Keith Thompson. I’m the Chittenden County forester.
What’s a typical work day like for you?
Day to day it varies a lot. My job is to work with private
landowners and municipalities to help take care of the forests. And I’m kind of
an advice guy so some days it’s going out with a landowner and taking a look at
their individual tree or going out with a landowner and looking at their 75
acres or thousand acres. And walking through them, paying attention to what
they’re interested in, letting them know what I’m seeing and how they might
best take care of their land for a variety of objectives.
Why is forestry important?
Cause forests are awesome. Forestry is important because we
live in a state that is defined by its forests- the clean water, the clean air,
the tourism, the recreation opportunities, the wildlife that we love. All of
these things are dependent on the forests. And appropriate management can help
us get the things that we need for the forest without screwing it up.
What is the relationship between foresters and loggers?
Specifically, how is it in Vermont?
In Vermont it’s unique because we have the “current use”
program. It’s a program that helps landowners reduce their tax burden if they commit
to actively managing for saw timber among other resources. And what that does
is it often connects landowners with consulting foresters who prepare their
plans, plans are required in the current use program. Because landowners have
this relationship with foresters, foresters then work to apply the management
that’s recommended in the management plan. So they go out into the forest, mark
trees, things like that. Then they work with a logger, they develop a contract
between the landowner and the logger and the forester works as an agent for the
landowner to oversee the execution of that contract. So, a logger is a really
critical partner in the process. They are the folks who have the equipment to
move trees , have the experience cutting trees down and work to turn trees into
a financial resource for a landowner, which often times is critical, but it’s
the forester who designates those trees, insures the landowner is getting a
fair price for the wood, and insures that the job is closed up properly so that
water bars are in place, erosion doesn't happen, and only trees that are marked
for harvest are removed.
What is your opinion on the “current use” program? Is it
working for what it’s intended to do?
The “current use” program is working, really well. The
program is- I’ll give it a little bit of history. Somebody who enrolls in the
current use program needs to have at least 25 acre parcel, 20 of which is
forest land, and they need to have a management plan describing how they are
going to actively manage for saw timber on that property. And, that plan is
approved by a county forester and the landowner is responsible for executing
all of the practices that are in that plan and not doing things that aren’t
outlined in that plan. Because of these rules that we've framed around it, as
with any program, there are some opportunities where some less than scrupulous
individuals will take advantage of it. And when we identify those folks or
those landowners, we deal with it and make sure that taxpayer money is well
spent and if they don’t deserve to be enrolled in the program then we deal with
that and if there’s ways to guide them to manage appropriately or shift the way
they’re enrolled in the program then we do that. But, those folks are really
the exception and when we work on these programs we’re really trying to cast a
broad net and get as many acres as well managed in our forests as possible. And,
so, more than 99% I expect are really just doing their best to love and take
care of their land in the way that the current use programs is designed to help
them to do.
What is your opinion on the push to make withdraw from the current
use program a harsher burden, more of a punishment type of thing for coming out
of it?
It a very challenging thing to grapple with. There are some
positions that would say, some folks would say the current use program is not
designed to be a permanent conservation tool, it’s designed to fairly tax folks
who are actively manage their forest and not punish them if things change for
them. On the other hand, there’s folks who say if tax payers contribute to the
ability of somebody to own land for a period of time and they change their mind
about managing it for forests that taxpayers should be reimbursed more
significantly then they are and their forestland. To this point, the way that
folks have sought to increase the penalty has really had some inconsistencies
with the intent of the program in the way that it would make it almost just as
appealing to remove an entire property from the program as it would to remove a
smaller portion of a property. And if folks remove an entire property from the
program and manage it willy-nilly then we have higher risk for mismanagement.
So it’s a tough balance to strike.
What’s the relationship between forestry and water quality?
Forests are very important to water quality. When rainfalls
on a forest healthy soils allow that rain to basically soak up into the soil.
It gets filtered by that soil and trees take up that water, put it back into
the air, and as that water moves through the water column into our rivers it’s
basically filters, it comes out clean. And there are significant contributions
that phosphorus or other things that really damage our water quality. So,
healthy forests and well managed forests are great contributors to clean water.
But they also can be a problem. Poorly managed logging roads, poorly managed
landings, things like that can cause erosion problems and undermine the ability
of the forest to provide us with clean water.
What is the least harmful or least impactful way to take
trees down? Why is this method the best or better than others?
I don’t think that there’s a better or best way to deal with
trees. I think that whatever approach is going to put the forest in a position
to renew itself is an appropriate management tool. In certain places, forests
are less able to renew themselves. If you do a really wide clear cut in an area
where soils are unstable you may aggravate erosion, you may introduce invasive
plants in places which will then compete with native plants and slow the
ability of a forest to regenerate. In some places you already have invasive
plants and doing light cutting may only encourage invasive plants. And because
there’s a variety of objectives that landowners have, a variety of needs that
people derive from the forest I think that there’s a whole spectrum on any
given property that could be appropriate but it’s all relative to when are you
coming back into the forest, what equipment are you using to harvest that. So,
you can take an individual tree here and there and the total trees, you know it’s
not a big deal, but if you’re running machinery out there in springtime and
causing huge ruts you can do way more impact than you
would had you take most of the trees under frozen ground conditions and done it
more with more suitable equipment at a better time.
Are you a licensed forester?
In Vermont we don’t have licensing.
What’s your opinion on the push to required foresters and
loggers licenses in Vermont? How would it affect your job?
I would be required to get licensed. And I think that it’s
an important discussion to have. I think that there are states all around us
that require licensing and there’s folks on both sides of the fence. Some folks
feel like there are people doing bad work out there who are foresters. There
are folks who are doing great work and are not considered foresters. And what’s
unclear to me and why it’s important to have the discussion is if the goal is to
prevent low quality work or raise the bar how does licensing achieve that? And
what are the details that move us in that direction? I think that maybe
licensing is a fine thing if it’s done in a certain way, but we need to get to
that point, it’s not a black and white issue.
How would licensing affect the agriculture and cultivation
of the forest?
I don’t know how it would affect the way that the forest is
managed. And I think that the details of what licensing entails would perhaps
effect that, but I think that if that goes through we’d find out. Or we’d move
it in a direction if we saw an opportunity to where it could raise the bar then
we could move in that direction.
