Yankee Division
What does forestry look like?
Photo Journals
Forest management is happening all the time in southern New England. Decisions to take on active management can increase wildlife habitat or landscape diversity, intentionally regenerate forests, help buffer forests against disturbance, and provide periodic income to landowners. Passive management, on the other hand, maintains current conditions in the short term, which can benefit certain wildlife species, meet landowner goals related to aesthetics and recreation, and maintain levels of forest carbon.
We hope these photo journal tours will help you to better understand what you see out there, on public forest land, on your own or your neighbor's land, or just off in the distance. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out (see our contact information at the bottom of the page).
Forest Management Decisions
Forest management decisions are based in the science of silviculture, which can be defined as the art and science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests and woodlands to meet the diverse needs and values of landowners and society on a sustainable basis.
Visit our What is a Forester section to learn more about how foresters work with landowners to define and carry out management goals. Once management goals have been determined, a silvicultural prescription is written and management is carried out. See below for descriptions and photographs of different forest management approaches.
Management in practice
Photo Journals:
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Intermediate Treatments
Intermediate Treatments
Some forest management activities are designed not to regenerate the forest, but to reduce the forest density, making more resources available to the remaining trees. These activities can reduce the impacts of drought in the forest, with fewer trees competing for precious water resources, help trees remain resistant to invasive pests by allowing them to access more resources to build chemical defenses and recover from injury, increase seed production with benefits to wildlife, and allow individual remaining trees to sequester and store more carbon.
Thinning
Thinning treatments are designed to allocate more growing space to healthy, vigorous trees. Thinning treatments can focus on thinning out the canopy above, or the mid- or understory of the forest. Slower-growing or less healthy trees are removed from a forest so that the remaining trees have more resources to grow larger in diameter, produce seeds, or maintain resilience against disturbance. Generally thinning treatments do not bring enough sunlight to the forest floor to regenerate tree species or greatly expand shrub layers.
Click gallery photos for more information
Regeneration Harvests
While thinning treatments are designed to specifically benefit the current forest, regeneration harvests look to the future and plan for germination and growth of tree seedlings that will become the future forest. In southern New England, planting of seedlings is very uncommon, and regeneration harvests rely on natural regeneration, with seeds provided by the current forest canopy, or through stump sprouts. Each of the harvest types highlighted below will promote the natural regeneration of a different suite of tree species.
Click gallery photos for more information
Shelterwood
The shelterwood method includes removing a certain proportion of the trees in the forest canopy to allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, but includes either temporary or permanent retention of some forest canopy trees to shelter the regenerating forest and temper the growth of sun-loving species in favor of some, like oak, that tolerate more shade when they are young. Shelterwood harvests are multi-step treatments, with a second timber harvest entry to remove some of the sheltering canopy trees to allow more light for trees to grow after they have had time to establish. A variation on the shelterwood is an irregular shelterwood, which can involve long-term retention of large trees and downed wood, and varied spacing of forest canopy openings. Click here to see some photos of shelterwood harvests.
Seed Tree
A seed tree harvest is used to regenerate tree species that need a lot of sunlight to survive. Mature canopy trees are left standing to provide a seed source for the future forest, but at a wide spacing in order to provide the most sunlight possible. As with a shelterwood harvest, the seed trees can be removed at a later date so they do not shade the young forest, or they can be retained in the long-term for a two-aged forest.
Click gallery photos for more information
Silvicultural Clearcut
A clearcut is a silvicultural method that is designed to regenerate trees that are sun-loving, light-seeded, and often fast growing. When the forest canopy has been removed, seeds sprout from a buried seed bank in the soil and are blown in by the wind. The large amount of available sunlight means that clearcuts often lead to very high species diversity in the regenerating forest, as well as several years of dense, shrubby vegetation that provides wildlife habitat for a different suite (and often wider variety of species than a closed canopy, mature forest.
Click gallery photos for more information
Click gallery photos for more information
Passive Management
As with the choice to harvest timber on forest land, passive management is an intentional activity taken on by forest land owners or managers, with specific goals in mind. Passive management perpetuates current forest structure and composition for an indefinite amount of time, until natural disturbances like forests pests or storms, or tree mortality caused by old age, introduce changes to the forest. This method can serve to benefit carbon storage and wildlife species dependent on closed-canopy forests. It also often meets landowner goals for passive recreation and aesthetics.
Forest Management for Wildlife Habitat
The above silvicultural techniques can be applied and modified to create and maintain habitat for specific wildlife species, often those that are threatened or endangered. Some common applications in southern New England are for species that require young and/or diverse forest conditions, such as songbirds, game species, and the New England Cottontail.
Foresters for the Birds
Foresters for the Birds is a training program for foresters to increase their skills at working with landowners on forest management with birds in mind. There is an abundance of bird species across the southern New Region, each with slightly different habitat requirements. This means that there are many different ways silviculture can be incorporated into creating better bird habitat. Audubon programs in each state have simplified this process by identifying 12-17 focal bird species that are in the greatest need of habitat creation. Each southern New England state has slightly different resources available. Follow these links for more resources on programs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Click gallery photos for more information
Click gallery photos for more information
New England Cottontail Habitat
The New England cottontail is the only rabbit native to this region, but over the past 50 or so years, its population has dwindled and its range has become smaller. The most critical threat is loss of habitat, specifically young, brushy forest. In locations adjacent to spaces the New England cottontail still occupies, state wildlife agencies are encouraging creation of their habitat by using clearcut harvests to create young forests. Click here to read more about New England cottontail. Here are some photos of cottontail habitat harvests, which include the manual creation of brush piles for shelter for the rabbits.
Pitch Pine: a unique habitat
At Wharton Brook Pitch Pine Natural Area Preserve in Wallingford, CT, the pitch pines were being overtopped by oaks. No sunlight reached the forest floor and there were no pitch pines in the understory. A timber harvest focused on the oaks provided the pitch pine with more growing space and sunlight. The pines responded by producing more seed, which germinated in the sunny conditions. Now a new generation of pitch pines provides habitat for many species of wildlife, especially insects that are only found on these sites.
In 2018, a tornado hit Wharton Brook and damaged many larger pitch pines, but proactive management ensured there was this population of young pitch pine at the ready when its predecessor took the hit. This is a way that structural complexity enhances the resilience of a forest.
In Feb., 2021, pitch pine seedlings are growing up, graduating into saplings!
Forest Management on CT State Lands
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) is committed to protecting the state's forests, and improving their vigor and resilience to meet the many objectives of the citizens of the state.
Their website highlights the many ecosystem benefits that are managed for, and make available the plans developed for state forests. Recently they've put together a collection of photos illustrating different forestry operations: "Silvicultural Treatments Before and After". Check it out on the DEEP Forest Management webpage.
Visit a site of forestry activity at
James L. Goodwin State Forest
This 2000 acre forest in Hampton, CT, has over 10 miles of trails surrounding a lake and a pond, with a conservation education center. The property was first owned by a forester as a Christmas tree farm and has since expanded and been managed for a variety of both hardwood and coniferous forest types. The interpretive museum next to the center explains the natural science and art of forestry.
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Check out upcoming events at the conservation education center
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See trail maps for the Goodwin Forest
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Read the management plan for Goodwin
Recommended Reading:
In Challenging Year For Forests, Watch What Works
Forests in areas with different climates have different ways that they form and change. Foresters call this “forest disturbance” and “forest development”. This article, describing forests of the seasonally dry state of New Mexico, illustrates that with different forest ecology comes a different set of issues that forest managers must learn to deal with. Our forests in southern New England don’t rely on periodic ground fires, but they also benefit from appropriate forest management practices.
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