海角大神

To hug or to cut? A new generation of foresters says do both.

Jeremy Turner loves trees, especially an old red pine that stands in the forest a few hundred yards from his house. There, each year, black bears stop to make their mark. They rub their shoulders against it. They scratch its bark with their long claws.听

On a recent spring morning and in the absence of bears, Mr. Turner demonstrates. He shimmies like an Ursus americanus rubbing its back against a tree while a handful of visitors look on in fascination.

鈥淲alking with bears is what I like to do,鈥� he tells them. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of a sacred process.鈥�

Mr. Turner may be part bear, but he is all forester. The old pine was one of the trees still standing after he cut others down to create a small opening in the forest.

The omission was not accidental. He and his wife, Laura French, are professional foresters. They live on 330 acres in the low mountains of southwestern New Hampshire, land that long ago was cleared for a hilltop farm, and then abandoned. In time, the forest reclaimed the land.听

Since they moved here 15 years ago, they have tried to harvest trees in a way that encourages the ecological diversity and complexity one might find in a much older forest. This includes not just trees but all forms of life, including plants and animals above the ground and below.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to promote an enhanced level of diversity and complexity,鈥� Mr. Turner says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 going to create a healthier system. It鈥檚 also going to create a more dynamic system that can react to whatever is coming.鈥�

This approach is part of a growing trend in American forestry. Like Mr. Turner and Ms. French, more and more landowners, foresters, and overseers of public lands are trying to manage forests with the aim of promoting the values of ecology, a branch of biology that鈥檚 the study of the vital connections among plants and animals in a given place, and not simply the economics of harvesting timber.

This new approach is rooted in efforts to reconcile what has long been seen as competing goals in American forestry: harvesting timber and protecting forests. Advocates recognize the need for wood products. But they say cutting trees down doesn鈥檛 have to diminish the forest. If done well, they say, it can make the forest better.

鈥淔orestry for the last 100 years was based on the principle of sustained yield,鈥� says Geoff Jones, a forester in Stoddard, New Hampshire, and former director of land management at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 cut more than you grow in the year,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not cutting your principle. It鈥檚 a good, valid concept, except it doesn鈥檛 take into consideration all the other things that take place in a forest that have to do with animals, birds, insects, mycorrhizae, fungi, biodiversity, all that stuff.听

鈥淓cological forestry looks at sustaining the ecological processes that sustain the yield of timber,鈥� he continues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a subtle, but very significant, shift.鈥�

Also known as 鈥渆cological silviculture,鈥� these ideas also focus on helping forests recover from past abuse 鈥� which most forests in the United States have sustained, ecologists say. It also helps them adapt to what may be a bigger challenge: climate change.

Mr. Turner and Ms. French have practiced ecological forestry in different ways. They鈥檝e cut some trees but left many others, including older trees that will live out their lives in the forest. They鈥檝e left dead trees standing for the use of insects and birds, and allowed fallen limbs and trunks of trees to decay on the forest floor. They鈥檝e created openings in their forest, trying to imitate natural disturbances that allow sun-loving trees and plants to grow and diversify the forest. They鈥檝e left other areas undisturbed.

The couple have also cut species that are struggling because of global warming, such as spruces and sugar maples. They鈥檝e spared 鈥済eneralist鈥� trees with the ability to adapt, like red oaks. They鈥檝e planted acorns. Their goal, Mr. Turner says, 鈥渋s to leave the forest better than we found it.鈥�

And his clients? What do they think? 鈥淧eople are very much interested in this approach,鈥� he says. 鈥淢ore so than ever.鈥�

An old idea, newly embraced

Ecological forestry goes back to at least the 1980s, when Jerry Franklin, a prominent forest ecologist in Oregon, wrote an article in American Forests magazine calling for 鈥渁 new forestry.鈥� He described it as 鈥渁 kinder and gentler forestry that better accommodates ecological values, while allowing for the extraction of commodities.鈥� Mr. Franklin, who had grown up in a Washington mill town, says foresters should strive to 鈥渕aintain the complex forest ecosystem, not just grow trees.鈥�

Mr. Franklin was reacting to forestry practices after World War II, when the timber industry was cutting forests heavily to meet the demands of an expanding economy. He was also writing at a time of growing public concern about the environment, including about the endangered spotted owl. Conservation organizations like The Nature Conservancy were also growing in size and influence at the time. States were starting to adopt forestry rules.

Since then, the growing popularity of land trusts, timber certification programs, federal conservation grants, and carbon sequestration credits has offered new avenues for protecting and improving forests.听

Other trends are making it more difficult, however. In recent years the forest commodities industry has globalized and consolidated. As a result, industrial forestland in the U.S. 鈥� which is about 20% of the country鈥檚 forests 鈥� is now mostly owned by private investors, not by wood products companies. This has created greater economic pressure to maximize short-term shareholder profits.

鈥淭he investors I鈥檝e talked to, they buy land knowing they鈥檒l own it for five to eight years,鈥� says Klaus Puettmann, a forest ecologist at Oregon State University. 鈥淵ou do things different if you think you鈥檙e going to own it five to eight years than if you鈥檙e going to own it 50 to 100 years.鈥�

But ecological forestry has gained ground on public lands, including forests managed by federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management as well as state agencies like the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Small landowners, too, are embracing it. The U.S. has 800 million acres of forest, and about two-thirds of it is privately owned. Of this, more than half belongs to small landowners. Foresters say a new generation of these landowners cares less about income from forests and more about wildlife, recreation, and ecology.

Dr. John Bassi is one of them. He鈥檚 the medical director at St. Paul鈥檚 School, a secondary boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. Some years ago he and his wife took over responsibility for a 478-acre forest their family has owned in the Mink Hills of central New Hampshire.听

One of the first things Dr. Bassi did was to ask Mr. Turner鈥檚 company, Meadowsend Consulting Co., for a management plan. What he got was more than a dry accounting of species within it and the potential commercial timber it might have.

鈥淚t was a love letter to the forest,鈥� Dr. Bassi says.

He recalled this happily as he strode up a rough logging road, his shaggy golden retriever Luca trotting alongside. Limbs of maples and beeches and other trees stretched over his head. Stands of hemlocks and spruce stretched deep into the woods.

Three years earlier, loggers had come in and cut a 鈥渓ittle bit of everything,鈥� he says. It was enough 鈥渢o meet expenses.鈥� They also cut small openings, and Dr. Bassi paused at some of them to survey the new growth. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really greening up,鈥� he says of one. He stopped to admire a big beech the foresters had left standing.

鈥淭hey left a lot of oaks and birches, too,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 more for deer to eat.鈥� Dr. Bassi is a hunter, and he hopes the new management plan will increase the number of animals in his forest 鈥� not just deer but also turkeys and bears. But what he liked most was how it reflected both his love for the forest and his sense of responsibility for it.

鈥淚 always think I鈥檓 steward of the land for just a short period of time,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat I鈥檓 trying to do is maintain it for the next generations.鈥�

Cutting trees with restraint and care

In practice, this means听cutting trees with restraint and care. Still, ecology has never been absent from the concerns of U.S. foresters. But advocates of ecological forestry say it has usually taken second place to economics. Traditional forestry, they say, has prized simplicity and regularity over ecological complexity.听

Its model has been agriculture. The most obvious examples are the pine plantations of the South or the Douglas fir plantations of the Pacific Northwest. But the agricultural approach has also led to the overharvesting and simplifying of other forests, they say. Landowners look for 鈥渆ven-aged stands鈥� 鈥� sections of valuable trees of the same size that are more efficient and more profitable to harvest.

Ecological forestry, they say, takes the forest itself as the model. Not necessarily what it was or is now, but what it might be. In practice, this means protecting streams, promoting carbon sequestration, and encouraging the continuity of forest life. It means increasing diversity and complexity across the forest, including trees of different species and different ages. It means fighting invasive species. Increasingly, it means responding to climate change.

Advocates of ecological forestry are using many strategies to do this. One is to nurture a variety of tree species in a forest and not just those most valuable on the timber market. In a mixed hardwood forest in southern New England, this might mean sparing black cherries in a forest where maples abound. In the Pacific Northwest, it might mean letting hardwoods grow in a conifer forest.听

鈥淚 find myself advocating things almost heretical,鈥� says Mr. Jackson, the Oregon ecologist who remains a leading figure in forestry today. 鈥淲e need to incorporate hardwood trees in our forest of Douglas firs. They鈥檙e much more conservative of water than evergreen conifers.鈥�

But two strategies stand out. One is to preserve 鈥渂iological legacies,鈥� such as standing dead trees. Foresters call them 鈥渟nags,鈥� and they serve as hosts to fungi, insects, birds, and other forest life. Biological legacies also include living trees that are left to grow to maturity and old age. Old trees add to the continuity and genetic diversity of forest life above ground and in the soil.听

The second strategy is to mimic natural disturbance. Nature is not always gentle. Far from it. Disturbance and disruption are as much part of forest life as the slow growth of an old pine. In the West and Southeast, disturbance often means fire. In the Northeast, it more often comes in the form of wind and ice storms. These disturbances increase biodiversity by allowing new, sun-loving herbs and shrubs and trees to grow up even in the middle of a dense forest. Indeed, an old forest is not one thing but a mosaic of old trees and young, deep woods and sunlit openings, the product of long steady growth but also moments of small-scale destruction.

To imitate these disturbances, foresters cut small openings in the forest, sometimes called 鈥減atch cuts.鈥� Patch cuts are not clean or neat. They are left scattered with standing trees, living and dead. They are often filled with the leftover limbs of trees that have been harvested. They鈥檙e a mess.

鈥淚t鈥檚 as messy as we can make it,鈥� says Alex Barrett, a Vermont forester standing in a timber-strewn patch cut not far from the Connecticut River.听

It was a jumble only an ecological forester could love, full of downed trees and branches but with plenty of trees left standing, both living and dead. Mr. Barrett鈥檚 company, Long View Forest, had removed two loads of logs, mostly pine. 鈥淭his is very nontraditional forestry,鈥� Mr. Barrett says.听

The patch cut was a small opening in a much larger forest of pines and hardwoods, including oaks and maples. Some of the trees left standing had been spray-painted with a big blue G. These trees had been 鈥済irdled鈥� with a chain saw and left to die. Others had been spray-painted with a blue L 鈥� the mark to 鈥渓eave it be.鈥澨�

One tree marked with an L is a big ash. Foresters usually cut ash trees because an invasive insect, the emerald ash borer, is killing most of them. Leaving one alive was a gesture of hope.

鈥淗opefully we鈥檒l get a bunch of ash seedlings out here,鈥� Mr. Barrett says.听

A lot was happening already. A tiny eastern wood pewee, a bird that flourishes in forest openings, flits between trees still standing in the patch cut. A broad-winged hawk swoops past. Below, the ground shimmers with the delicate green of new foliage. Mr. Barrett drops to his knees to take a closer look.

Most of the delicate plants were seedling trees just getting their start. 鈥淭his is birch,鈥� he says, fingering the leaves of one. 鈥淭his is a red maple,鈥� he says of another. 鈥淭his is rubus 鈥� it鈥檚 a blackberry.鈥� Birds would love the blackberries, he says. Finally he rises to his feet.

鈥淭he more you stay here, the more you find,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow that it鈥檚 wide open, it鈥檚 going to be a party.鈥�

Earlier in the day, Mr. Barrett visited another forest where a co-worker was marking trees for timber cutting. There would be no patch cut here. As in most forests, they would be cutting trees selectively, one here and there. The question was, Which ones?

As they made their way through the forest, pushing through ferns and underbrush, Mr. Brennan continued to mark various trees, reaching high to spray a long blue line across the trunk. Sometimes he paused to contemplate what should be done to them. He sprayed a forked red maple with old wounds, but left a bigger maple untouched.

鈥淚f you value purely economics, that tree gets cut,鈥� Mr. Barrett says. They also left a tall, old white pine that soared above the forest canopy. Its presence suggested that an earlier forester had been thinking ahead, too. 鈥淭his is a legacy tree that 40 years ago they didn鈥檛 cut,鈥� Mr. Barrett says. 鈥淭hey were thinking of seed, thinking of the future.鈥�

鈥淟et nature do its thing鈥�

Interest in a 鈥渒inder and gentler鈥� forestry is not limited to the U.S. Europe has a long history of efforts to find alternatives to clear-cutting and plantations. One that鈥檚 become popular in recent decades is close-to-nature forestry. This approach has aims that are ecological, but it鈥檚 more restrained than American-style ecological forestry. Instead of disturbance, it emphasizes continuous forest cover. Trees are cut sparingly, sometime just one per acre. Natural processes are valued above all. There鈥檚 no planting of trees, no using herbicides to kill invasive plants, no patch cuts.

James Gresh is a forester from Canton, Ohio, who practices close-to-nature forestry in the U.S. 鈥淥ur objective is to move toward an old-growth structure,鈥� he says.听

That means helping forests through what Mr. Gresh calls the 鈥渂iodiversity trough鈥� of middle age, the long swath of time over which a young, vigorous forest, full of different plants and trees, becomes an old forest with its complex interplay of life and death. 鈥淲e kind of let nature do its thing,鈥� he says.

Any ecology-based forestry must face the challenge of improving forests that have been radically altered. They may have been diminished by heavy cutting or cleared for farming or turned into plantations. But a bigger challenge may lie in the future: How can foresters help forests adapt to changes in the global climate?

Researchers are trying to address this challenge. In forests across the U.S. and in Canada, they are experimenting with different strategies to help forests adapt to changes already underway.听

In New Hampshire, Anthony D鈥橝mato, an ecologist at the University of Vermont, is working with other researchers in the Second College Grant, a tract of 27,000 acres of forest owned by Dartmouth College. The college has harvested timber from it for more than two centuries.

Their experiments vary in intensity and scale. In some places, the forest has simply been thinned to let in more light. This encourages different tree species. In other places, small gaps were opened up, some as small as a tenth of an acre. In still others, large gaps were created. These were planted with a scattering of young trees that researchers hoped might fare better in a warming climate.

It鈥檚 a strategy known as assisted migration. The idea is that the climate is warming faster than forests can adapt to by themselves. They need help.听

Last year, a group of foresters from New Hampshire鈥檚 White Mountain National Forest came to the Second College Grant to see the experiments. Dr. D鈥橝mato led them through the forest, showing them the thinning, the patch cuts, and the young trees that had been planted a few years before, each bearing a length of bright ribbon. He showed them a fallen, rotting log that was being studied for its moisture and fungal growth.

In all, researchers had planted nearly 5,000 trees, but only half are still alive. They include trees that grow in northern New England, but are uncommon in the Second College Grant. These included red oaks, black cherries, hemlocks, and bigtooth aspens.听

Others are species that normally grow farther south. These included bitternut hickories and American chestnuts. All had been planted to increase tree diversity and improve the odds that at least some would thrive in the new conditions.

This experiment in assisted migration intrigued the foresters especially. They wanted to know more. But Dr. D鈥橝mato, who had co-authored a well-known textbook on ecological forestry, urged caution. He told them that helping forests respond to climate change was more complicated than just introducing trees from farther south.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 really a small part of what we鈥檙e doing with adaptation,鈥� he says. The aim was diversity of all sorts. Researchers had already learned that assisted migration was trickier than planting new trees. Spells of warmer weather in late winter, a phenomenon not unexpected with climate change, had been followed by hard frosts. The cold had killed some of the trees from the south.听

鈥淭he key to all of this is humility,鈥� Dr. D鈥橝mato tells the foresters. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know all the answers. We鈥檙e often proven wrong. But the magnitude of what we鈥檙e seeing is a call to action.鈥�

For the birds, blueberries, and bears

Each spring for the past three years, Mr. Turner and Ms. French, the forestry couple, have hosted nature lovers at their home for a morning of bird-watching, tree gazing, and forestry chatting. It鈥檚 a chance to show off their forest and the life it holds. To them and others, a variety of birds signals a deeper richness of forest life.

This past spring, the day started early. Cars began pulling up around 5 a.m. Those who had camped overnight crawled out of their tents. It had rained the night before, and many were dressed in rain pants and knee-high rubber boots. Mr. Turner had been up since 4:30 a.m. 鈥淥ur species count is pretty high here, so I鈥檓 pretty excited to see what we find,鈥� he told a group of about 35 guests.听

The couple bought the land in 2009. They called it Stone Fence Farm after the stone walls that ran through the woods, a reminder of the previous tenants and their sheep. They built a pole barn, a house, a shed, and a sugarhouse for making maple syrup.听

Mr. Turner pointed out some of it. Near the house, where the best soil lay, they had opened a large area for a garden, a grove of fruit trees, and a meadow. They had left what he called a 鈥渟oft edge鈥� at the periphery, a broad strip of young trees and scrubby vegetation between the meadow and the forest where they were letting anything grow that could. Leading his guests into the forest, he called attention to splotches of light illuminating the underbrush.听

鈥淭he canopy is open,鈥� he says. 鈥淚sn鈥檛 that cool?鈥� The light would allow new species to grow up. He admired thickets of balsam fir and the pale green sprigs of new growth at the tips of their branches. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e yummy to chew on, very high in vitamin C!鈥� he exclaims, popping a branch tip into his mouth.

They heard and saw birds of all sorts, including swallows wheeling over the open meadow and bluebirds sitting on fence posts. They listened to red-eyed vireos sing from deep woods, and the calls of a furtive hermit thrush. They watched a black-throated blue warbler shoot through the underbrush, springing up to pluck a tiny green worm off a branch.听

Matt Tarr, the state wildlife specialist for the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, has been a regular guide at these events. He lamented the long decline of birds in American forests, but he was impressed with the variety of birds he saw at Stone Fence Farm. He says it reflected the care with which Mr. Turner and Ms. French had managed the forest.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a fantastic model for how private landowners and communities can manage a forest in a way that allows them to grow timber sustainably while also promoting a diversity of high-quality habitat for a variety of wildlife species,鈥� Mr. Tarr says. 鈥淎nybody can go in and cut trees down.鈥�

For his part, Mr. Turner seemed to delight in anything that grew or moved. He spotted deep prints in the mud. 鈥淔resh moose tracks!鈥� he hollered. He glimpsed a yellow butterfly flutter overhead.听鈥淪wallowtail!鈥� he called out. He stopped to watch a tiny amphibian, glowing phosphorescent orange, scamper across the track. 鈥淣ewt crossing!鈥� he shouted.

Near the old red pine, he explained that they had cut trees to make an opening, and then arranged for a small controlled burn.听

鈥淲e were trying to get some herbs and blueberries back,鈥� he says. And the blueberries? 鈥淚 let the bears pick them.鈥�

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a misclassification. Newts are amphibians.

Editor's note: This story, which was initially published online on Aug. 20, has been updated. The original story misattributed a quote from the work of the ecologist Jerry Franklin.