There is something special about walking into an old forest with its large trees and abundant dead wood. Adopting a passive forest management approach may lead to your forest developing into old forest over the next century. 

Passive forest management is an intentional decision to let the growth and development of the forest and natural disturbances (e.g., wind, ice, insects) be the main drivers of forest change. The passive forest management approach can be applied to some or all of your forest. The passive approach provides a model of the way forests change on their own and respond to challenges such as climate change and invasive plants and insects. Old forest provides unique habitat and typically maximizes forest carbon storage. 

Activities considered consistent with the passive forest management strategy include non-motorized recreation, invasive plant control, hunting, and the collection of non-timber forest products (e.g., maple sap, mushrooms, greens) for personal use.

Activities considered inconsistent with the passive forest management strategy include harvesting trees, motorized recreation, and building structures.

As the landowner, you can decide how strictly you want to stick to passive forest management approach and for how long.  For example, if you heat with wood, you can apply the passive approach to forest management but harvest a few cords of wood a year. Just know that the more intervention you have in your forest the less natural processes are the main driver of change in it and at some point, your approach may better be characterized as being active forest management.

Warning: landowners often picture old forests as the forest primeval.  Our current forests are the result of intensive colonial land use and are now facing significant challenges of invasive plants and insects and excessive deer herbivory. Our forests may not develop through time and reach the end point you hope they will.  These are novel times.  A forester can help you evaluate your land and the surrounding landscape and help provide recommendations on meeting your goals.

Importantly, you don’t need to choose only one strategy: passive or active.  You can choose to apply them both on your property by choosing areas of your forest that you want to dedicate to each type of strategy.  Areas most suitable for the passive forest management approach include areas of low/no invasive plant species, areas with existing old forest characteristics (e.g., recent natural disturbance, dead wood, understory plant communities), around ecologically sensitive areas (e.g., vernal pools), and areas of high environmental variation (e.g., wet/dry, high/low elevation, different forest types). From a landscape perspective, adding old forest to other areas of old forest is very valuable, so consider what other landowners are doing around you. 

Allowing our current ecologically young forests to develop into old forests through passive forest management will take time.  Based on our past land use history, many forests in our region are around 100 years old. It will take approximately another 100 years for them to develop the type and amount of characteristics we would expect to see in old forests.  Given that timeline, it is critical to pair this type of forest management with conservation-based estate planning to ensure that the forest has that amount of time to develop and isn’t converted into another land use, like houses. 

• Find a Forester or Land Trust Working in Your Town
• Southern New England Stumpage Price Report