Landscape Scale Cooperation by Downeast Forest Managers

October 14, 2010

The second annual Downeast Forest Managers Tour was hosted today by the Bureau of Parks and Lands on the Duck Lake Unit Maine Public Reserved Lands.  This tour was inaugurated in 2009 by Downeast Lakes Land Trust on the Farm Cove Community Forest.

The Downeast Forest Managers gather to share and learn from one another, and to seek opportunities to enhance wildlife habitats on a landscape scale by working across ownership boundaries.  The participants in this year’s tour manage over a million acres of contiguous forest lands from the Penobscot River to the New Brunswick Border.

Examples of cross-boundary cooperation among the group include protection of deer wintering habitats and travel corridors and coordinated timing of harvests to maintain a continuous supply of browse and early successional habitat for grouse, woodcock, and other species.

On the Duck Lake Unit, Chuck Simpson, George Ritz, Tom Charles, and Joe Wiley provided valuable perspectives gained from their decades of experience managing the property.  The tour included visits to old growth forest in an ecological reserve along with a variety of areas harvested between 1 and 50 years ago.

This year’s tour included representatives from American Forest Management, Downeast Lakes Land Trust, Lyme Timber, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, Maine Forest Service, Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, Orion Timberlands, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Wagner Forest Management.

Downeast Lakes Land Trust greatly appreciates the partnership and cooperative spirit that exists among our neighbors.