Local Coverts Cooperators Help Landowners Manage Forests

By Dottie Evans

[The early New England forest] is a hideous and desolate wilderness,

A land of woods and thickets…wild and savage.

––William Bradford, 1620

The dread with which Puritan governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Bay Colony once described the unbroken forest wilderness was soon forgotten as early settlers began clearing the land and harvesting timber for fuel and productive industry.

In a few decades, farms and pastures replaced much of the original eastern forest. By 1750, timber had been cleared from two thirds of the land and only the rockiest and steepest third remained covered with virgin trees. This was further reduced in size and quality during the next 100 years marking a second wave of deforestation.

“Now, those old woods are every where falling. The axe has made, and is making, wanton and terrible havoc. The new settler clears in a year more acres than he can cultivate in ten, and destroys at a single burning many a winter’s fuel which would better be kept in reserve for his grandchildren,” (Boston educator George Emerson writing in 1846).

While he was bemoaning the lack of forest management in Massachusetts, Emerson could have been describing what was also going on in Connecticut since by 1840, 95 percent of Connecticut’s forestland had been cleared for agriculture.

By the end of the 19th Century, the farming way of life declined as the industrial revolution drew more and more people into the cities. And as the woodlands came back to fill up the vacant farmlands, many trees were harvested as the source of raw materials for industry and expanding urban construction.

From 1880 to 1960, a third growth forest covered 60 percent of the state and it continues to fill up the landscape today. Many of these third growth trees are ready for harvesting and, once again, the issue of sound management arises.

Whether these forests will be maintained wisely for current as well as future use, or whether their resources will be squandered is an issue of concern to public land use agencies and forestry experts alike, especially since 80 percent of the forested land is privately owned. Complicating this fact is the reality that forest management issues may not be restricted to private property boundaries, and fragmentation, or division of large forest tracts into small units, has entered the scene.

“A forest landowner needs to create a long-term plan if he wants to leave a meaningful legacy,” said Newtown resident Cara Leigh Wilson, who is a recently certified forest coverts cooperator.

Having just completed a forest and wildlife conservation course in September known as The Coverts Project, Ms Wilson listed a number of options that a landowner owning ten or more acres of woodland might want to consider.

Although a covert is defined as a thicket that provides sheltering cover for wildlife, The Coverts Project offers information about many uses. A forest might be managed as a source of firewood or saw timber, or specially tended as a “sugar bush” or an area of maple trees old enough to tap for syrup.

“First, you’ve got to know what you have growing on your land,” Ms Wilson said, “and experienced Connecticut foresters are a wonderful asset in helping you spell out a plan.

“Also, since the signing of Public Act 04-115 [“An Act Concerning Forestry Management”] people need to know about new standards and policies to help them file for tax breaks on their forest land.”

The Coverts Project was co-sponsored by the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension System, the Ruffed Grouse Society, the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). It was created to bring private landowners into contact with forestry and wildlife experts so that sound management plans could be put into place.

Ms Wilson was one of 26 who completed the intensive three-and-a-half day course at the Yale Forestry Camp in Norfolk where training included both classroom and outdoor sessions. Their extended lab was the 6,800-acre Great Mountain Forest that surrounds the Yale camp.

After certification, participants, called coverts project cooperators, became part of an informed statewide network of people who will work closely with state natural resource professionals. They will also volunteer their time to inform and assist the more than 100,000 Connecticut woodland owners.

“In addition to myself, there are two other volunteer coverts project cooperators in town,” Ms Wilson said, naming Newtown residents Bob Eckenrode and Kirk Blanchard, and she is currently working with two landowners in Greenwich.

Newtown has mostly young forests recently grown up from farmland. Its diverse terrain includes wetlands, uplands, and ridge tops.

“We’ve got maples, oaks, ash, and beech trees, and the root stock is still there for chestnuts though they don’t live longer than a few years. People should put their woodlots under a management plan to see what will happen.

“Of course it depends upon your goals, but given the right environment a forest can grow very quickly. Hemlock might need cutting. The aspen and birch might need thinning. Each species has to be managed a different way.”

Oak trees thrive in full sunlight and space, and maples managed for a sugar bush need space so they will branch lower down on the trunk, creating a thicker canopy of leaves. Trees managed for saw timber should be allowed to grow more densely so there is less branching that creates knots.

Finally, she cautioned landowners against contacting a sawmill before talking to a forester.

“You don’t want what’s called a logger’s choice cut. It’s not what’s best for the forest and it can be a disaster. How you take the logs out matters when you consider erosion and runoff issues. Whether you use enormous equipment or draft horses. Whether you cross watercourses or stick to a single logging road.”

Ms Wilson is hoping to act as a facilitator bringing Newtown landowners and trained forestry experts together, and she hopes to create a demonstration area in town where people can view a woodlot that has been successfully managed for a specific purpose.

“We’re talking decades here but you have to start with a plan. If you have a meadow and you don’t mow it, within a few years you’ve got a forest moving in,” she said.

And we know from history that in the end, Connecticut wants to be a forest.