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Forest Matters

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Summer 2015

In This Issue
Lead Story





Stewardship News









Competitive Grant Success Stories
New Publication

Forest Land Conservation Spotlight

Naturalist's Corner
Welcome to the Summer 2015 edition of the Forest Matters Stewardship News! From a race to save a famed mountain biking trail in northeast Vermont to exploring the beauty of wetland plants, this issue presents a variety of articles for all those who care about woods. Learn about the stories of private landowners, meet new Forest Stewardship Coordinators, and read about the successes of states that received competitive grants for forest-related efforts.


Enjoy this edition of Forest Matters.

forest stewardship theme art
Mike Huneke
Forest Stewardship Program Manager
Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
Lead Story
SOSSOS--"Save our Sidewinder"

Fun and $6.5 million at risk if woodland purchase in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom fails

Robert "Fitz" Fitzhenry, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

Mountain bikers ride down the Sidewinder trail in Vermont.
Riders "sending it" down Sidewinder. (Photo: Brice Shirbach)

They came by the thousands to ride and vibe. It was Father's Day weekend, 2015, and time again for NEMBAFest at Kingdom Trails, a neo-renaissance faire for mountain bikers held on the verdant rolling pasture behind The Wildflower Inn, Lyndon, VT.

Banner poles beckoned cyclists and families toward parking, registration, camping, vendors, music, food, and the beer tent. Low-tech bikes worth hundreds of dollars lay and leaned about, next to state-of-the-art rides worth thousands. Their owners contrasted even more-some wearing tight, bright, matching "kit" laden with sponsor logos; others in muted or blacked-out baggy shorts and jerseys; lots of kids in soccer shorts and tops; and the trend-setting ladies from East Burke Sports easy to spot in their pink tutus.

But if the famed Sidewinder trail goes, could the New England Mountain Bike Association's annual festival be delivered again? Would the year-round operations of non-profit Kingdom Trails Association (KT) continue?

"We can't even picture that," says Tim Tierney, executive director of KT. "It's unfathomable that this flagship trail be gone."
Landowner Spotlights
sydneyantonioMeet Sydney Antonio:
Pre-teen Summer Camp Desperado Turned Successful Forest Land Manager
 
Glenn Rosenholm, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
 
If you asked Sydney Antonio how she came to own 450 well-managed acres of forest land in Upstate New York, she would tell you it had a lot to do with her hating summer camp as a child.

She REALLY hated it.

"Around 1959 or so, my mom sent my brother and me off to camp," she said. "I disliked the housekeeper, and mom didn't think we should spend summers in the city, so she sent us off to camp."

Soon after Sydney arrived out in rustic wilderness called camp, she found the situation there too structured, conforming, and impersonal for her taste.

"I got to camp and I was in a tent -- with other people. I had to do what they wanted to do, by their schedule. I had a book and I wanted to read it, but I had to go by their schedule."

Sydney Antonio poses with her family on her tree farm in New York.
Sydney Antonio (second from right) poses with her family (from left to right): daughter, granddaughter, husband Evon, and a cousin.
carrsFrom Protecting Family History to Enhancing Forest Resources: Maryland Couple Live Their Dream in Harford County

Devin Wanner, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
 
Richard and Cindy Carr first moved to their property in Harford County, MD, 38 years ago, as renters with the option to buy. Moving to the property was a dream come true for Richard Carr.

"As a child I always wanted to be on a farm," he said. He and his family have raised goats, sheep, hogs, chickens, horses, had a large garden, and planted Christmas trees over the past 38 years.

When the Carrs moved to the mostly wooded property it consisted of 63 acres, but the previous landowner had already filed paperwork to subdivide the property.  In 1992 the Carrs purchased the 15-acre lot that contained the original homestead and other historic structures dating back to about 1840. A lot of work needed to be done to the house when they first moved in, and they have renovated the ho use a little at a time.
The Carrs stand next to their Forest Stewardship sign.
Richard and Cindy Carr pose beside their Forest Stewardship sign. (Photo: Mike Huneke)























victorngPlanting the Right Seed 

Brice June, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
 
In February 2014, I received an email asking for some assistance from a new landowner in Livingston County. He was a Canadian citizen looking to start a chestnut farm to commercially produce nuts. I thought this would be an interesting project, so we set up a date to meet on the property. 

Victor Ng (pronounced Ing) bought 158 acres of property in the Town of West Sparta, New York. We walked the whole property and discussed what I was seeing; I also pointed out different stand types, land history use, and tree species. As we moved around I tried to incorporate answers to his variety of questions. He was concerned about the site; when I pointed out a very healthy 16 inch d.b.h. American chestnut, he was ecstatic to see it.

Green tubing is strung through a sugar maple forest to collect sap.
A network of green tubing collects sugar maple sap on Victor Ng's property in New York State.
Forest Threats
SPBonLISouthern Pine Beetle Found on Long Island

Kevin Dodds, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

A southern pine beetle is pictured in a piece of wood.
Southern pine beetle. (Photo: USDA Forest Service, Region 8 Southern Archive, Bugwood.org)

The southern pine beetle ( Dendroctonus frontalis ) was located infesting pine trees on Long Island in September 2014. This detection means that the southern pine beetle (SPB) has expanded its range; it is primarily associated with southeastern pine forests and had not previously been recorded north of New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

In winter and spring 2015, aerial detection and ground-based surveys located SPB over a large portion of Long Island in pure pitch pine and pitch pine-oak forests. Tree mortality in these stands ranged from low with only a few scattered trees killed to severe where all pitch pine in a stand are dead. Ground surveys have also located SPB attacks on white pine and Norway spruce, although to date these observations have been rare. In March 2015, SPB was located infesting red, Scots, and pitch pine in Connecticut, further expanding its known northern extent.

Pheromone-baited traps were set out during spring 2015. As a result, new SPB populations were detected throughout portions of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as north of New York City. State and Federal agencies are currently conducting aerial surveys to map suspicious pine mortality that will be followed up with ground surveys to identify SPB-killed trees.

Once populations have been assessed, land managers will develop plans to try to minimize damage to important regional pine forests. Several tools have been effective against the SPB in the southeastern United States, including cutting infested trees and thinning at-risk forests. These tools are currently being used in infested stands on Long Island.

EABarticleRecent Emerald Ash Borer Article in The Canadian Entomologist

Roger Monthey, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

eab
Photo: Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Forestry Archive, Bugwood.org 
research article about tactics to slow ash mortality caused by the emerald ash borer (EAB) was part of a special EAB issue of The Canadian Entomologist in March 2015. This brief article summarizes the salient points from its abstract and introduction.

tommartinblogFamily Forests: A Key Piece of Protecting Critical Forestland

Tom Martin, President and CEO, American Forest Foundation

Posted 2/3/2015, Updated 4/5/2015
 
Banner for the Huffing Post blog article by Tom Martin.

Anyone who has ever put together a puzzle has had this experience: You're in the home stretch, and you reach for the last piece you need to finally finish, only it's not there. You look everywhere, stewing in frustration as you think about what could have happened to it: "Maybe it got lost. Did I vacuum it up?" Regardless of the cause, your puzzle can never be complete, and all the time you spent working on the rest of it feels like it's been for naught. Now imagine that a third of the pieces are gone.

That's what will happen to the puzzle of protecting critical forestland if we don't make family-owned woodlands part of the conservation conversation. More than a third of U.S. forests are owned by individuals and families -- a larger share than the federal government or various companies own. As we work to protect both the environment and rural economies, family-owned forests are hugely important yet too often overlooked.
RNYWThe Restore New York Woodlands Initiative -- A Partnership Process

Peter J. Smallidge, New York State Extension Forester, Cornell University Cooperative Extension
Jerry Michael, New York Forest Owners Association, Restore New York Woodlands Initiative Chair
Gary Goff, Cornell University Cooperative Extension (retired)

Restore New York Woodlands logo.
In recent years forest stakeholders in New York have witnessed an increasing alignment of thinking, concern, and recognition of need as they collectively look forward to the third growth forest. Any endeavor of this magnitude requires a central leader and broad support among numerous partners, and exists as a process rather than a point in time. 

In 2010, Cornell University and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) published reports based on independently conducted research that evaluated the opportunities for and limitations of natural forest regeneration. Concurrently, members of the New York Forest Owners Association (NYFOA) were expressing concerns, and Master Forest Owner (MFO) volunteers affiliated with Cornell Cooperative Extension were reporting regeneration failure due to deer impacts and interfering vegetation. Others in the forestry community were noting similar problems, drawing from U.S. Forest Service and university research efforts. The stage was set, with evidence from multiple directions, that there are significant threats to the capacity of many of New York's private woodlands (and public State Forest land) to regenerate a healthy, productive forest that will continue to provide the diversity of benefits sought by society.
Stewardship News
lowvaluewoodsFinally, Finding Value in Low-Value Hardwoods

Lee Burnett, Project Director of Forest Works!

Just when you think good forestry is disappearing in southern Maine, along comes an idea that seems ahead of its time.

"More Than Centuries" is a business plan for capitalizing a low-impact logging operation to be cooperatively owned by land trusts in southern Maine. It's the brainchild of Tin Smith (pictured below), the stewardship director at Wells National Estuarine Reserve in Wells, ME, who has thought long and hard about the state of forestry in southern Maine.

Tin is proposing a logging system that combines the low overhead and low impact of a horse-logging system with the power of machines.

Smith is responding to a growing problem in southern Maine: damaged woodlots of such low value that they are in danger of being converted to house lots and forever lost as woods. Careful intervention -- in the form of thinning that restores the woods' health and productivity -- is what these woodlots need. But that service is not commercially available with the whole-tree harvesting equipment in use today. Smith says he has tried in vain to find an operator willing to log woodlots stocked with nothing but pole-size trees and saplings.

"I tell them, 'send me the name of someone who can do this' and they never get back to me," he said.

A man guides two work horses through the woods in Maine.
Tin Smith.
Ho me
CARINGPAFORCaring for Pennsylvania's Private Forests

Penn State Ag Science Magazine
 
Maureen Harmon penned a great article about caring for Pennsylvania's private forests in the Spring/Summer 2015 issue of the Penn State Ag Science Magazine . From a spotlight on Pennsylvania private landowners caring for their land to the unique role that the Center for Private Forests at Penn State plays in the Commonwealth, this article highlights efforts to "conserve Pennsylvania's signature landscape for generations to come." Check it out!

Photo of a scenic view of mountains and trees in Pennsylvania.
Photo: Penn State Ag Science Magazine.
MAWFIThe Working Forest Initiative

Jennifer Fish, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation

Cover of The Working Forest Initiative brochure.
The Working Forest Initiative (WFI) is a product of th  Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Forest Stewardship Program. You can view a brochure of the Initiative. The WFI is a suite of programs designed to aid landowners in sustainable forest management and long-term conservation while providing local forest products to our economy,  enhancing wildlife habitat for declining species, and permanently protecting forest land.

The WFI has been in existence since May 2009 and is constantly evolving to meet the needs of private woodland owners in the Commonwealth. It includes a wide network of partners --MassAudubon, Massachusetts Woodlands Institute, Mt. Grace Land Trust, and UMass Amherst.
pollinatorsPollinators in the News

Dennis McDougall, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

Federal Government Takes Action to Promote 
Pollinator Health
In June of 2014, President Obama issued the presidential
memorandum, "Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the
Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators." That
memorandum established the Pollinator Health Task Force,
co-chaired by the Secretary of Agriculture and the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who
were tasked with developing the Federal strategy.

Apparently the task force has been as busy as, well, bees,
since two new documents have been released. The "National
Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and other
Pollinators" was completed on May 19, 2015.

Were You Aware of the Pollinator Partnership?
The U.S. Forest Service is one of many proud partners in the Pollinator Partnership, a Washington DC-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the health of pollinators through conservation education and research.
Image of a cell phone with the BeeSmart app.

Founded in 1997, the partnership works with a wide varie ty of partners throughout North America and globally to protect pollinator health, educate the public, and promote partnerships to protect and restore pollinator health and function.



DREYNature-Loving Philanthropist
Leo A. Drey Leaves a Legacy of Protected Ozark Land


Greg Iffrig, L-A-D Foundation

For more than 60 years, Leo A. Drey worked to transform cut-over Ozark land to productive, beautiful forests and woodlands, open for hiking and public enjoyment. His work also included seeking out some of Missouri's most important landmarks -- both cultural and natural -- and making them available for generations to come. Drey died peacefully May 26 at his home in St. Louis. He was 98.

Visit the L-A-D Foundation Web page for a variety of information about Leo Drey and the 153,000-acre Pioneer Forest that Leo and his wife Kay donated to the foundation. A video on the Missouri Department of Conservation Web site also highlights the many contributions Leo made to the State of Missouri in his lifetime.

Leo Drey and Pioneer Forest
Leo Drey and Pioneer Forest
MEPROFILESUpdate: Profiles of Woodland Stewardship Video Series

Andy Shultz, Maine Forest Service

The Maine Forest Service (MFS) continues to build its documentary series Profiles of Woodland Stewardship. These short videos and slideshows portray true stories of Maine's woodlands and the people who care for them. The landowners profiled here are model stewards; their woodlands are visible demonstrations of woodland conservation applied on the ground. Each story shows the interaction of actively managed woodlands with woodland owner family members, resource professionals, recreational users, and the local community. The stories illustrate the concept of the
Stewardship Storyline where stewardship is seen as a series of steps.

The latest video profilees are the city of Portland (Maine's largest city) and private woodland owners in the Town of Baldwin area. Baldwin is a rural, mostly forested community about 25 miles northwest of Portland. The videos are posted on both the MFS YouTube site and the MFS Profiles of Woodland Stewardship Web page.

Portland's Urban Forests
Portland's Urban Forests

Baldwin, Maine
Baldwin, Maine

TSNNESEHUBThe Stewardship Network: New England and the Southeast New Hampshire Hub

Roger Monthey, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

The Stewardship Network New England logo.

University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension brought The Stewardship Network to the New England region in 2013 and has been working with partners and volunteer organizations since then to start the network in New Hampshire and adjacent States. The Stewardship Network: New England extends the successful work of The Stewardship Network in the Great Lakes region. The mission of The Stewardship Network is to connect, equip, and mobilize people and organizations to care for and study the lands and waters in their communities.
CFMFOTY2015 Northeastern Area Cooperative Forest Management Committee Meeting Held in Grafton, IL

Mike Huneke, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

The Annual Cooperative Forest Management (CFM) Committee Meeting of the Northeastern Area Association of State Foresters was held in Grafton, IL, from May 4 to 7. Approximately 30 people attended, representing 18 of the 20 States served by the Northeastern Area. Key interaction in the group focused heavily on Forest Stewardship Program Standards and Guidelines revisions, especially the revision of the Area's Forest Stewardship Allocation Formula. Discussions also focused on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposals for the northern long-eared bat and creating resolutions and recommendations concerning possible issues with the proposals.

Group of people sit under a tree during a meeting.
CFM Committee Members discuss northern long-eared bat conservation. (Photo: Mike Huneke)

During the meeting, the committee recognized this year's Outstanding CFM Forester of the Year, Iowa's Randy Goerndt. Randy was selected as this year's recipient in recognition of his outstanding contributions to cooperative forestry, his profession, and his community.
Three gentlemen pose with a Forester of the Year plaque.
IL State Forester Tom Wilson (right) and CFM Committee Chair Andy Duncan of Pennsylvania (left) present Outstanding CFM Forester of the Year Award to Randy Goerndt. (Photo: Mike Huneke)

The highlight of the meeting was a field tour that featured stops at Principia College's Certified School Forest and a variety of sites featuring the Hill Prairie and Forest Bluffs of the Mississippi River Valley. 
WOODISGOODNew Markets for Wood
Goin' Against the Grain: Wood Is Good, but Tallwood Is Beautiful, Baby

Al Steele, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

"Forests were the first temples of God and in forests men grasped their first idea of architecture." --James C. Snyder, Introduction to Architecture

Building large structures with wood isn't anything new. In Norway and other Scandinavian countries, massive stave churches go back to 1150 A.D. or earlier. Chinese timber bridges with spans of 200 feet were built 1,000 years ago . Starting around 600 A.D., the Japanese imported both Buddhism and pagoda-style houses of worship from China. The 122-foot Horyu-Ji Temple built in 607 A.D. still exists today. It and hundreds of other pagodas (many taller) have survived centuries of Japan's earthquake-ridden history

In more recent times, building with wood has gotten rather boring, with conventional thought being that wooden buildings were constrained pretty much to four or five stories. As noted in ArchDaily, a Web site for architects, "Quests for material permanence, taller heights, structural innovation, and new architectural styles conspired to stem advancements in wood craftsmanship during the last 200 years. Steel and concrete rose to new heights in European and North American cultural centers during the 19th and 20th centuries. Meanwhile, wood became associated with lower-grade and lower-cost construction-buildings of lesser stature, safety and durability. The widespread adoption of concrete and steel coupled with the enormous manufacturing infrastructure for these materials and building codes that now favored noncombustible construction led to their dominance, and a general lack of investigation of other materials."
Competitive Grant Success Stories
STCROIXUpper St. Croix River Basin -- Linking Forestry with Water Quality
Private Partnership and Collaboration Enhance Private Forest Management

Dennis McDougall, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
 
Photo of the St. Croix River.
Upper St. Croix River. (Photo: Monica Zachay)

Midwestern resource managers cross State lines and navigate uncharted waters in an attempt to buoy-up private forest management in the Upper St. Croix River Basin. By highlighting the positive connection between good forestry and good water, project managers hope to improve water quality by increasing sustainable private forestry in the region.

The Upper St. Croix River, home to soaring bald eagles, towering white pine, and feisty smallmouth bass, is a winding blue ribbon that forms a watery boundary between a portion of northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. The river's basin drains large expanses of both States and in turn feeds the largest river in the United States, the mighty Mississippi, just a few miles downstream. The connection between the Upper St. Croix and forestry runs deep as the river carried millions of board feet of white pine logs during the historic logging era of the late 1800s to early 1900s. While it has been years since the river carried its last load of logs, today it carries a load of a very different kind. Along with rafts of canoes, fishermen, and pleasure boaters, the river carries ever increasing amounts of excess nutrients and channel-clogging sediment that threaten the river ecosystem, its recreational value, and the livelihoods of those who depend upon it.
RFFRRReal Forestry for Real Estate

Craig Highfield, Program Manager, Forests for the Bay, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

Real Forestry for Real Estate banner.
It was on a cold but beautiful day in February that I found myself standing anxiously back in front of a Maryland classroom working fastidiously to convince a group of students that what I had to say was important and quite relevant in their lives. I moved to Maryland in the late 1990s to teach in a public middle school, a career that I thoroughly enjoyed before being drawn into the environmental nonprofit world. This day, however, I was not opposite 30 rambunctious 7th graders but working with a different type of Maryland student. We had gathered in this classroom an audience that hasn't typically been reached out to for Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. This group of professionals, however, can be an important link in the conservation of the region's private forests and other natural resources--real estate professionals.
CTOWNERSFinal Report: Understanding Connecticut Woodland Owners -- A Report on the Attitudes, Values and Challenges of Connecticut's Family Woodland Owners

Roger Monthey, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
 
A final report for a competitive grant funded by the Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry was completed in March 2015. The report, written by Mary L. Tyrrell of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, is Understanding Connecticut Woodland Owners - A Report on the Attitudes, Values and Challenges of Connecticut's Family Woodland Owners. The report is organized into six main sections.

Photo of a fall scene reflected in a lake in Connecticut.
Photo: Richard Campbell, former Yale Forest Manager, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
LSOHIOLandscape Stewardship in Ohio
A Landscape Approach to Sustaining Woodland Benefits and Services in Urbanizing Areas

Karen Sykes, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry

About the same time States were developing their Statewide Forest Resource Assessment and Strategy, the Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry unit of the U.S. Forest Service and the Northeastern Association of State Foresters published a Landscape Stewardship Guide, which had been in the making for about 3 years. The guide was developed by a committee of Stewardship program managers who used an "all lands" approach to build on States' efforts in achieving Forest Stewardship goals across
multiple ownerships.

Landscape stewardship involves bringing together stakeholders in a "community of place" or "community of interest" to address natural resource issues that concern various parties. These stakeholders often have different views of an issue but can't seem to communicate their ideas or concerns to each other. The landscape stewardship approach demonstrates the likelihood that the stakeholders will finally come together and be satisfied by common solutions. This is the strategy used by the Ohio Division of Forestry (DoF) for its project, A Landscape Approach to Sustaining Woodland Benefits and Services in Urbanizing Areas. Funding for this project came from a competitive grant awarded by the Northeastern Area.

Photo of a demonstration area in Ohio for sustaining forest benefits in the rural-urban interface.
Demonstration area developed as part of this project in Ohio.

New Forest Stewardship Coordinators
MNstewcoordMinnesota: Meet John Carlson

New Minnesota Forest Stewardship Coordinator John Carlson.
John Carlson recently became the new Private  Forest Management Coordinator for the  Minnesota DNR Division of Forestry on June 17. In his new role he will be responsible for managing the Division's Private Forest Management Program as well as coordinating efforts between multiple government agencies and natural resource partners to better serve Minnesota's family-owned forests. His work location will be out of the DNR Central Office in St. Paul.

John grew up in South Minneapolis and earned a B.S. degree in Forest Resource Management at the University of Minnesota in 2000. He also spent one year on an exchange program at the University of Idaho.

John started working for the DNR as a forester in 2001. His work locations included Warroad, Aitkin, Mankato, and Caledonia. Before the DNR he spent three summers working on the Black Hills, Clearwater, and Nez Perce National Forests doing timber and fire suppression work. He also spent one year working as a Timber Sale Forester for the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine.

Outside of work John enjoys spending time with his wife Pam and their three kids ages 2, 4, and 6.
WVstewcoordWest Virginia: Meet Barbara Breshock

Leslie Smithson, Public Information Specialist, West Virginia Division of Commerce
New West Virginia Forest Stewardship Coordinator Barbara Breshock.
WV Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin recognized Breshock earlier this year for being employed by the state for more than 35 years. (Photo courtesy of the Governor's Office)

CHARLESTON , W.Va. - State Forester Randy Dye announced longtime Division of Forestry (DOF) employee Barbara Breshock has been promoted to the position of assistant state forester of forest management and stewardship effective immediately.
 
"Barb has more than proven her abilities over the past decade and a half as the Division of Forestry's state lands manager," Dye said. "I am confident she will succeed with her new duties heading up the forest management and stewardship program."
 
Breshock is a 36-year employee of the DOF and has been with the agency since graduating from West Virginia University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in forest management.
 
Throughout her career, Breshock has served as forest products utilization forester in Elkins and Kingwood; service forester with fire control duties in the Northern Panhandle; and state lands forester in the southeastern portion of the state. Since 1999, Breshock has overseen all forestry-related activities on the seven state forests managed by the DOF: Cabwaylingo, Calvin Price, Camp Creek, Coopers Rock, Greenbrier, Kumbrabow, and Seneca. She helped develop the Guidelines for Managing State Forests and has overseen the updating of forest inventories and management plans for the state forests.
 
Breshock has worked with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) on conservation measures for the northern flying squirrel and continues to work on the red spruce restoration initiative. She serves on the Governing Board for the Appalachian Forest Heritage Area, is the DOF's representative for the Hemlock Conservation and Invasive Species working groups, and, since 2003, has been an instructor for the DNR's Becoming an Outdoors-Woman program.
 
Breshock is filling the vacancy created by the retirement of Bob Radspinner in mid-August 2015.
VTstewcoordVermont: Meet Keith Thompson

New Vermont Forest Stewardship Coordinator Keith Thompson.
Keith Thompson grew up in Vermont and received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Vermont in 2004. During school he worked on inventory crews in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania and International Paper Lands in New York. Once out of school Keith worked for a private consulting forester for a few years before starting his own wildlife and forestry consulting business with his brother in 2007. 

By 2011 it was clear that starting a consulting business from scratch was a tough way to keep two families fed, so his brother kept the business and Keith took an opportunity to work as the Chittenden County Forester with Vermont Forests Parks & Recreation. He served in that role for 4 years before transitioning into the Private Lands Program Manager position. Keith, his wife Suzy, and new son Amos live in Winooski, VT.
New Publication
newWOpubNew Forest Service Pub:
Private Forests, Housing Growth, and America's Water Supply: A Report from the Forests on the Edge and Forests to Faucets Projects

America's private forests provide a vast array of public goods and services, including abundant, clean surface water. Forest loss and development can affect water quality and quantity when forests are removed and impervious surfaces, such as paved roads, spread across the landscape. We ranked watersheds across the conterminous United States according to the contributions of private forest land to surface drinking water and by threats to surface water from increased housing density.

Private forest land contributions to drinking water are greatest in the East but are also important in Western watersheds. Development pressures on these contributions are concentrated in the Eastern United States but are also found in the North-Central region, parts of the West and Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest; nationwide, more than 55 million acres of rural private forest land are projected to experience a substantial increase in housing density from 2000 to 2030. Planners, communities, and private landowners can use a range of strategies to maintain freshwater ecosystems, including designing housing and roads to minimize impacts on water quality, managing home sites to protect water resources, and using payment schemes and management partnerships to invest in forest stewardship on public and private lands.
Forest Land Conservation Spotlight
nealstuffSuccess in the Northeastern Area Community Forest Program 

Neal Bungard, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
 
Scenic view in New Hampshire from the Cooley-Jericho Community Forest.
Scenic view from the Cooley-Jericho Community Forest in New Hampshire. (Photo: Neal Bungard)

The purpose of the U.S. Forest Service Community Forest Program (CFP) is to protect forests that provide community benefits and are important for people and the places they call home. Forests acquired through the CFP must be acquired in fee, which means that all rights on the property are purchased in full. Entities that are eligible to receive CFP funds are local governments, Indian tribes, or nonprofit organizations that are qualified to acquire and manage land. The CFP can provide up to 50% of the cost of purchasing the land for the Community Forest and allowable acquisition costs. Funds for CFP acquisitions are issued through a grant from the U.S. Forest Service.

States in the Northeastern Area have done very well in having their projects selected in the CFP. Of the 26 total projects that have been awarded nationwide since the program began in 2012, 13 of those projects are located within the 20 Northeastern Area States.
Naturalist's Corner
NATCORNThe Beauty and Wonder of Wetland Plants

Roger Monthey, U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Ar ea State and Private Forestry

Pink flowers of a rhodora in a wetland.
The rhodora (Rhododendron canadense ). (Photo: Roger Monthey)
Do you want to know the names of the plants and other organisms living on your land? If so, you are a budding naturalist! If you like to watch detective programs on television, read Agatha Christie murder mysteries, solve riddles or crossword puzzles, or otherwise challenge your mind, being a naturalist is just as fun and hugely rewarding, especially if you like to create beautiful photographs or seek out edible plants or mushrooms. 

I can't think of a better hobby to directly interact with your woods while increasing your Naturalist Intelligence (Naturalist IQ), one of eight Multiple Intelligences. And it can become a life-long pursuit, especially satisfying as you travel and observe different ecosystems, plant communities, and life forms. World-renowned naturalist and world traveler Charles Darwin knew the joy of his passion. While studying forests, Darwin wrote, "Delight itself is a weak term to express the feeling of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself into a Brazilian forest...."

The purpose of this short article is simply to showcase a few of the wetland plants found here in the Northeast. If you are lucky enough to have a wetland on your land, so much the better because these are biological treasure troves.