Deep in the Maine woods, a decades-old partnership between the federal government and the nation’s most forested state is at risk of coming undone during a sweeping reorganization and budget overhaul of the U.S. Forest Service.
Some say a remaking will transfer the control and cost of forest management to cash-strapped states. Others say it won’t affect Maine at all. The one thing clear about the future relationship between Washington and the Maine woods is how much remains unknown.
Maine holds a unique position: It’s the most heavily forested state in the nation, with nearly 17.5 million acres, yet barely 2% of that is managed by the USFS. Just a sliver of the New Hampshire-based White Mountain National Forest — between 47,000 and 50,000 acres — is in Maine.
About 92% is privately owned by land trusts, woodlot owners and forest product corporations.
Maine is the most heavily forested state in the nation
Because it owns so little land here, the agency’s work in Maine is often less visible than it is in western states, focusing mostly on research and technical support for private woodlot owners. Now, that invisible infrastructure is facing big changes with no clear roadmap.
On Thursday, that partnership faced a sharp reckoning during a House Appropriations budget hearing. U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, the subcommittee’s ranking member, pressed U.S. Forest Service Chief Thomas Schultz on whether Maine’s scientific hubs would be affected.
The agency has released a list of 57 research stations it plans to close. Maine’s two experimental forests — the 3,900-acre Penobscot in Bradley and the 3,700-acre Massabesic in Lyman — didn’t appear on that initial list.
When Pingree asked point-blank if the Maine sites were secure, Schultz admitted the agency’s entire research footprint remains under review. Sites not marked for immediate closure, he said, are “still being evaluated” as the agency moves toward a centralized research model in Colorado.
“It seems that political goals and arbitrary top-line funding cuts have driven the creation of this budget, not the needs of our forests,” Pingree said. She said elimination of forestry programs is “hugely detrimental” to a state that relies on federal science to support its forest products sector.
Custodians of ecological memory
For researchers, the USFS is the primary custodian of the ecological memory of Maine forests.
In Bradley, the 3,600-acre Penobscot Experimental Forest houses one of the longest-running silvicultural studies in North America, with more than a million individual tree measurements recorded since 1950.
Jay Wason, an associate professor at the University of Maine, noted that these forests provide “economic predictability” for Maine’s $8.3 billion-a-year timber industry. Without these forests, managers are forced to rely on guesswork rather than data.
The divergence in concern highlights the unique nature of Maine’s woods. Robert Seymour, a retired University of Maine forestry professor and woodlot owner who ran decades worth of experiments at the Penobscot, described these forests as irreplaceable laboratories whose value is scientific rather than just industrial.
“Now, with the changing climate, these forests have become our ecological memory,” Seymour said. “The only place we’re really going to know if our knowledge is faulty is by comparing what trees are now doing versus what they had done 50 years ago.”
The quiet giant weighs in
The lack of clarity has drawn a public stance from Maine’s most iconic brand. While national outdoor retailers like Patagonia and REI were quick to protest the reorganization, the Freeport-based L.L.Bean faced criticism for initially remaining quiet.
Jason Sulham, manager of public affairs at L.L.Bean, said the retailer officially opposes any “degradation” of the U.S. Forest Service’s mission and confirmed the company had joined REI and Patagonia in supporting the Conservation Alliance’s statement of concern.
“The U.S. Forest Service is essential to the stewardship of our public lands, and L.L.Bean opposes any degradation of its mission,” Sulham said in an email Wednesday. “This is, and will always be, a priority for L.L.Bean that is reflected in our values and authenticated by our actions.”
A hand-off without a handbook
At the hearing, Schultz defended the reorganization plan as “common sense,” arguing that the agency must move decision-making authority away from Washington and down to the “man or the woman on the ground.”
He suggested that states like Maine have built enough of their own expertise that the federal government’s “paternalistic” role is no longer necessary. But for those on the ground, the math doesn’t add up.
“I guarantee you, my state is not prepared to take over all of the things the federal government is currently doing,” Pingree told Schultz during the hearing. “We don’t have those resources.”
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Penelope Overton can be reached at poverton@pressherald.com.