A chipmunk peers around a white pine trunk in the McCoy-Chapman Forest. Courtesy Jay Davis
BETHEL — The Mahoosuc Land Trust (MLT) will soon commence its first harvest on the recently acquired McCoy-Chapman Forest, a 500-acre tract about five miles west of Bethel that runs from the banks of the Androscoggin River to the flanks of the Mahoosuc Range.
The scenic acquisition, which offers year-round recreation, comprises land donations from a family that practiced sustainable harvesting for more than two centuries.
“Ginny and Sam McCoy’s careful forest management over decades made the McCoy-Chapman Forest an appropriate place to apply best practices and emerging science on the types of harvesting practices that have true ecological benefits,” said Kirk Siegel, MLT’s executive director.
The harvest will take place on the slopes above North Road, which bisects the property, and will carried out in accordance with exemplary wildlife habitat restoration and forest management plans. Planning, Siegel noted, included natural resource, forestry and ecological experts who assessed current conditions and recommended strategies for long-term resource protection and management.
“This isn’t typical timber harvesting,” Siegel said. “It’s fascinating to me that we can create adjustments in the forest through species transitions, which will favor native species adapted to future climate conditions.”
Inventories of large and small mammals, birds, amphibians and plant species guide specific prescribed cutting which, over time, will mimic natural processes of storms and regrowth, diversifying habitat to attract more wildlife species, and preserving those that already flourish in the mixed hardwood-conifer woods. The project has benefitted from cooperative arrangements with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the New England Forestry Foundation.
Katie Stuart, an MLT board member who has been involved in the planning and implementation stages, said “We believe in the value of both working forests and preserved areas, and that by providing both, we can answer the needs of people in our region while protecting environmental values. As we continually learn more about forest ecosystems, we are applying the best available science to our Mahoosuc Land Trust forests.”
Debate over the best way to preserve and enhance forest land in the greater Mahoosuc region, which includes a wide variety of conservation land techniques, as well as a robust commercial forest industry, will continue. MLT, Stuart said, recognizes the need to contribute to the local economy as well as providing hiking, walking, skiing and birding opportunities for visitors from Maine and across the Northeast.
“While answering the need for locally-sourced products,” she said, “our goal is to demonstrate exemplary forestry that incorporates objectives for carbon management, riparian protections, natural disturbance ecology and forest biodiversity.”
Barbara Murphy, director of MLT’s Habitat for All program, said “Hearing or coming across an active timber harvesting operation can be emotionally jarring. Ecological science, however, is clear that there are times harvesting is needed to promote diverse, uneven-aged tree stands as well as to disrupt diseases affecting some tree species.”
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