Better Ways to Manage, Study Robinson Forest

            By Wendell Berry

With my son and David Maehr, a member of the University of Kentucky's Forestry Department, I recently paid a visit to Pioneer Forest, which is to the south of its headquarters in Salem, Mo.

Pioneer Forest consists of various tracts, totaling about 40,000 acres purchased by Leo Drey, mostly in the early 1950s. Most of the tracts at the time of purchase had been severely degraded by bad logging. From the beginning of Drey's tenure, Pioneer has been a commercial forest, continuously logged. There are seven "active timber sales" in various stages of work.

The difference between this and nearly all other commercial forests, and what makes this one worth going to see, is that for the last half century, by Drey's prescription, Pioneer Forest has been sustainably managed.

Sustainable, like organic and natural, has become an empty word, useful mainly for misrepresentation in marketing. But I have looked closely at examples of sustainable forestry in Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia and Missouri, and those particular examples make sustainable again a respectable adjective.

Sustainability, in forestry, rests on the single principle of keeping the forest ecologically intact. That is to say that, after logging, the forest remains an "uneven-aged stand" of trees in their natural diversity of species and sizes, and the canopy remains unbroken except for scattered small openings that allow for natural regeneration.

                     For the complete Op-Ed in the Herald-Leader, click here.