"Sustainable forestry is right where organic gardening was a generation ago--at the very beginning of working out the techniques and technologies that will let logging thrive at a scale appropriate to both the human and natural communities that depend on the forest. This book is at--if you will pardon the expression--the absolute cutting edge of that process." Bill McKibben, author ofThe End of Nature, Hope, Human and Wild, Enough, and other books If the future really mattered . . . How would forests be managed to improve, rather than degrade, future timber values? How would trees be cut to minimize damage to the residual forest? How would foresters measure success towards minimizing damage? How would loggers be paid to lower logging impacts? How would forests be managed in a way that ensures the survival of all native species? How would woodlot owners be able to afford this type of management? Low-Impact Forestry: Forestry as if the Future Matteredanswers these questions and more. Using Maine as a case study, this book offers forestry goals and guidelines that emphasize quality and value while conserving biodiversity and supporting communities for the long term.

In the first book to review the nature, significance, and policy issues of the Northeast's forests for a general audience, Irland tells the story of the changing forests of the nine northeastern states. He reviews their history from the first European settlements to the retreat of farming and forest regrowth in the 20th century.

The first comprehensive history of Maine to be published in decades, Maine: The Pine Tree State surveys the region's rich history from prehistoric times to the early 1990s. Drawing on a team of twenty-six scholars with a professional interest in Maine's past, the book features fresh research and new interpretations of even familiar periods such as the Civil War. The chapter authors are respected authorities in Maine history from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and the various sub-disciplines of history: political, cultural, economic, labor, military, maritime. Certain themes recur from chapter to chapter and across historical periods. For example, larger structural changes in the nation - market trends, wars, economic fluctuations, demographic flows - strongly affected the everyday world of Maine people. Other prominent themes are the importance of geography and the environment in shaping Maine's economy and culture. Caught up at times in national events, Maine has also led the nation in important ways. Its fishing industry fed and its textile industry clothed the nation's people. Maine loggers contributed heavily to the technologies used in cutting, hauling, and driving timber. Maine excelled in the production of wooden ships and supplied the expertise to sail them. In the nineteenth century Maine's political leaders were among the most powerful in the nation, and Maine's contribution to social reform attracted national recognition.