, and equally, that a managed forest stores less carbon than an unmanaged old one. We also know that active management can benefit certain individual species, while wild, mature forests often harbor greater species richness overall.
All of these things are true. And that is precisely the point. There is value in each approach. We need both: a Vermont where wildlands and managed forests coexist in a vibrant whole.
Most people can agree on that much. But as much as any common ground is worth celebrating today, it’s worth recognizing that while our conservation discourse has evolved, complexities remain, two of which ought to be acknowledged if we are to arrive at that balanced Vermont we seek.
The first is that today, Vermont’s wild forest base is woefully insufficient. Context is critical here. In Vermont, as in much of New England, about 25 percent of the state’s forests have been conserved, a remarkable achievement. But less than 4 percent has been conserved as wild, managed in a way that ensures that forests will grow old, store a wealth of carbon, and deliver the full range of benefits associated with old-growth ecosystems. Vermont Conservation Design, a framework used for conservation planning by the state, recommends that at least 9 percent of Vermont be “old forest.” We are far from that today. The most cost-effective, scalable path to get there is wilderness protection.
The second is that “forest health” is a term more reflective of human values than of ecological reality. I often hear that forests “need us” to be healthy. But healthy for whom, and toward what end?
If the goal is, for example, maximizing board feet of lumber within a timeframe that generates economic value, active management is an irreplaceable tool. But the notion that human intervention is needed to keep forests ecologically healthy is called into question by the fact that they have been responding to external pressures and change for millions of years — long before human beings walked this Earth. Another way of putting it: forests are extraordinarily good, as study after study shows, at regulating themselves. The primary inputs needed for a healthy forest are simply time and freedom, so that natural processes can shape the land.
Acknowledging these complexities does not jeopardize the both/and framing that has moved conservation in Vermont forward. Instead, it offers a reason to be optimistic. Vermont is uniquely positioned to model what a thoughtful, ecologically grounded relationship with forests can look like. All of us take pride in this landscape, its wildlife, our locally made forest products and the forested places that define our state’s character. We can expand protected wildlands while supporting the timber industry that supplies our mills, heats our homes and connects us to a centuries-long tradition of living close to the land. There is room for both.
That vision — more wild forests alongside managed woodlands, old growth nestled next to sugar bushes — is not a utopian fantasy. It’s a practical, hopeful and very Vermont future, if we’re willing to work toward it together.
