Debate About Definition of ‘Old-Growth Forest’ Leaves Imprint on Forest Protection Bill
By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff
An old-growth forest of mostly American beech trees in Portsmouth recently become the first in Rhode Island to be part of the national Old-Growth Forest Network. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News)
Centuries ago, Rhode Island lost most if not all of its virgin forest to European settlement. Even though the state is home to some 700 trees Rhode Island Tree Council director John Campanini Jr. calls “champions,” most of today’s mature or old-growth forests are only 75 to 100 years old.
The only way Rhode
Island will again have forests that are centuries old is to protect the pockets
of mature, native trees that remain, say those behind a bill filed earlier this
month.
The Old Growth Forest
Preservation Act (H7066) would prohibit the cutting, timber
harvesting or altering of old-growth forests, American beech forests, yellow
birch forests, sugar maple forests, Atlantic white cedar forests, black tupelo
forests, American hornbeam forests and American hophornbeam forests on state-
and municipal-owned land.
The bill was introduced
by Rep. David Bennett, D-Warwick, and was largely written by Nathan Cornell,
Rhode Island co-coordinator of the Old-Growth Forest Network.
The bill defines
“old-growth forests” as forests that are at least 100 years old. It would
require developers to survey for old growth before any building takes place to
ensure no mature forest is destroyed.
The House Committee on Environment and
Natural Resources held a hearing Jan. 27 on the
Old Growth Forest Preservation Act. Bennett is the committee’s chair.
“It would protect open
space … it’s being consumed by development and we can all see that,” Bennett
said. “There’s mass pieces of land that are being turned into solar farms. This
would put a check on it.”
Solar installations “are
becoming a source of forest loss to achieve Rhode Island’s clean energy goals,”
according to the Rhode Island 2020 Forest Action
Plan.
An increase in
ground-mounted solar projects has caused deforestation in rural areas of the
state and spurred significant community concern about forest conservation,
according to a 2019 report.
“Between 2008 and 2017, there was a 23-fold increase in the amount of electricity generated by solar power in Rhode Island,” according to the 133-page report titled The Value of Rhode Island Forests.
“This increase in solar power is central to meeting the state’s climate change
mitigation goals, and renewable energy is urgently needed to offset
greenhouse-gas emissions from the electricity sector. Yet, these installations
on formerly forested land pit the benefits of renewable energy directly against
the myriad benefits offered by forests.”
Cornell testified at the hearing.
“When I started
searching for old-growth forests, I was told there was none left, that it was
all cut down by World War II,” he said. “However, I’ve been finding pockets of
old-growth forest all over the place. These forests aren’t common — less than 1
percent of our forests are fully developed old-growth — but they are there.”
Cornell noted he has
cored multiple trees that predate the Civil War. He said he has found forests
where oak trees are 12 feet in circumference.
“These old-growth forests
do exist, but they are in serious danger of being destroyed — even on public
land,” he said. “The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management [DEM]
currently has no mechanism for identifying and protecting old-growth forest on
state land.”
In an interview with
ecoRI News a day before the hearing, Cornell said DEM and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) have been destroying old-growth forests accidentally for
decades because they don’t acknowledge such forests exist in Rhode Island.
He noted pockets of
old-growth forest can be found in Cranston, North Kingstown, Portsmouth, South
Kingstown and Warwick, to name a few places he has identified. He said mature,
native forests keep invasives out and anchor a strong, healthy ecosystem.
“Our old-growth forests hold more carbon and have more plant and animal diversity than any other forest,” he said. “To allow the destruction of them would lead to that carbon being released into the atmosphere as pollution and the habitats those forests provide would be gone.”
In a meeting with DEM in
December, Cornell said he was told the U.S. Forest Service is pressuring the
agency to timber harvest more in state forests.
A DEM spokesperson
acknowledged the agency’s meeting with Cornell, but noted “his perception about
the US Forest Service is inaccurate.”
“One of our major points was, and is, that many Rhode Island forests are of an even age class — too many, in fact,” Michael Healey wrote in an email to ecoRI News.
“We’d like to
have harvested more actively in the recent past than resources allowed us to do
because strategic harvesting — not clear-cutting — helps foster healthier
forests by diversifying the age class of species and trees, salvaging certain
species (e.g., oaks) affected by repeated defoliations from forest tent and
gypsy moth caterpillars, creating more hospitable habitat for wildlife,
reducing fire risk, and protecting water quality.”
In testimony submitted to
the House committee, DEM said it is concerned the legislation would inhibit its
“ability to effectively manage forests located on state property in a manner
that benefits wildlife, recreational users, and the overall health of our
forest ecosystem.”
It also said the
definition of old-growth forest “used in the legislation is not consistent with
forestry best practices.”
The Nature Conservancy testified that while “we
support the overall goals of this legislation … we respectfully request that
this bill is held for further study” so the definition of old-growth forest can
be refined in a process that includes local experts, such as the Rhode Island
Land Trust Council and DEM.
The Land Trust Council
also asked that the bill be
held for further study. The Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns testified the
legislation presents challenges to municipalities that do not have the
resources to comply with the new requirements regarding tree coring, tree
species identification, soil sampling and land surveying.
The founder and the Northeast regional manager for the Maryland-based Old-Growth Forest Network testified in favor of the bill.
Champion trees and mature forests sequester carbon and provide habitat for a diverse collection of plants and animals. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News)
Cornell, a member of the Warwick Land Trust Committee, believes old-growth forests need to be left alone. Timber harvesting, he said, damages their ecological value.
To identify Rhode Island’s
remaining old-growth forests, Cornell and Rachel Briggs, his fellow coordinator
of the Old-Growth Forest Network, are creating a nonprofit to oversee the
initiative. The Old Growth Tree Society will organize the mapping of old-growth
forests, advocate for legislation to protect them, work with landowners to keep
their mature forests protected from timber harvesting and educate the public on
the importance of these woodlands.
He told the committee
some 40 people have expressed interest in helping map the state’s old-growth
forests.
Campanini, the longtime
director of the Rhode Island Tree Council, said the state’s grandest trees —
those with significant trunks, majestically tall and with impressive crown
spreads — account for only a small percentage of the state’s canopy cover.
He said he supports any
bill that brings awareness to the importance of forests. He agreed that Rhode Island
needs to develop a mapping system for its forests. And since some 70 percent of
forests in the state are on private land, he said any initiative for further
protections needs to include landowners.
“We need a comprehensive
plan for forest protection,” Campanini said. “Look at what we did for
Narragansett Bay. We need a similar approach with our forests.”
He is hoping the state
Forest Conservation Act (H5760 and S0470) approved last
year will address these issues and create a system that better protects Rhode
Island’s forestland, both private and public.
The law’s intent is to
help landowners conserve forests in perpetuity, encourage better forest
management, promote forest conservation as a means to mitigate climate change,
create jobs in the forest products industry, and expand urban and community
forestry programs.
The act also establishes
a Forest Conservation Commission. The commission is to consist of the DEM and
Department of Administration directors, or their respective designees, and nine
public members to be appointed by the DEM director.
Healey said the agency
is in the process of constituting the Forest Conservation Commission and “we
hope to hold the first meeting in March.” He said DEM will soon be sending a
list of commission members to the secretary of state’s office.
