Renewed Interest in Research Suggests Long-term Commitment in North Woods
Contact: David Munson (207) 581-3777; Bob Wagner 581-2903
ORONO – When commercial landowners began selling off massive tracks of the state’s northern forests in the late 1990’s, many Mainers wondered what the change in ownership would mean to access, land management, and conservation. Over three million acres, representing roughly one-third of Maine’s commercial forest lands, changed hands is less than seven years, becoming part of the investment portfolios of institutional investors as they were sold off by wood products giants like International Paper, MeadWestvaco, and Georgia Pacific.
The new owners, ranging from small limited partnerships to retirement programs with hundreds of members, quickly switched gears with regard to forest management, shortening the length of their management plans from decades-long projections of repeated harvest and growth to five or ten-year plans aimed at ensuring an investment return in the short term.
Not surprisingly, this shift left many communities wondering about the new owners’ commitment to Maine’s forests and the local industries that depend on them. Recent investment by the North Woods’ newest landlords suggests that they may indeed be in it for the long haul, however.
Wagner Forest Management, Black Bear Forest, Inc., and Katahdin Forest Management recently brought approximately three million acres back into the fold with regard to forest research and sustainable management strategies, aligning themselves with the goals of the Cooperative Forestry Research Unit (CFRU), a research and management co-op that has led the charge towards sustainable forestry in Maine for more than 30 years.
Representing a unique cooperative effort between the University of Maine and the state’s commercial forestland owners, the CFRU supports research ranging from surveys of lynx habitat to computer-modeled strategies for sustainable tree harvests.
“The University of Maine takes a very long-term view of forest management, and has a strong commitment to contributing to the continued success of the wood products industry,” said CFRU Director Bob Wagner. “Participation in the co-op by the new institutional investors is great news. It’s a strong signal of both their stability and their commitment to the state.”
Wagner, a University of Maine professor who has spent most of his career conducting research in the North Woods, said that the massive sale of woodland in the 1990’s led to a widely-held misconception that long-time forest landowners and commercial interests were leaving because they simply couldn’t make a profit in Maine. According to Wagner, the change in ownership that occurred in Maine is part of a national trend that is driven primarily by changes in business structure and tax codes. While he shares the same name with one of the major forest management firms in Northern Maine, Wagner Forest Management, Wagner and his fellow researchers do not represent any one forest products company, helping to ensure that the research being conducted benefits everyone involved, including the people of Maine.
One of the longest-lived forest research cooperatives in the country, the CFRU pursues cutting edge research initiatives for its members using a nominal per-acre membership fee. For every dollar that is contributed to the program through membership fees, the CFRU adds $12 or more through research grants, government funding, and university support. With an annual budget of over $400,000, the program gives its members an opportunity to benefit from research that they might not have the time or the resources to pursue on their own.
“The research unit provides the industry access to scientists and scientific rigor in a way that makes the best use of the scientific expertise that is available. The cooperative model is able to come in and conduct the type of research that no single company would want to foot the bill for,” said Greg Adams, Silviculture Manager for Irving Woodlands LLC, a longtime member of the CFRU with more than a million acres of forest lands in Maine. “Irving Woodlands has been a strong supporter of the CFRU for a long time. They have done an outstanding job making sure that the research they do is relevant to good forest management.”