Restorative Forestry From the Ground Up

by Donald L. Gibbon

Harvesting timber can be the worst or the best thing ever to happen to a forest: The worst thing for an old-growth forest… or the best thing for a second-growth woodlot that has been mis-managed for a hundred years or more.

Driving south on Virginia Route 17 into Fauquier County it dawns on you slowly that this entire countryside is as well tended as a European park. Not a board out of place in the endless white fences, hardly a blade of grass unmowed, “more stately mansions” set well back from the highway, tucked into hollows or near the crests of low hills. In the background are the scattered higher foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, largely covered with mature second- or third-growth forests. This area has the highest density per capita of conservation easements in the United States, almost a guarantee that these landowners have a long term view of their relationship to the land.

There’s clear wisdom, then, in Jason Rutledge’s decision to set up the Northern Virginia office of the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation right here, among people who both care about their land and have the means to care for it well. Jason’s game is modern horselogging, which implies a whole eco-philosophy. This isn’t theoretical or arm-chair stuff. It’s “boots-on-the-ground,” to borrow a happy phrase from the Pentagon. Jason applies horselogging as a means to implement what he calls restorative forestry, also known as worst-first single tree selection. What is left in the forest after he’s finished is more important than what is taken. This is a radically different long term approach to the land, a complete departure from the all-too-common cut-and-run school. (more…)