This month, Houghton College is interviewing to hire a forest manager. Tasked with culling mature tree growth on the college’s 533 acres of forested land, they will produce and execute a plan that increases revenue and pays mind to the local environment.
The four-man panel directing this operation consists of Dr. James Wolfe, Dave Smith, Brian Webb, and Don Haingray. Their intent is to take on tree harvesting in the forests as both an economic and environmentally benefiting endeavor. “While logging is typically thought of as a negative in ecological terms, it can actually be good for a forest if done correctly,” said Brian Webb, Sustainability Coordinator for the college. Don Haingray echoed this statement, “This is about the health of the forest. It is the right thing to do if we are to be good stewards of the land.”
In a meeting with the college’s board of trustees, the panel described their goals for forest management: improve forest health by cutting and selling overgrowth, facilitate sustained timber production at 15-year intervals, minimize logging-related erosion, improve and protect wildlife habitats, and avoid disturbing everyday use of the property.
The first step in this process is contacting the Department of Environmental Conservation and meeting with the New York State Forester, Robert K. Davies. Davies has reviewed the college’s extant forestry plan from 2002 and surveyed the property. He verified the current plan to be in depth and needing only minor revision. He also provided the college with a list of cooperative foresters to be interviewed for the role of forestry manager.
In mid-November, the panel will meet with several candidates to decide which one is right for the position. While each member of the board has his own concept of an ideal forest manager, the overall consensus seems to focus on sustainability as a priority. “Hiring a forest manager who is committed to sustainable forestry practices will enable us to preserve the long-term value of our woods – not just economically, but ecologically as well,” said Webb.
The selected candidate will take on the role of forestry manager and several key responsibilities. These include updating the college’s 11 year-old forestry plan, marking trees that will be harvested, managing bidding and contracts with a logging company, and overseeing the actual logging process with a mind towards protecting the environment. The forestry manager will be paid a percentage of the earnings from harvesting.
Updating the forestry plan will involve working through about 100-pages of documentation and editing its contains based on current observations of the forested land. Before now, said Webb, “Our forests really hadn’t really been maintained.” There is very little growth due to older trees dominating the ecosystem. This logging process will help to remove those older specimens and encourage new ones.
Once trees are marked to be logged, the forest manager will take bids from logging companies to enter into contract with the college. Special considerations will be taken to ensure that the college is hiring a company that will preserve the forest’s natural ecology. The company that will win the bid will be the company that best balances monetary investment with environmental provisions.
The panel is approaching this process with caution, however. There have been many instances, both locally and nationally, of logging practices being poorly handled. Oftentimes, the harvesting process can damage roadways, habitats, and soils. Smith, said that he will not permit a logging company to treat the land that way, “We don’t see any benefit to clear cutting our forests to make some temporary money. That’s not our goal.”
Properly executed, the panel would set up a sustained process for small-scale timber production in the forest. At 15-year intervals, the forest will be reexamined much as it is today. At such time, logging practices will be enacted only where it is both ecologically and economically sensible. The panel sees a long-term investment as far more beneficial than a short-term payoff.
In Webb’s words, “While this process was initiated by a desire to create income through logging, I believe we can do so in a manner that maintains the beauty, as well as the ecological health of the Houghton woods. My goal is to ensure that we demonstrate responsible stewardship by caring for the forest that God has blessed us with.”