Seymour Quoted in BDN Editorial on Logging, Politics
Robert Seymour, the Curtis Hutchins Professor of Forest Resources at the University of Maine, was quoted in the Bangor Daily News editorial, “Maine can’t cut more trees from its public forests on a whim.” As lawmakers left Augusta last month, they left a debate unsettled about how much wood to cut from Maine’s public forests, how to use the revenue from those logging operations, and what will become of $11.5 million in voter-approved, land-protection bonds, according to the article. In the coming weeks, a commission will start discussing parts of the debate, the article states. Over the past decade, the Bureau of Public Lands has generally had conservative harvest levels and seen tree growth on public lands that is 18 percent faster than all of Maine’s other forests, according to the article. “What that means is their foresters practice a level of forest management that is more refined,” Seymour said. With more wood on its lands and recent favorable harvesting conditions, the bureau has increased its cut over the past seven years, the article states. “That the harvest can go up now, I think, is a tribute to their excellent historical stewardship,” Seymour said.