Logging in New Hampshire forests can both benefit and hurt the environment and natural habitats.
In August, a federal judge allowed for commercial logging at two sites in the White Mountain National Forest. The ruling found the U.S. Forest Service followed the appropriate process to move forward with the two projects, which have been debated for years and which would cut trees over 3,000 acres between Randolph, Gorham, Warren and Piermont.
The case pitted different environmental advocacy groups against each other because of their opposing views on the plans.
What is logging?
Trees cover more than 80% of New Hampshire, and the forest products industry generates over $1.6 billion annually in revenues for the state.
In the 2024 fiscal year, 5.7 million board feet of saw timber and 54,000 tons of low-grade wood were harvested from 19 active forest operations in New Hampshire, according to the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
“We’re trying to make our forests better after we have some sort of intervention in them, while also supplying society, more broadly, with local wood products, supporting the economy, providing jobs,” said Mike Redante, a staff forester at the New England Forestry Foundation.
From the perspective of Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, the organization whose lawsuit against the Forest Service was resolved in August, expanding logging is unnecessary, especially in state- and federally-protected forests.
New Hampshire produces almost 50% more wood than its residents consume, according to a March 2024 report backed by the USDA’s Renewable Resources Extension Act.
“The question that gets asked is, ‘Well, we all use wood products, so therefore we need to go in and do this logging project,'” Porter said. “But the reality is so much different than that, because in New Hampshire, there is no shortage of wood right now.”
The impact of logging on forests
Some experts who work in or study the forestry industry said that logging is a part of responsible forest management. Redante said that while the New England Forestry Foundation logs some parts of the 44,000 acres it manages, it strives to grow more wood and more resilient forests in the long term.
A few years ago in central Maine, for instance, trees that physically damaged or diseased needed to be cut down. This type of wood is considered low grade and is used for short-lived end products like paper and pulp.
“In order to make that forest healthier, you remove the poorest performers,” he said.
Anthony D’Amato, a professor at the University of Vermont and director of its forestry program, said there’s a chance wood sourced from outside of the U.S. might not have originated from forests treated with the same sustainable practices or protections as those in New England.
Even if they did have similar practices, he said, transporting wood long distances can have a high carbon footprint.
“I think when we put it in that binary, either we want logging or not, those that do not want it, unless they stop using wood that same day, then you really are just exporting that impact elsewhere,” D’Amato said.
Logging does have some drawbacks. In a disturbed forest, soil quality is more likely to deteriorate and suffer desertification. The water cycle can also be disturbed if a tree’s roots are no longer there to absorb and release water, potentially causing erosion and drought.
Originally from eastern Massachusetts, D’Amato said he was shocked to see Maine’s large-scale forest management and logging practices when he first moved there. The state harvests a majority of New England’s timber.
“I just had never seen anything like that,” he said, “and then over time, [I understood] there’s a balance and a need for both good stewardship as well as certainly good protection of lands.”
The impact on habitats and species
When David King was in his undergraduate years at California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt, there was a negative rhetoric surrounding logging, especially when it came to the liquidation of redwood trees and fragmenting bird populations.
He later got the chance to study clearcut forests, where most trees in an area were cut down at the same time, through the University of Massachusetts Amherst. There, in the White Mountains, he witnessed something he was not expecting: the clearcut areas were “boiling with birds” that weren’t found in more dense forests.
“Bird species were more abundant in regenerating clearcuts,” said King, a former Forest Service researcher. “They shift in these areas because the vegetation is more palatable, because plants haven’t developed a lot of compounds… and there’s also a lot of fruit and sunlight in those areas.”
King said clearcuts are prime for early successional birds who thrive in young forests and low-lying vegetation. These types of birds, which include some species of warblers and sparrows, have been in decline partly because of increased growth of mature forests.
Jim Oehler, program supervisor with New Hampshire Fish and Game, said the department uses an electronic geographic information system to map how many acres of land are prime for forest management. The department also uses the information to determine prime habitats for different species.
Different species can come about depending on the age of the trees and the density of a forest.
“If you want to maintain healthy populations of New Hampshire’s wildlife, you need to provide a variety of different habitats, including different types of forested habitats,” he said.
Protecting state and natural forests
Land owned by federal, state or municipal governments makes up about 27% of all forests in New Hampshire. Zack Porter of Standing Trees said he believes those lands should not be considered for logging.
He said logging has the potential to affect water quality, such as nutrient and sediment pollution, and drive away species that are attracted to mature forests such as the threatened northern long-eared bat.
“It seems so obvious to put public lands on a path towards providing public goods and services, first and foremost,” he said. “Let private land be where we gather our wood products from, which is exactly the way most of our private lands are managed today.”
Also an advocate for leaving public forests alone, Rick Enser, formerly the director if the Rhode Island Natural Heritage Program, said forest’s biodiversity and ecosystem functions best when it’s uninterrupted.
“Logging is a human alteration,” he said. “It’s a human disturbance and anthropogenic disturbance to the natural order.”
The same report, Beyond the “Illusion of Preservation,” recommends expanding New England’s wildlands, which D’Amato said is important to have these types of forests to observe “the influence of natural dynamics.”
“They are a really important benchmark for us to look at and see how do forests change and develop without our intervention,” he said. “And importantly, we can use information from those places also to adjust our management if need be in other areas.”
