BY TIMOTHY LA ROCHE
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CLAREMONT — A group of seasoned foresters and woodland hobbyists braved muddy roads and muddier trails on Thursday to learn about the ways that logging has changed New Hampshire’s forests.
The University of New Hampshire’s Cooperative Extension organized the event at the Charlestown Town Forest, with Sullivan County Forester Dode Gladders and Jeff Snitskin, Bay State Forestry managing forester, leading the group.
Since Snitskin jumpstarted forestry efforts at the 177-acre town forest in 2015, the area has been slow to see change. Over the next decade though, he said, the current railroad-like tracks of mud and branches left over from cut-to-length logging should develop the forest into a more productive and healthy area.
Like most sustainable forestry practices, the selective logging advocated in Snitskin’s forest management plan is slow to produce results. In upcoming years, the pine-dominated town forest should see the inclusion of many of the regions native hardwoods, he said.
“We’re trying to manipulate that and speed it up with certain trees we’re trying to grow and removing certain trees,” Snitskin said. “Part of my job is to decide which trees should be cut and which ones should be left.”
Much of forestry is based around the idea that trees compete for light, Gladder said, meaning that the rapidly growing softwoods like pine can hinder slower hardwood growth.
As recently as the last century, nearly 80 percent of the state was clear-cut for farming, leaving rolling pastures where dense forests once stood.
As the Industrial Revolution shuttered many farms, pines advanced into the meadows, creating dense coverage under which the maples and oaks could not compete.
As foresters mark taller trees for logging, they can make light more available to the smaller hardwoods, accelerating the process of reverting the forest to its natural composition.
“There are a lot of forest sites like this in Sullivan County where we have pine on the top and hardwoods underneath. It’s going back to where it should naturally be,” Gladders said. “It’s pretty neat to think about.”
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