By Joe RankinForests for Maine’s Future Writer It’s not every educator who sees a teaching opportunity in a forest-munching nondescript brownish-gray moth. But Susan Linscott does. And not just an opportunity to inform her students, but her community as well about the spruce budworm, a cyclical pest of spruce and fir trees that is now…
By JOE RANKIN, Forests for Maine’s Future Writer In 1962 Rachel Carson’s classic enviro-expose Silent Spring was published, laying out how indiscriminate pesticide use was decimating nature, particularly bird populations. The book helped shape the environmental movement and led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and some of the United States’ most enduring…
By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer You could tell where George Merrill was working by the muted growl of the machinery. We picked our way down the slope on a packed double-track carpeted with hemlock boughs stripped from the trees he was cutting. At the end of the trail, Merrill finished limbing and…
By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer What’s not to like about the eastern white pine? A majestic tree. Long-lived. Producer of clear, easily-worked, durable lumber that takes stain well, glues up nicely, is moderately priced, readily available. And, it is one of those trees that responds predictably and readily to a handful of…
New mills, investments and products help offset losses in some sectors By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer When Verso Paper Co. executives announced in October that the Bucksport paper mill would be closing Dec. 1, it sparked a familiar round: how to cope with the loss of tax revenue and the loss of…
Factors at play today will help create the woods of the 22nd century By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer When Verso Paper Co. announced the impending closure of its faltering Bucksport paper mill and the loss of 500 jobs, workers were stunned and a collective groan of dismay rippled through Maine’s forest products…
By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future writer It’s perhaps fitting that the largest city in the most forested state in the nation should be nicknamed the Forest City. Of course, when Portland acquired that sobriquet, back in the 1800s, Maine and New England had a lot less forest. Portland has thousands of trees. Large…
By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer On the west side of the island of Vinalhaven is a tidal inlet of great beauty, called, simply, The Basin. A reversing falls guards the mouth of The Basin, which is home to eagles and osprey, seals and the occasional porpoise, and is a popular place…
Terrestrial invasive plants can wreak havoc with forests By Joe Rankin Forests for Maine’s Future writer Licensed forester Jeff Williams does the usual things foresters do: writes management plans, runs boundary lines, oversees harvests, lays out logging roads, marks trees. But more and more these days he’s having to deal with invasive forest plants. Pulling…
By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer At one time or another we’ve all wished we could see into the future, to get just a glimpse of the ways our lives might unfold if we take this particular job, or buy this house, or marry that person or go to that university. The same…
