Biltmore's Forest Legacy– 

Continuity for Sustainable Forestry

Hom

The Forest Guild teams up with Southern Forestry Foundation and Biltmore Forest to demonstrate results of soft silviculture and “light touch” logging.

By Jerry Gaertner, Forest Guild

            More than a century has passed since the Vanderbilts recruited Gifford Pinchot, and his successor, Carl Schenck, to introduce scientific forest management in Biltmore Forest. They rescued the gullied and cut-over land they acquired just outside of Asheville, which now comprises the bulk of Pisgah National Forest. The project was later declared “The Cradle Of Forestry In America”, in part because the first formal forestry education in America, organized by Schenck in 1898, was offered there. Pinchot became head of the fledging National Forest system as Schenck’s students became available to staff Pinchot’s “Forest Reserve” agency. The spirit lives on today.

            Against this backdrop of American forest history, a couple dozen visitors converged on a beautiful June day to see, listen, and reflect upon the various places that Biltmore curator, (and Guild member), Bill Alexander included in his tour. Attendees saw large white pines that originated from the days when Schenk retired worn out pastureland with reforestation projects. At one early stop, tour participants saw a promising young hardwood stand smothering former eroded pastureland, and scattered with large pine stumps - a veritable case study of forest species succession. These acres, which had not displayed for two centuries the diversity that this region is famous for, are well on their return to their former splendor.

            The focus of the day was the review of results of last year’s directional felling/forwarder harvesting activity managed by Carlyle Franklin, the new executive director of the Southern Forestry Foundation (SFF). Guild member Lislott Harberts, who was still executive director of SFF at the time of the tour, was co-conductor of the event. Franklin and Harberts stressed the importance of “light touch” logging on the soil and biota, particularly the remaining trees, which will be depended upon for many years to provide wildlife food, aesthetics, wood products, and the filtration of rainfall that is essential to water quality. 

Approximately half of the attendees represented land trust organizations, which must contemplate aspects of sustainable forestry when stewarding their “working forest” conservation properties. The other half consisted of representatives of several environmental organizations, as well as a few landowners, a couple consulting foresters, and a logger/buyer. Guild members Rusty Painter, (on staff of Conservation Trust For N. Carolina), and Alyx Perry, (director of Southern Forests Network), and Lislott Harberts (Southern Forestry Foundation) were instrumental in bringing full attendance. Registration exceeded capacity for this event, thus promising that this event will be repeated - hopefully soon.

Said Perry “The Biltmore Estate’s partnership with the Southern Forestry Foundation is a great example of a keystone landowner leading the way in good forest management. The Biltmore Estate isn’t just managing their forest well – they’re leading by example. They are showing that sustainable forest management isn’t only a tool for maintaining aesthetic values and wildlife habitat, but is also the best strategy for managing forestland as an investment.”

            Painter reflected on the implications that what soft silviculture and light touch logging make regarding duties of land trust staffs, with whom donors forever entrust monitoring and enforcement of land protection. “Land trusts holding conservation easements on working forests can use this technology to demonstrate how land conservation can be compatible with sustainable land management. Events like this provide education opportunities for land trusts, and the landowners we work with, to demonstrate how sustainable, low-impact forestry can be carried out without threatening the ecological resources land trusts are obligated to protect.”

            Painter touches on issues of concern to all resource managers in his statements. First of all, all our efforts are largely for naught, regardless of how well we perform our duties, if continuity isn’t likely. The ecological features that we strive to protect – which are well on their way to returning at Biltmore since Pinchot began his historic career here - had existed here for eons. Therefore, it is disappointing to a forest resource manager that a first-rate silvicultural operation can be undone in a few short years by development or reckless forestry and agriculture. Since land trusts hold the promise of centuries of continuity, resource managers should view them as shining stars of hope. Conversely, if continuity is what is sought, land trusts should insist that elevated ecological performance, such as what was seen at Biltmore Forest that day, is what is given continuity in working forest landscapes.

Bill Alexander, Lislott Harberts, and Carlyle Franklin

             Secondly, working forest easements pose challenges and risks – and rewards as well – that preserves don’t entail. It cannot be refuted that preserves play an important role in humanity’s relationship with the natural world. But it is equally irrefutable and probably even more important that humanity must meditate on how we impact the forests in order to obtain what people need for fiber, minerals, energy, agricultural and urban conversion, etc….  Sooner or later, it comes down to this. Most forests must be working forests.

At Biltmore that day, we contemplated our real “connections with nature” – the connections we have with landscapes that are almost entirely anonymous to us – the places that provide the goods that somehow appear on the shelves of our marketplaces.  The deepest and most definitive relationships we have with nature are those we barely acknowledge. We may like to think that our homes are built from wood derived from someplace like Biltmore Forest, but we know that it is very unlikely.

The forest management at Biltmore is purpose-oriented; the choices of which trees to cut take into account continuing the forest’s wishes to care for all the creatures that have depended upon this continuity for eons – not the market for particular sizes and types of trees. The choices of harvest mechanization is based on the recognition of the need for continuing this forest’s apparent wishes for the same abundant growth and healthy watersheds that have made this region one of the most dazzling examples of rich productivity and biodiversity on this earth.

Thanks to the managers of Biltmore Forest, such as Bill Alexander, Biltmore Forest is once again serving as a vanguard in mankind’s quest to establish a benign relationship with nature. Yet, one of the main purposes of what has been done at Biltmore is to serve as a model for most everyplace else. I’ve got my fingers crossed that more of us will be able to step forward to join the ranks.