Glaciers retreated from what is now eastern Canada and northern New England approximately 14,000 to 9,000 years ago. As the glaciers retreated, the landscape became more vegetated, changing from a continuum of tundra to woodland to forests. Vegetative assemblages continually changed, with past assemblages not only different from each other, but also dissimilar from modern forest types. Prior to European settlement, the disturbance regime was infrequent and local, and thus the forests were largely in an uneven-aged climax state. In northcentral Maine, an estimated 59% of the forest was in mature climax (i.e., stands with trees 150 years old); 27% of the forest was in an all-aged climax with trees 300 years old and older.
Native Americans apparently affected vegetation only locally, but with European settlement came a significant decrease in the amount of forestland acreage as the amount of land committed to agriculture peaked around 1880. Agricultural development occurred from the coast and proceeded up the river valleys, spreading throughout southern and central Maine and into the St. John River Valley in northeastern Maine along the Canada/US border. In 1880, Maine had approximately 6.7 million acres of farmlands whereas today there is less than 899,000 acres (and still decreasing), with the most productive farms located in northeastern Maine. Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) farming, in which fields are periodically burned to stimulate berry production, occurs over extensive areas in eastern Maine and to a lesser extent along the coast. Statewide, however, agricultural lands have largely reverted to forests, and today Maine is the most extensively forested state in the nation.
The history of the Maine woods over the last century is one of change. At the beginning of this century, there began to be a shift in ownership from small woodlot owners to industrial landholders. Lumber operations were at an all-time peak and observers at the time believed a timber famine was forthcoming. The state legislature enacted the first real forestry legislation and a 1908 Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that private landowners could be regulated in order to protect the state's timber supply. This precedent began a century concerned not only with maintaining a sustainable supply of timber, but also with preserving the ecosystems and natural beauty of the forests.
Maine encompasses approximately 21 million acres with 17.8 million acres being terrestrial (i.e., non-water and forested wetlands). Of the 17.5 million acres of forestland (89% of the land area), timber production is possible on 17 million acres. Almost half of Maine's timber producing forestland is owned by forest industry, located primarily in the eastern, northern, and western regions of the state. Maine has the highest percentage of forestlands in private, industrial ownership in the USA. Finally, due to climate and glacial history, Maine also has an unusually high percentage of its area covered by water and wetlands (up to 22%) of the eastern Maine landscape.
View an Article entitled: Maine Forests: A Century of Change, 1900-2000...and elements of policy change for a new century
By Lloyd Irland (PDF Format)
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