![sunset photo of Medawisla Lodge & Cabins and surrounding area.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133750/AMC-2021_Jamie-Malcolm-Brown_Full-Resolution-2_mo-AMC00038239-1024x682.jpg)
![sunset photo of Medawisla Lodge & Cabins and surrounding area.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133750/AMC-2021_Jamie-Malcolm-Brown_Full-Resolution-2_mo-AMC00038239-1024x682.jpg)
![sunset photo of Medawisla Lodge & Cabins and surrounding area.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133750/AMC-2021_Jamie-Malcolm-Brown_Full-Resolution-2_mo-AMC00038239-1024x682.jpg)
AMC Medawisla Lodge and Cabins, Maine Woods. Photo by Jamie Malcolm Brown.
Why would a nonprofit dedicated to protecting mountains, forests, and waters be in the business of cutting down trees?
That’s a fair question.
For AMC, forest conservation is a no-brainer. Forests are the lungs of the planet. They sequester carbon, support healthy ecosystems and communities, and provide wildlife habitat–all of which we need more than ever as the world warms. Not to mention they’re beautiful places to explore and enjoy.
Since 2003, AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative (MWI) has balanced sustainable forestry, community economic development, and recreation with land conservation to permanently protect more than 114,000 acres of critical forest environment, with more on the way.
But what exactly is responsible forestry? And how can timber harvesting help with land conservation? AMC’s Steve Tatko, V.P. of Land and Conservation and Forest Manager Carolyn Ziegra are here to explain.
![The Sun Shines Into The Forest On The Shore Of Big Benson Pond In Maine's Northern Forest. Barnard Township.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133602/Monkman_MENFS_D22604_mo-AMC00044981-683x1024.jpg)
![The Sun Shines Into The Forest On The Shore Of Big Benson Pond In Maine's Northern Forest. Barnard Township.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133602/Monkman_MENFS_D22604_mo-AMC00044981-683x1024.jpg)
![The Sun Shines Into The Forest On The Shore Of Big Benson Pond In Maine's Northern Forest. Barnard Township.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29133602/Monkman_MENFS_D22604_mo-AMC00044981-683x1024.jpg)
Barnard Forest, Maine Woods, Maine. Photo by Jerry Monkman.
First Stop: The Maine Woods
To be in the Maine Woods is to hear the rush of wind through firs. It’s to notice light filtering down through a leafy canopy, more felt than seen. It’s to share space with all manner of wildlife: moose (if you’re lucky); golden eagles (if you’re really lucky); black bears (if you’re unlucky); lynx (rare); and mosquitos (not so rare). It’s the smell of pine and oncoming rain. Trails that roll from low rocky mountaintops to wide expanses of blue water.
You’ve probably heard of the 100-Mile-Wilderness—the section of the Appalachian Trail, famous for its remoteness and difficulty, that stretches from just outside Monson, Maine to Mt. Katahdin. This is just a small slice of the Maine Woods, which is the largest contiguous forest east of the Mississippi. The ancestral homeland of the Abenaki people of the Wabanaki Confederacy, for 7,000 years it has been nothing but forest, which makes it critical bird habitat and an area of exceptionally high habitat connectivity and natural resilience to climate change.
It has also, for the last two centuries, been a major source of economic stability for thousands of Mainers.
![Great Northern Paper Company Depot Camp at Basin Ponds in 1923. Photo from the AMC archives.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29134431/PH1923.0003_Guest-House-Great-Northern-Paper-Company-Depot-Camp-Basin-Ponds_1923-1024x626.jpg)
![Great Northern Paper Company Depot Camp at Basin Ponds in 1923. Photo from the AMC archives.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29134431/PH1923.0003_Guest-House-Great-Northern-Paper-Company-Depot-Camp-Basin-Ponds_1923-1024x626.jpg)
![Great Northern Paper Company Depot Camp at Basin Ponds in 1923. Photo from the AMC archives.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29134431/PH1923.0003_Guest-House-Great-Northern-Paper-Company-Depot-Camp-Basin-Ponds_1923-1024x626.jpg)
Great Northern Paper Company Depot Camp at Basin Ponds in 1923. Photo from the AMC archives.
Roughly 90% of the state of Maine is forested — the highest percentage of any state. Wood products have been a staple of Maine’s economy for the past 200 years, and that’s not changing anytime soon, especially in Piscataquis County, home to MWI, where trees have been harvested for timber since the early 1800s. But traditional methods like clear-cutting have all but decimated huge areas of the forest ecosystem.
“If you dig in a little bit, you find out that that people were questioning even then what the future was. How is this going to perpetuate my job; the community’s vitality?” says Tatko, who grew up in the area. Much of the land AMC started buying in 2003 was low-quality timber, managed for pulpwood used in paper. “These were simplified forests that were much younger, much less diverse, and much more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”
What is responsible forestry?
The goal of MWI is to create a new model for managing forestland that sees the forest as a whole: not as an uninhabited wilderness (which it has never been–the Wabanaki have lived in what is now called Maine for over 12,000 years) but as an intricate tapestry of people and landscape. MWI offers a different way to think about forest management, demonstrating how forestry can promote ecological health and resilience while still supporting local economies and communities.
Using a technique called late-successional management, AMC engages responsible forestry as a restoration tool, cutting trees selectively in a way that opens the forest canopy to mimic natural light. This helps maintain ecological diversity, promote natural regeneration, and protect older trees. Here are some of AMC’s forestry practices:
- Mature or old growth trees are left to grow big and die naturally, increasing wildlife habitat and the forest’s ability to sequester carbon. (The Maine Woods sequester three times the carbon emissions of the state!)
- Trees are cut selectively to diversify the age of the forest and are harvested at a rate that allows the forest to sustain continuous growth.
- AMC prioritizes the removal of poor-quality trees and short-lived or non-native species to promote the growth of climate-resilient species like sugar maple, yellow birch, and red spruce.
- 40% of the property is set aside as permanently protected ecological areas.
- Watershed integrity is a priority. Our efforts have helped to reestablish native brook trout populations, and AMC lands protect the West Branch of the Pleasant River, which is home to one of the last endangered Atlantic salmon runs in the Eastern United States.
- AMC is a certified Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) responsible forestry operation.
“Our motivations have always been, and will continue to be, rooted in the ecological restoration and recovery of the lands that we steward, and the resilience of the local communities sustained by these forests,” Ziegra says.
![Maine Woods, Maine. Photo By Andy Gagne.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29135109/013HR00502-1024x683.jpg)
![Maine Woods, Maine. Photo By Andy Gagne.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29135109/013HR00502-1024x683.jpg)
![Maine Woods, Maine. Photo By Andy Gagne.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29135109/013HR00502-1024x683.jpg)
Photo by Andy Gagne.
“A constellation of values”: The wide-ranging impacts of MWI responsible forestry
“When you use forestry, it’s one thing. And then you pair with that aquatic habitat restoration. You pair with that the return of materials to Indigenous communities. And you pair with that with the economic infrastructure that’s supported by all this,” says Tatko. “What you’re really doing is preserving a constellation of values for the future that we probably don’t realize the full value of right now.”
AMC’s innovative land management in MWI has created at least 45 forestry jobs in the local economy and positioned AMC as a significant property taxpayer in Piscataquis county. We’ve added 130 miles of trails for recreation and achieved an International Dark Sky Park certification—the first in New England. AMC scientists contribute to climate research by collecting ecosystem data from lake, stream, and forest sites in the Maine Woods, and we partner with Piscataquis county schools to deliver environmental education curriculum. We’ve made great strides in restoring fish passage, and birds are flocking to the Maine woods.
All the money made on timber, along with income from recreation infrastructure like AMC’s three off-grid lodges, goes back into the conservation project, funding property taxes, maintenance for AMC’s 440 miles of local roads, new land acquisitions, and habitat restoration efforts. AMC doesn’t see a whole lot of profit, but it’s enough to keep things going.
“We view the forgone economic profit as a necessary ‘tax to the Earth’ that we are willing to pay to honor and protect this landscape and the people that depend on it into the future,” Ziegra says.
![Fish passage restoration in the Maine Woods. Photo by Garrett English.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140221/GarrettEnglish_ecological-restoration_fish-release_082016_mo-AMC00026203-1024x683.jpg)
![Fish passage restoration in the Maine Woods. Photo by Garrett English.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140221/GarrettEnglish_ecological-restoration_fish-release_082016_mo-AMC00026203-1024x683.jpg)
![Fish passage restoration in the Maine Woods. Photo by Garrett English.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140221/GarrettEnglish_ecological-restoration_fish-release_082016_mo-AMC00026203-1024x683.jpg)
Fish passage restoration in the Maine Woods. Photo by Garrett English.
The Maine Woods Initiative is the largest conservation project AMC has ever undertaken–and we’re just getting started. Join us by volunteering for trail maintenance in Maine, participating in community science and advocacy, or signing up for AMC’s newsletter to get the latest happenings in MWI.
And when you do make it out to the Maine Woods, make sure you get a good look at the trees.
Late-succession forestry takes nearly a century to reach effect, and nobody working on this project now will live to see the full fruit of their efforts. “This is a really long-term restoration project that I’ll spend my working career on, but it’ll be my successors that will actually see the results,” Tatko says.
But at AMC, there’s a shared understanding of how our actions today will lay the foundation for future generations. “Everybody loves the forest, but I think we don’t realize just how amazingly unique Maine’s forests actually are,” says Tatko. “No one else has this. It’s here. This is our gift to the world.”
![Steve Tatko stands looking up at a tree.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140407/007HR00467-683x1024.jpg)
![Steve Tatko stands looking up at a tree.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140407/007HR00467-683x1024.jpg)
![Steve Tatko stands looking up at a tree.](https://cdn.outdoors.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/29140407/007HR00467-683x1024.jpg)
Photo by Andy Gagne Photography.