11 minute read
Seven Islands Land Company
BUSINESS HIGHLIGHT
Seven Islands Land Company
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Written by Ann James Joles, Seven Islands Land Company
SOMETIMES WHAT SEEMS like a simple corporate tagline is actually a defining moment. As part of a planning session in 2019, Seven Islands Land Company’s new president and CEO, Dan LaMontagne, asked employees to create a phrase that encapsulated the company’s vision. Pithy, yes, but this phrase does more than brand and fit perfectly on a coffee cup. “Proud history, growing future” reaffirms and reboots the reason Seven Islands exists: We are here to manage the land sustainably for generations to come.
Seven Islands Land Company was established in 1964 to manage the Pingree family’s timberland holdings, nearly 1 million acres at the time, a landholding stretching back to the 1840s. While we will soon celebrate 60 years, Seven Islands sits atop 180 years of forest landownership in Maine.
The story of Maine’s forest industry is so deeply entwined with the history of the state that it is difficult to speak of one without speaking of the other. Maine’s resources have been sought after
since early explorations and the colonial era. The tales of the king claiming enormous white pines for his ships’ masts are true, but there is so much more.
Land speculation fueled growth after Maine’s statehood, and speculators bought up massive tracts of forestland seeking quick profits. David Pingree, a merchant from Salem, Massachusetts, bought large tracts, seeking the land as an investment that would last his family for generations. Today, eight generations of his family’s ownership later, Pingree’s goal of timberland as a long-term investment has proven itself. The Pingree family, now owning 820,000 acres, rank among the largest family landholdings in the U.S.
This is an industry built on the willingness to innovate. When the main resource really does grow on trees, and those trees are many miles into the Maine woods, far away from the closest port, and the few existing “roads” aren’t as good as today’s tote roads, it takes creative problem-solving, engineering, and old-fashioned New England grit to create an industry as robust as Maine’s early forest economy.
Early on, innovative landowners and land agents forged relationships across the state to build the necessary infrastructure of supply depots, dams, and log booms, just to name a few, so that hardy men and women could staff the woods camps and logging crews. Moving millions of trees out of the woods, running them down rivers in the spring freshet to awaiting lumber mills before being shipped off to the rest of the world, took “out of the box” thinking to a new level.
As vast as the Maine woods may be, unhindered harvesting could not go unchecked. Both eagerness and the competitive spirit to “be there first with the most men” were bound to take a toll on the longevity of available timber. While this mindset was indicative of the era, the silvicultural theories of Austin Cary and early conservation practices were very much alive.
By the middle of the 19th century, the Pingree ownership, led by family members and land agents, was constructing their early vision of responsible forestry and the working forest, recognizing that timber is a sustainable resource and believing that the best management policies work with natural conditions. By the 1920s, the ownership employed the latest technological advances utilizing aerial photography to document forest operations, creating detailed inventories, and providing timber harvest crews clear directives and harvest limits. These methods would go on to become industry standards.
For those who know their history, this was also the era of artists, rusticators, and sporting people reveling in the natural glory of Maine. Fire danger and safety concerns for visitors became an issue needing a solution. By leasing land to guides to establish sporting camps, and leasing land to individuals to be watchful for fires, pests, as well as timber trespass, the landowners provided a system that worked for everyone.
Sarah Medina, former Land Use Director for Seven Islands, discussed the decision to create a lease program: “It was time to put in place a safety net for recreationists, and it worked out well. Many of the sporting camps established in the late 1800s are still thriving today, providing housing, delicious meals, and guiding services to visitors. A variety of camp sites are also available, some
ABOVE LEFT:
Seven Islands job site.
RIGHT:
Sporting camp on T4 R2
TOP: Wood in the river LEFT TOP & BOTTOM: Driving wood on Abol Stream RIGHT MIDDLE: Cutting trees by hand RIGHT BOTTOM: Large crew eating at a sporting camp
Seven Islands Land Company forester, ca. 1996
A Shared History
Mainers have been building Maine since 1820, And the Poland Spring Company has been here for them since 1845.
We are proud to be a part of Maine’s history.
through the North Maine Woods (an organization formed in cooperation with many private landowners to keep 3.5 million acres of forest land open to the public). Today, a recreational user may find accommodations to suit any interest from a water access tent site to an upscale fly-in sporting camp.”
If managing timber levels and the health of the forest, building supply chains, and helping tourists to respectfully enjoy the woods were the only challenges to face Maine forestry, this story would be considerably shorter. The 20th century and world events far beyond the Maine woods weighed heavy, similar to today. The world wars brought labor issues, the Great Depression seized up markets, and the spruce budworm infestations of the 1970s and 80s devastated many spruce and fir stands.
In each challenge, new solutions and new directions were found, but Maine’s forest landowners were under pressure. Constant change in public policies, regulations, business environment, and rapid evolution in timber harvesting methods impacted business. It was time to update the ownership’s management approach.
Seven Islands Land Company became the public-facing management arm for the Pingree timberland ownership, navigating the distance between private family ownership of timberland as an investment and the outside forces shaping the forest industry, all the while maintaining the goal to manage the land sustainably for generations to come. Seven Islands has promoted the importance of working forests since its founding, and believes that our nation’s private working forests are critical to society’s future health, wellbeing, and prosperity.
The term “working forest” may be new to many. Working forests provide a sustainable supply of good things: wood products, biomass, wildlife habitat, recreation, hunting, clean air and water, and numerous other societal benefits supporting regional, local, and rural economies. In fact, strong forest product markets actually reduce the risk of forests being converted to other land uses and allow landowners to invest in methods to keep forests healthy and productive.
Seven Islands embraces innovation through conservation, certification, building strong forest products markets, and the use of ever-advancing technology as part of its stewardship model to ensure that the working forest is indeed working.
Conservation is a vital part of the working forest. Forest conservation
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means maintaining forested areas and surrounding features, such as clean air, water, and wildlife habitat for future generations. In 2001, working with the New England Forestry Foundation, the Pingree landowners entered into a conservation easement, a legal agreement to maintain the conserved lands as a working forest and conserve traditional recreational opportunities in perpetuity. With this agreement, known as the Pingree Forest Partnership, 750,000 acres were conserved, including 110 lakes and ponds, 2,000 miles of river frontage, and extensive wildlife habitat.
Steve Schley, then president of Pingree Associates, remarked, “The idea of the easement was a win-win-win. This was a case where it worked for the private landowners, it worked for the environment, and worked for the public who can continue to enjoy the property.”
But the truth is that our belief in and commitment to conservation isn’t always evident to everyone. While Maine’s forest industry is responsible for contributing $8 billion annually to Maine’s economy, it remains well out of view for many Mainers. In fact, unless a person knows what they are seeing in a wood harvesting operation, the methods used in the forest industry can easily be misinterpreted. In the 1990s, under intense scrutiny from environmental groups, Seven Islands decided there had to be a
better way to prove their methods were in the best interest of the land base. They needed outside assistance.
Seven Islands became a leader in certification in 1993 when the Pingree forest was named the largest Certified Well-Managed Forest in the northern hemisphere under Scientific Certification Systems’ (SCS) “Forest Conservation Program.” Twenty-eight years later, certification is maintained with yearly audits through both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) programs. Certification demonstrates our long-term commitment to the health of the forest, environment, and to the communities in which we live and work, and we have the leading outside experts to prove it.
As beautiful as our Maine forests are, Maine people still need to make a living. In the late 1990s, Seven Islands and the Pingree owners responded to the vastly underutilized hardwood resources in northern Maine. Their investment in Maine Woods Company, LLC, a hardwood lumber mill in Portage, Maine, created a use for the abundant hardwood supply, provided a high-quality product for the lumber market, and increased the continual health and vigor of the northern Maine hardwood forest. Along the way, dozens of jobs were created for the local community.
Similarly, Portage Wood Products, a chip mill also located in Portage, Maine, was purchased to provide a market for low value, smaller diameter wood, again providing jobs and improving the species composition and health of the local timberlands. Innovative problem solving that continues to foster the symbiotic relationship between the forest and for-
est product markets is in the best interest of everyone: the owners, the timberland, and the local economy.
The loggers of the 1800s faced long days and heavy work, but the men and women of today’s working forests have to work smarter not harder. Cutting edge technology may not spring to mind for an industry that waits years for tiny seedlings to grow into harvestable timber, but while we are waiting for nature to take its course, we are putting the latest developments in software and mechanization
to work. It takes a balance of the new as well as the tried-and-true.
“Stewardship of 800,000 plus acres of forestland is accomplished by both boots on the ground and eyes in the sky,” according to Ian Prior, Seven Islands Inventory Analyst. “Today we rely as heavily on advanced technology methods as we
Seven Islands Land Company softwood
do foresters in the woods taking stock of harvests, the health of the forest, and building relationships with contractors – just like they did a hundred years ago.”
Today’s foresters leverage evolving software and technology tools to better understand and manage the landbase. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are mapping systems used to understand and plan management activities, often years in advance. Lidar (light detection and ranging) data provides high-resolution details of the timberland, allowing foresters increased efficiencies. Advanced modeling and inventory software helps Seven Islands to understand timberland inventory and plan harvesting levels and management activities for 5, 10, even 80 years — always making sure to manage the land sustainably for generations to come.
How does all this technology really play out on the ground? With improved knowledge comes improved efficiency and sustainability. Innovations in technology enable Seven Islands’ foresters to map water sources that must be protected, understand the existing road systems while planning for new road construction, pinpoint both tree species and age of vast swaths of forest, prescribe the type of harvest methods best suited to the terrain in order to leave the lightest footprint on the land, just to name a few things. Steven West, GIS Manager for Seven Islands, shared that “technology changes and advances rapidly, constantly helping us understand more and do more. And we are just scratching the surface of what is possible.”
Today, Seven Islands is truly sitting on the edge of possibilities that will move a proud history toward a growing future. We are looking toward carbon’s ability to not only be a climate change solution but also a revenue source. Commercial construction is opening new opportunities for wood through mass timber construction and cross-laminated timber (CLT), and innovations in exploring the molecular properties of wood continue to offer promise for climatefriendly fuels and renewable industrial chemicals.
Things have never been boring in the Maine forest industry. “Proud history, growing future” truly speaks to the spirit of Seven Islands Land Company. Innovation is part of our story and will continue to move us forward as we do what we have always done: manage the land sustainably for generations to come. Learn more about us at www.sevenislands.com.
