It s rather ironic that, by the end of this year, all 11.2 million acres affected by the legislation will be covered by a professional forest management plan. To hear Carter describe it, the plan would be a boon to small woodlot owners who are committed to sustainable forestry. The Maine Forest Service predicts an immediate 30 percent reduction more than 2 million cords in wood harvesting across the state, and a nearly 50 percent drop in harvesting for landowners in the Tree Growth Tax Law program targeted by the legislation. Under the proposal, yearly cutting levels for each species group could not be greater than the average annual growth of the past 10 years on all lands subject to the Tree Growth Tax Law. The law would create a Maine Council on Sustainable Forest Management to establish the rules governing harvesting.
Landowners have good reason to be concerned about the referendum.
Numbers control any election and the majority of Maine s population lies south of Augusta, while the majority of those directly affected are in the sparsely-populated northern part of the state. Referendum proponents clearly are banking on the hope that pictures of clear-cuts and dire warnings about forest sustainability will be convincing to thousands of Mainers who don t know the first thing about forestry management or wood harvesting. It doesn t take a genius to realize that, once the economic incentives of owning and managing forest land are gone, the days of small woodlot owners and sawmills are numbered. That land, inevitably, will go on the market and will be gobbled up by developers. The forest will continue to disappear and the urban sprawl will continue moving inexorably northward.