Forestland is a key contributor to Maine's economy, workforce and recreational opportunities, and the natural beauty that awes visitors and Mainers alike. Much planning, management and "behind the scenes" work goes into maintaining those forests and ensuring they also help companies like Plum Creek continue to contribute to the communities where we do business.

This periodic update will provide insights and updates on our forestry operations and introduce to you some of our key Maine staff and activities.

We hope you'll take a few minutes to learn more. Of course, please let us know if you prefer not to receive this email or if you know of others who would like to receive this email.

Regards,
Mark Doty, Community Affairs Manager

The regeneration of trees allows one of the most sustainable natural resources to continue to keep us warm, provide electricity, build homes and more. Most tree varieties successfully regenerate naturally, but sometimes due to disease, site features or demand for certain species, replanting by human hands helps continue the tree cycle of life.

For example, when Maine faced the spruce budworm outbreak in the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of thousands of acres of trees had to be quickly harvested to salvage the wood. As such, Maine landowners projected a wood shortage and some quickly began planting softwoods to help offset that shortfall. Today, nearly 30 years later, the planting effort is coming full circle.

Plum Creek, which became a Maine landowner in 1998, now owns and manages about 884,000 acres in the state and about 62,000 of those acres were replanted with softwoods beginning in the 1980s. We are now working closely with our experts in silviculture – the science of growing trees – to determine the optimal harvest schedules to maximize those resources and ensure the trees regenerate for years to come.

Similarly, sometimes it is best to replant acreage because of a demand for certain species. This summer our team is working to replant about 138 Maine acres with 75,000 seedlings.

"Planting seedlings in this terrain is a hard job, but it's also satisfying to help jumpstart the regeneration process," said John McMullen of Plum Creek's Moosehead Unit.

Nationwide, Plum Creek plants about 55 million trees each year, in addition to conducting efforts to encourage natural regeneration. The company also has its own nurseries that grow and nurture seedlings for optimal growth.

Coined the "Grand Canyon of the East," the Appalachian Trail's (AT) Gulf Hagas is a National Natural Landmark that includes an eight-mile loop trail showcasing four waterfalls, dozens of cascades, pools and a deep gorge. This summer it will also feature a new ridgerunner named Krisdin Diehl, who is working for the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC).

As a ridgerunner, Krisdin will offer assistance to visitors unprepared for the strenuous trek of the Gulf Hagas, as well as provide environmental education to many of the more than 5,000 people who visit the area each year. Her responsibilities include providing a daily management presence on AT lands, helping deter illegal fires and minimizing environmental impacts.

"Our goal in having Krisdin in this role is both to keep hikers safe and informed, and also provide someone who can teach visitors how to responsibly enjoy the Gulf Hagas trail," said Holly Sheehan, Club Coordinator with the MATC.

The Plum Creek Foundation provided a $2,000 grant to the Club to help fund the Gulf Hagas area ridgerunner. MATC, established in 1935, is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization responsible for the management, maintenance and protection of the AT in Maine. The Club maintains 267 miles of the AT and more than 40 miles of related side trails.

Conservation easements have long been a part of Maine's efforts to ensure a strong forest products industry while conserving key lands for recreation, wildlife habitat and more. As part of Plum Creek's Moosehead Lake Concept Plan, more than 360,000 acres is now placed into a conservation easement, one of the largest ever in U.S. history. This easement completes a nearly 2 million acre stretch of conserved land from Quebec to Baxter State Park.

The actual implementation of that conservation easement, a significant endeavor being lead by the Forest Society of Maine (FSM), has now begun. In June, the FSM provided an update on that process and reported that good progress has been made to date but there is more work to be done.

From an operational, working forest standpoint, we too have been making progress. Plum Creek has now reclassified that entire conservation easement area as a separate operating unit in the company. We have also dedicated one manager and a team of 8 foresters to oversee the conservation easement. These steps will help ensure sustainable forest management, a well-run operation and effective communication among everyone involved.

To learn more about easement efforts, take a minute to meet Henning Stabins below.

In winter, his mode of transportation is snowmobile and snowshoes, and in summer his own two feet, but regardless of how he travels, Henning Stabins puts on the miles in the Maine woods tracking wildlife and analyzing its habitat.

As one of 11 in Plum Creek's environmental science group, Henning has helped identify and manage habitats on Plum Creek lands for grizzly bears, spotted owls, elk, raptors, bats, loons and more during 15 years with the company.

In Maine since 2008, he works closely with federal, state and local biologists and ecologists on a number of projects. This past year, Henning conducted wintertime Lynx surveys to track travels of the animal, and most recently his efforts have been focused on implementing Plum Creek's conservation easement in the Moosehead Lake region. He has been studying and analyzing the easement area to identify vernal pools – where water collects during the spring and offers breeding areas for amphibians and insects — by using a remote-sensing mapping tool. He also works to locate bald eagle nests and document other rare and natural areas. Henning will then partner with Plum Creek foresters to create site-specific forest management plans that meet conservation standards.

"I enjoy working to find win-win solutions to sometimes complex natural resource issues," said Henning. "My interest is to work proactively to determine how Plum Creek can best conserve or manage those resources as part of its business operations."

Before joining Plum Creek, Henning worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska and with the Massachusetts Audubon Society on Cape Cod. Henning is a Massachusetts native and he and his wife, also a biologist, have two children.