Your Woodland: A Stewardship Storyline

Stewardship Storyline
  • Visitors explore the Webber-Rogers farmstead conservation area in Litchfield. Photo credit:Sarah Fuller
  • A backyard with a stonewall in the foreground and a small shed behind it and beyond trees and mountains. Photo credit: Sarah Fuller
  • The Bell family enjoys winter fun at Curtis Homestead, where Nat Bell and his father Bruce lead sustainable forest management school programs with the Kennebec Land Trust. Photo credit: Pam Bell
  • A well-stocked white pine stand following a timber harvest in Vassalboro.Allowing these valuable trees to grow larger faster is a result of forest management planning. Photo credit: Andy Shultz
  • This picture shows a forest that has received a special silvicultural treatment. The growing space (light, air, soil nutrients, water, and physical space) once occupied by older, slower-growing, less vigorous trees has been reallocated to the tall hardwoods and white pine seedlings. In 20 years, the hardwoods in the foreground will be ready for harvest, and the white pines, now pole-sized trees, can be fully released to grow into the future forest. Photo credit: Jym St. Pierre
  • Timber harvesting equipment at work on the Kent's Hill School Forest, Readfield. This silvicultural practice, sometimes referred to as thinning or crop tree release, makes more sunlight and growing space available to a younger generation of potentially high value trees. Photo credit: Andy Shultz
  • The ends of a stack of logs. Photo credit: Jake Metzler
  • Mature forests such as the Kennebec Land Trusts Mount Pisgah Conservation Area in Winthrop and Wayne support a diversity of plants and wildlife. They are also important research sites and are valued for their scenic beauty. Photo credit: Jym St. Pierre
  • Two people standing on the edge of a forest that opens into a field. Photo credit: Joe Phelan, Kennebec Journal
  • Maine Forest Service District Forester, Morten Moesswilde (right) giving advice to a landowner. Photo credit: Marc Loiselle
Click on a photo above or a link at left to follow a step.

As a woodland owner, you value your forestland for many reasons. Recreation, privacy, solitude, wildlife habitat, timber harvesting, protection of soil and water quality, or any combination of these interests may be the driving force behind your decision to own land. The choices you make about your woodland based upon your management priorities will shape the future of your forest.

This resource guide introduces you to the basic steps of woodland stewardship. Taken as a whole, these Stewardship Steps are intended to help in your decision-making about your woodland. You don’t need to read every page of this guide to make use of the stewardship steps. Start with your interests and find answers to the questions that are most important to you.