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Spotlight- Loyalsock State Forest Hosts Best Forest Practices Tour
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In mid-August the Bureau of Forestry’s Loyalsock forest district played host to the Bradford-Sullivan Forest Landowners Association’s “Endless Mountains Forestry Best Management Practices” tour. The event—funded through a grant from the USDA Forest Service—was designed to engage forest landowners, conservation leaders, government officials and elected representatives with the management challenges and opportunities of forest management on privately owned land.
“Most of Pennsylvania’s forests are privately owned,” said Nancy Baker, president of the Bradford-Sullivan Forest Landowners Association. “If we want to sustain our forest, we have to look to private forest landowners. They are truly the face of forestry in Pennsylvania.”
The more than 50 attendees embarked on a day-long tour of the Loyalsock region’s forests, including privately owned land, Worlds End State Park, Loyalsock State Forest, and Laporte Borough’s community forest.
Participants were shown areas where federal cost-sharing funds helped a private forest landowner establish a new crop of trees, a practice that will provide public benefits in clean air and water, wildlife habitat and economic values.
Along the way, the group discussed the best management practices to control for erosion and sedimentation; the importance of urban tree canopy cover; the Envirothon program; and biomass energy opportunities through the “PA Fuels for Schools and Beyond” program.
The tour led the group to the Rusty Wheel timber sale in Loyalsock State Forest. There, DCNR foresters explained to participants the challenges of regenerating Pennsylvania’s forests and how the agency, through its practices and policies, ensures a healthy forest for the future.
“Through our practices on state forest land, we hope to serve as an example of sustainable management across the region,” said Joe Dotzel, assistant district manager.
The tour ended at the Loyalsock Forest Resource Management Center in Dushore, where tour organizers led a discussion about the challenges and opportunities in managing the region’s private forest resource, and how government and forest conservation organizations can work together to make that happen.
“Today reinforced to me the importance of private forest land,” said Ed Zygmunt, field representative for U.S. Representative Christopher Carney. “It was very helpful to see how our federal dollars are being spent to improve conservation on the ground.”
Mike Lester, Assistant State Forester with the Bureau of Forestry, capped the discussion with a call for cooperation in conserving our forests.
“No one organization can do it alone,” Lester said. “We have to work together—across government agencies, conservation organizations and private industry—if we want to have any chance at keeping our forests healthy and sustaining them for future generations.”
(Reprinted from the DCNR Resource online newsletter.)
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9/6/2010 |
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