Small woodlot owners: 5 reasons to CALL YOUR NEIGHBORS
Maine is 89% forested land which equates to about 17.6 million acres. Thirty percent or 5.28 million acres are privately owned and of those privately owned forests, 27% or 1.43 million acres are broken into lots of less than 50 acres each. Over 600,000 acres are broken into lots less than 20 acres. That is a lot of forest that likely goes unmanaged due to inefficiencies in moving large wood harvesting equipment. By this, I mean it just plain costs too much for a logging business to move and set up to financially justify cutting smaller lots unless of course it comes at an expense to the landowner. But let’s be real, not many people would pay to have their land managed. Most people manage their woodlots not only for environmental reasons, but also for a return on investment. Forest fragmentation is one of the biggest obstacles to forest management especially in our area towards the southern part of the state. Most of the lots we harvest are 40-60 acres. We do occasionally work on small lots of 10 acres. Wood lot size is like buying a two liter bottle of soda versus a pack of 6 small bottles. The cost of the soda in the small bottle is exponentially higher than the soda in the two liter. Now we all know why this is. It’s because the cost of manufacturing the 6 bottles is far more expensive than the cost of one big bottle. This is true for an innumerable amount of products and services including selective wood harvesting. The pay out per acre on a 10 acre woodlot is going to be significantly less than on a 100 acre parcel.
The news is littered with opinions about climate change and how to manage it and how we can all do better. There is a plethora of science to support the theory suggesting that a working forest is the most efficient at capturing carbon. But what if you only own 5 acres? You might want to manage your forested piece of the pie but you can’t find a logger who will give you the time of day. It is simply because it is not economically feasible for him to move to such a small parcel. Most likely, if your 5 acres is forested then there are likely many other forested acres surrounding you. If you find this is the case, I urge you to call your neighbors and pitch the idea of all having your stands of timber managed at the same time. Here is a list of 5 benefits to provide when you make that phone call or send that letter…..
Effective forest management is best achieved over broad areas. If there is an invasive species on your property that you’d like to eradicate but the neighbors do nothing, then it is possible, depending on the issue, that your efforts will be frivolous.
In order to achieve effective carbon capture, the forest needs to have the ability to grow some sprinters. If the canopy never gets opened up, young seedlings will not have the opportunity to do the important work of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.
Teaming up with neighbors to increase the size of the harvestable acreage will have an increased payout for all. Just like the two liter bottle of soda versus a 6 pack.
When woodlots are combined, we can typically use just one landing site which also decreases our cost significantly, which again increases the profit for the landowners and also decreases environmental impact.
Lastly, what a great opportunity to finally call the neighbor that you have never met in the years you’ve owned the property. We could all stand to be a little more neighborly these days!