Forest Stewardship

This depressed area in a Sandhill landscape in Brunswick County, NC formed an isolated and unique small pond with tupelo, reeds, and standing water. This area was buffered and preserved and continues to be used by a large number of wildlife species.

No matter if you are a landowner focused on utilization, focused on conservation, or a mix of the two, forest stewardship is important. As landowners and forest managers, our actions affect the quality of life of the remaining population today, and the population of the future. While preserving private property rights and the options to choose our own management objectives are important, as temporary stewards of the land, we have a responsibility to consider the effects of our actions.

While opinions certainly vary on what good management entails, we should consider the effects on air and water quality, diversity, and future site productivity. Maintaining or improving site productivity entails completing forest practices in a way to avoid erosion and perhaps even monitoring nutritional availability of the land - building up the land versus simply taking from it. Just like farmers fertilize their fields or use crop rotations to manage soil nutrition, forestland owners can evaluate the effect of their actions.

With longer crop rotations, we can actually even hope to potentially build up our soil A horizons, organic matter and nutrient pools. Considering diversity means balancing the desires for profit with the realization that our environment is full of symbiotic relationships.

The owners of this mature stand of timber in Scotland County were losing scattered pines annually and their timber was in susceptible state for a potential southern pine beetle attack. The owners wanted to lower their risk, but did not want to clear-cut. DDFSI prepared and managed the thinning of this stand, marking the best quality trees to leave to continue growing, and removing the diseased, crooked, and suppressed trees. The remaining trees are 16"-24" in diameter and still growing with healthy crowns.

Leaving buffers and preserving unique environmental areas costs money, but these are sacrifices worth making. If we can grow plantation timber intensively on preferred areas, we can better protect our sensitive areas, while still providing forest products for the world�s population.

Protecting air and water quality may be the most important responsibilities of all. In an age of potential global warming, growing highly productive forests helps remove carbon from the air and store it long-term, thus reducing the potential for warming. The collective management intensity of our private landowners actually has a major potential effect on our future.

What about our fresh water? With a continuously growing population it is more and more important. Our forestlands are a major buffer for our world�s water supply. Just like trees can affect carbon content in our air, trees can affect the nutrient build-ups in our water, and therefore the quality of our water. At Dougherty & Dougherty we think about these things and consider the effects of our management decisions. We hope that you will as well.