Whitman says he thinks it is unlikely that the land in question is truly old-growth forest. “I’d be surprised, but I’m not ruling it out,” he says. If it is, he’ll recommend leaving it untouched. If it’s simply older forest, he may advise Plum Creek to leave patches intact and cut half of the rest of the trees now and half in 10 years.
But Merchant says he’s seen other older-growth forest logged in this way, and that cutting even part of the forest will destroy both the integrity of the forest and its potential as an eco-tourism site.
Emily Posner, a volunteer with the Native Forest Network, says this situation only casts more doubt on Plum Creek’s plan for the North Woods. Even if the conservation easement were in place today, its guidelines would still allow Plum Creek to log this parcel. Calling the conservation easement “greenwashing,” Posner says that Plum Creek is trying to profit three times from this land. First, she says, the company will cut and sell the existing timber, then sell the proposed conservation easement to the Nature Conservancy for $35 million, and still, even under conservation, retain the rights to continue to log the land. “This is the exact opposite of the direction we should be going in,” she says.
