What's happening in Maine?

Well, I am not very tuned in to forestry issues. I do know there has been an effort for many years to manage the "northern forest" in Northern New England as a coherent unit. This is an issue because a large percentage of northern Maine is privately owned forest, mostly owned by paper and lumber companies. These companies are good about allowing citizens to use the land such as for hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, etc. And they are the lifeblood of many northern towns. The motto of this effort is "Restore: The North Woods" to a primeval wilderness and making it a national park. http://www.restore.org/index_noflash.html

Many Mainer's response to this is "Restore: Boston"

I also know there are quite a number of threats to the trees. Acid rain, insects, fungus, invasive plants, climate change.
There has been the initiative to make it illegal to transport firewood any distance since this is a likely method of distributing insects into uninfested forests.

The cutting of trees as biofuel (wood chips) has been ongoing for decades. I do not know many details of this practice but a professional, state forester told me that removing the biomass from a woodlot more than once has been shown to hurt the level soil nutrients. It does not matter what source of energy we use, it all has consequences.

I sure would like to be able to frame with chestnut!!

Jim