UMaine Study to Assess Forest Stewardship Strategies in Maine
Contact: Jim Acheson, (207) 581-1898
George Manlove, (207) 581-3756
ORONO — A University of Maine cultural anthropologist has begun what could be the first study of landowners’ stewardship strategies for Maine forests, research that should help explain owners’ management decisions.
James Acheson, professor of anthropology and marine sciences, says the timing of the study of forest management is important as ownership of Maine’s 17 million acres of timberlands is changing rapidly, as is the entire forest products industry. The forestry industry generates $5.6 billion in gross economic benefits to the state.
Acheson, an expert on resource management and governance, has received an $85,000 anthropology grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct the study. He’ll work with a team of interviewers to survey representatives from four stakeholder groups: timber companies, pulp and paper companies, small private landowners and forest contractors.
The study is possibly the first of its kind for the nation’s most heavily forested state. Acheson’s preliminary research has turned up a plethora of studies on forests and forest management practices but remarkably little information on the attitudes of landowners, who may employ vastly different management techniques.
“We’re trying to understand why people do what they do,” he says. “Right now a lot of land is being bought and sold and there are a lot of new environmental easements that didn’t exist 30-40 years ago. What’s going on?”
By asking about social, cultural, economic and political factors behind management decisions, Acheson hopes to gain better insight into conditions under which decision-makers do or do not conserve forest resources, and how. In many cases, Acheson says, landowners do a good job; in other cases, they do not.
“Who’s to say the people doing the heavy cutting are irrational and unsuccessful?” Acheson says. “I don’t think it is at all clear that those people who are holding onto their land and not doing anything with it are necessarily wrong, either. Under some circumstances, it may be good to clear-cut.”
Different uses of forest lands can dictate different management practices. For some, timber harvesting is the primary reason to own forestland. For others, forests may be used primarily for recreation, hunting or for privacy, Acheson observes.
Some woodland managers harvest mainly inferior trees and leave healthy, stronger trees to reproduce high-quality stands. Others harvest the better-quality trees, and leave poor-quality trees to regenerate genetically inferior replacements, Acheson says.
Forest management raises questions that are both interesting and complex. Questions about public access, recreational use, pesticides, and differences between publicly and privately owned forests usually generate a multitude of responses and opinions.
Acheson wonders if existing state conservation programs that provide tax incentives in exchange for forest conservation have comparatively few takers. Are there too many disincentives in the regulations?
“It is issues of these kinds that we hope to get at,” he says.
Questions about common property management and the degree to which government should be involved in managing privately owned lands are bound to arise as policy makers consider the state’s need to preserve and protect its natural resources. Acheson’s research could be used as a basis for drafting or revising forest or other resource management policies.
Acheson has studied governance and self-governance of the Gulf of Maine lobster and fishing industries for 30 years and has written numerous articles and several books on the subject. Managing “common pool resources” such as fish in the ocean is simpler, Acheson notes, because the goal is solely to preserve fish stocks. Forest use involves far more considerations, ranging from timber production and wildlife habitat to aesthetics and stream quality, few of which have been explored from the landowners’ point of view.
“You’ve got some very interesting questions,” Acheson says. “How do people treat privately owned property? Theoretically they’re supposed to do a good job. What we really want to do is understand what they are doing from their perspective.”
In addition to mail surveys, in-person interviews and archival research, the physical state of forests will be evaluated through field visits and analysis of satellite-based images. Steve Sader, professor of forest resources and an expert in using satellite imagery to assess forests, is assisting in the project.