WENDELL — Those looking for specific data on the recent logging project in Wendell State Forest may not have to wait much longer.
Bill Stubblefield holds doctorate in biology from Harvard University (Class of 1980), and is conducting a study he calls “Ghost Forest” in an attempt to quantify some of the effects of the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR’s) recent logging in Wendell.
“The trees we are measuring are gone,” Stubblefield said. “We are reconstructing their ghostly remains.”
The logging of an 80-acre, century-old oak stand in Wendell State Forest concluded in September, despite a year of protesting, circulating petitions and even bringing the state to court over the project by a group called the Wendell State Forest Alliance.
Stubblefield affiliates himself with the protest group, and is one of 29 co-plaintiffs suing the state over the project, which they say has “irreparably” harmed the forest’s recreational value and is counterproductive in fighting climate change.
Specifically, Stubblefield hopes to collect data that will allow him to estimate the amount of carbon that the trees were sequestering. Carbon sequestration has been recognized by the U.N., and by state Attorney General Maura Healey, as important in combating climate change. The Wendell State Forest Alliance’s main contention has been that leaving the forest alone has positive effects on the environment, specifically because of carbon sequestration. Its members also say the state’s own Global Warming Solutions Act was violated by the logging project.
Stubblefield said he started taking measurements on the living trees, but was unable to get much done before they were cut.
“We barely started,” Stubblefield said. “But they left a lot of evidence behind.”
Stubblefield said his “forensic forestry” will identify all species of cut trees, calculate the trees’ densities and biomass, and determine their ages.
“It’s the type of thing we can add up and say, ‘This is how much carbon was hauled away,’” Stubblefield said.
“Even managed forests are better than no forests. But, on the other hand, our forests could be much better and we could do much better,” he continued. “It’s one of the few things that takes carbon out of the air. People try and invent machines to do that these days, but we have trees right outside.”
Stubblefield admitted he is not a forester, and his research before retirement dealt mostly with the evolutionary biology of sex. He also said DCR has likely withheld information about the logging project, a claim the department denies.
“I think our measurements will be accurate,” Stubblefield said. “I suspect the DCR is sitting on a lot of data, but we’ve had no luck getting it.”
The plan, Stubblefield said, is to provide the public with the “Ghost Forest” data once complete to demonstrate that collecting such data is possible, and that information about carbon sequestration should be “included in any balance sheet” when it comes to logging.
While it is DCR policy not to comment on ongoing litigation, DCR Commissioner Leo Roy and Assistant Attorney General Kendra Kinscherf, who is representing the department in court, have plainly disagreed with the protesters’ assessment of the logging project.
At a Wendell Selectboard meeting last fall, Roy explained that the forest management will ultimately lead to more carbon sequestration because trees are constantly reaching their peak sequestering age.
“While cutting any tree is unpopular with some of our citizens, under state law, the responsibility falls to us to manage our state forests,” Roy said. “We at the DCR are environmentalists, and we love our trees and we love our forests.”
In Franklin County Superior Court in August, Kinscherf said that removing the trees — especially diseased trees in the forest — renders the forest healthier, safer and more diverse, and that the protesters’ claims that they were excluded from the process are false, because there was a 45-day public comment period.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.