Board approves logging contract for Catamount

BY JASON STARR Observer staff

Roughly 1,200 trees surrounding Catamount Community Forest’s most popular biking, hiking and skiing trails will be cut down in September as part of a forest management demonstration led by Chittenden County Forester Ethan Tapper.

The Williston Selectboard finalized a contract with Tapper and Orleans-based Lafoe Logging earlier this month to do the work. The project will be confined to about 25 acres of the 400-acre town-owned forest.

“It’s only 6 percent of the land at Catamount but it’s the 6 percent that is most used,” said John Atkinson, executive director of the Catamount Outdoor Family Center that manages the trails to provide recreational programming for the town. “It’s the area where our most popular trails are.”

Tapper said he chose the highest-use acreage partly as a way to increase the visibility of the project. He has already marked all the trees that will be taken, posted signs explaining the project and led public walks in the forest to educate people about it.

“There is a massive benefit to showcasing responsible forest management — and what healthy forests truly look like — in a highly-visible area,” Tapper said. “I hope that this will help empower people to better understand our forest and what it means to care for them.”

The project is a part of an international forestry research effort called “Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change.” It is an attempt to demonstrate how biodiversity and ecological integrity can be protected on a warming planet. It’s being undertaken with UVM forestry program chair Tony D’Amato. The idea is that removing older trees will stimulate the growth of new species, increasing species diversity and forest resiliency. In order to enhance the research opportunity, the foresters will compare the area over years to an undisturbed control plot in the forest, as well as a plot at the nearby UVM-owned Talcott Woods.

“As this area regenerates,” Tapper said, “it will show people how much more abundant and full of life this forest will become as a result of this work — that nothing is being lost, that as a result of this the forest will be enriched.”

The removal of the trees is expected to take less than two weeks. Atkinson and the Catamount Outdoor Family Center Board of Directors hope to keep some of the project area open for recreation during that time if it safe to do so. September is prime mountain biking season at the center.

The logger may be able to work half the project area at a time, keeping one half open for trail use, Atkinson said. Another option is to reopen trails in the evening, after logging activity has stopped for the day.

“We’re trying to keep the trails open as much as possible,” Atkinson said. “Safety is obviously super important and we’re not trying to ignore that, but if they are not working and nothing is falling then we should be able to be out there.”

Atkinson has a lot of confidence in Lafoe Logging due to its previous work in high-use recreational trail networks, such as the Cady Hill Forest in Stowe and at the Trapp Family Lodge. Tapper notes that Lafoe recently won the “Outstanding Logger Award” from the Vermont Forest Products Association and the “Northeast Region Outstanding see LOGGING page 16