Message from Stewardship Program

To borrow a quote from Larry D. Harris, "...natural resources are not given to us by our fathers, but are loaned to us by our children." And since half of Kentucky's land area, some 12.7 million acres, is covered in forest, that makes the proper care of our natural resources, and particularly our forests, so very important for our future. The answer, at least for our forests, lies in forest stewardship.

What is forest stewardship? As much as anything, it's an attitude. It's an attitude that says I want to take care of my forest and manage my land in such a way that I can have it and use it for my benefit today -- and still have it, in as good or better condition, for my use tomorrow -- and for the use of my children in generations to come.

With 92% of Kentucky's forestland being privately owned, the future of our forests takes on a different dimension because of the diversity of ownership. Each of the over 300,000 landowners who own this land looks at their forests differently. Some want their forest primarily for the beauty it provides, while others want it for timber profits, others for hunting, and still others for hiking or bird or wildlife watching. And some want it for all of the above. None of those priorities are right or wrong. They are just the peculiar preference of each individual owner. And that's OK.

This is where forest stewardship stakes its claim. The idea is for these landowners to actively care for their land and work toward their own personal goals in a manner that exemplifies sound and sustainable forest resource management. And Kentucky's Forest Stewardship Program is designed to help them do just that.

The Forest Stewardship Program is a cooperative effort among Kentucky's land management agencies to help private landowners take care of their forest to meet their own goals and objectives and to do so in a sustainable manner. This assistance is provided by the Kentucky Division of Forestry, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service as well as some cooperating private consulting foresters and industry landowner assistance programs. Together they seek to provide whatever technical forest management or forest wildlife or forest recreation assistance may interest a private forestland owner. And that assistance is at no cost and just a phone call away.

Going further with this concept of stewardship, there is a lingering idea among many people today that caring for or managing the forest (doing things in the forest and to the forest, including the harvest of mature trees) is bad and that anything related to Mother Nature and "natural processes" is good. And though such ideas may have a romantic or sentimental appeal, they are not supported by science at any level. And no management may be just as wasteful in the long run as bad management.

Let's explore that. The forest is not just trees. It is a very complex and interrelated system (ecosystem) of many different types of plants and animals. It should be obvious that anything we may do to the trees in the forest affects everything else that lives there. The trees are the minority organisms, but they are also the framework around which the forest ecosystem is built.

At the same time, it's important to remember that the forest is not frozen in time as "THE FOREST." The forest is dynamic and always changing. The trees that form the forest's framework are living organisms. Like all living organisms, including ourselves, trees are born as germinated seed, they grow to maturity, and they die. This is where management of the forest through forest stewardship comes in.

Though Mother Nature is in fact "natural" in what she does, she is also slow, inefficient, very wasteful, and at times, very cruel. What management of the forest is designed to do is to take the birth to death natural process and put it to work for us in a manner much more efficient. Trees, grouped together as the forest, still perform their functions, but in a way that they best meet the goals and objectives we as society and as managers have set for them. In this process of management, we are using Mother Nature's own principles to the benefit of society. And at the same time we are also taking special precaution to protect the other resource values of the forest such as soil, water, natural beauty and habitat for other plants and animals.

The key thing to remember is that the trees are going to go through the birth, maturity, and death cycle regardless of whether we manage them or use them for our purposes. That's something that is often overlooked. And though the harvest of any tree may be offensive to some people, waste should be much more offensive. Proper forest management and the science associated with it, allows us to maintain a vigorous, healthy forest which is capable of meeting all the needs both we and Mother Nature require from it. Through forest management we are working with Mother Nature, not against her. We are just helping her along while meeting societies' needs at the same time.

Certainly there are areas which deserve to be preserved as "natural" for posterity and a variety of other reasons. But along this same line, a world full of only old-growth trees would in some ways be as bad as one that was totally clear-cut when looked at from a forest ecosystem point of view. Why? Because a great many of the other plants and animals that inhabit our forests depend on the various stages of forest maturity for their existence. Some require a mature forest, but others require a young developing one and still others a combination. And without all the forest stages present, some forms of plants and animals would disappear because conditions would not be right for their existence. It's the same reason very few humans live in the desert or at the North Pole. The conditions aren't right for what humans require to live comfortably.

Mother Nature has always provided a variety of forest conditions on her own by modifying the forest through wildfire, wind and ice storms, insect and disease attack or floods and droughts. These are all "natural" of course, but very wasteful. For the most part, man has eliminated catastrophic wildfire and devastating insect and disease infestations from the equation. In their place, man has introduced other forms of forest disturbance such as timber harvesting.

But timber harvesting is just one potential element of forest stewardship and not necessarily an essential one if it isn't a goal of the landowner. Other components are wildlife management, soil and water protection, and the preservation or enhancement of aesthetics and natural beauty -- all depending on what the landowner wants from his or her property.

Landowners who are interested in receiving free professional assistance in managing their forestland to meet their own personal interests and at the same time assuring that it is well-cared for for the benefit of future generations, should contact the Kentucky Division of Forestry at 800-866-0555. Through the Forest Stewardship Program, they will arrange for a forester, wildlife biologist or other land management professional to meet with the landowner, walk over their property, and explain their options based on their forests current condition. They will then make recommendations on how the landowner should proceed to accomplish their personal goals. The motto of the Kentucky Forest Stewardship Program is "Trees for tomorrow...and for today." Forest Stewardship is motherhood and apple pie and the responsible way to see that our forestland provides us all with the values we will require from our forests for the coming generations.

State Forestland Statistics (Last Forest Survey, 1988):

• Total forested acres = 12.7 million acres
• Privately owned = 11.54 million acres, or 90.9% of total forest land
• Industry = 203,200 acres, or 1.6% of total forest land
• Government = 952,500 acres, or 7.5% of total forest land

Stewardship in Kentucky

• Number of stewardship plans (as of September 30, 2001) = 12,367
• Acres covered by those stewardship plans = 1,355,129 acres or 10.7% of total forest land

Stewardship Contact:

Robert L. Volk, CF

Forest Stewardship Section Supervisor

Kentucky Division of Forestry

627 Comanche Trail

Frankfort KY 40601

Phone: 1-800-866-0555

Email: Robert Volk

Links:

• Kentucky Division of Forestry
• Forestry Cooperative Extension
• Southern Region Extension Forestry
• Forest Health Protection, Southern Region
• The Nature Conservancy, Kentucky Chapter
• EPA: Global Warming Impacts on Kentucky

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