 introduced Johannes von Trapp, our gracious host. He's had a long history with, as a tree farmer, 2006 tree farmer of the year. A graduate master's in forestry from Yale, been enrolled in the Creme Use Program for 25 years, maybe 30 years. Long advocate for practicing sustainable forestry throughout the region and on property. Johannes, thanks for having us here. We really appreciate it and love to have you come up and say a few words of welcome. It's a pleasure to be here with you. And it's kind of, I feel honored that this organization is here. We've tried to take care of our land and we've tried to acquire more land and we've done a lot of things that we have to do to be able to take care of the land. So I find myself with a flourishing resort, but I still don't think of it that way. I still think of it as a Vermont hill farm with a lot of timberland. And that bothers my kids some, they're not. They're not saying, hey, we can do this, we can do that. And I say, well, that's sort of not in my vision. But those sorts of conflicts, I guess, are inevitable in any family business. We bought the property, the first property here in 1942. My family came from Austria in 38. My mother was pregnant with me. I was born in Philadelphia in 1939. And then I was three years old when we moved up here. So in answer to Terry Gould's question about have you lived all your life in Vermont? Not yet. We started with the one farm here. And the next year, the neighboring property came on the market and we added that. So we had 600 acres. And my parents really thought that they would run this as a farm and make a living on it as a farm. Because the scenery reminded them a lot of Austria, they assumed the climate was gonna be the same way. Big and safe. It's a lot colder, a lot shorter growing season. And the soils were not quite as fertile. So at that time, the ski industry was starting up. We were away most of the winter, singing, traveling. And so we rented out our rooms to the skiers. And that's how we backed into the hotel business. One thing led to another, and now we have a hundred guest rooms and a bunch of villas and guest houses. And on a busy day with all the units filled, we'll have close to a thousand guests on property. So that has enabled us to continue to manage the timber land and the farm land and try to keep this lovely property. This happens to be the only weekend this summer that we didn't book a wedding for this tent. Because we knew it was gonna be too busy to deal with the group on this day. Then Alan said, yeah, we'd like to hold a meeting up there. So I said, I think we can manage that. I've watched a lot of changes in Vermont. And probably because I'm getting to be an old guy, I'm not happy with some of them. But on the whole, it's a much better place to live than most of Vermont is, than it was in the 50s and 60s. And I can remember when people were really, really living a hard, scrabble life in this city. And that's much less often, much less common, I believe. The key thing is to maintain the quality of the city, I think, not to become another commodity, but to differentiate ourselves for either tourism or for our agricultural products. It's a little more difficult with timber products. But if we continue to build the quality of the brand with Vermont, I think it will be in all our best interests. So if anyone has a question about, I don't know, I just got a cell phone the other day. I found one in Beach, New Angeles. I don't know how to turn it off. Yeah. If anyone has a question, either about the land management or the business or brewery. The brewery was based in, I understand that Alan said the reason I beer is so good. A friend of mine shot is. I'll get the gun. Yeah. That's why he's running the forest here. But if there were any questions, I'd be very happy to answer them. I have a question. Yes. Say about the forest, and has that changed over the years? That's a very good question. Is that where you get it? Okay. The question is, what do our guests say about the forest here? I got to tell you, sorry. In the early 70s, we were starting the cross-country ski program. And I spent a lot of time in the ski training center talking to people, trying to convince them to try this. And one lady was saying to me, well, I do it, but I'm afraid of fares. And I said, man, you don't have to be afraid of fares. In the fall, when the snow flies, bears find a cozy place and they curl up and they sleep all winter. And when the snow's gone in the spring, they come out again. But, you know, this is January, you don't have to worry about that. She looked at me and she said, young man, this was a long time ago. Young man, I may be from New York, but there's no way you're going to convince me of a sorry like that. We have a huge cross-section of the public among our guests. Some people are very sophisticated, well-traveled. Others are just up from the city for a day and don't really know what to look for or to enjoy. And so in answers to Alan's question, I would say that our guests love the views and the forest, of course, is a major part of the view, especially at this time. They don't in general understand what they're walking through when they walk out on our trails, but they know when they come back that they've had a very pleasurable restorative experience. I think that's what it's all about, really. The forest provides an environment that allows us to create an experience that sends people back to their everyday jobs, to restore and inspire to continue with the struggles of life. And we try to keep that in mind when dealing with difficult customers. I know you probably think we don't have any difficult customers. The problem is they can get on the internet now and write about it. So you really have to treat them very carefully. Yes, the increase in ticks hasn't hit us as badly right here as some parts of Vermont, but it has started and it is a concern, but the public doesn't seem to be too worried about it. Okay, well, thank you all for coming. It's a privilege to host this gathering and I hope the afternoon goes well. I unfortunately cannot participate, but I think that's what all that phone call was about. Thank you very much for your honesty. Thanks again to all of you for being here. It really is nice to be back in a room like this with all of you and have a chance to walk around the woods and talk about our management and what it is we're doing with all the backdrop in this landscape. So thank you. And now we'll get on to some of the boring stuff, the business meeting for VWA, which is a short, I promise it'll be short, where we nominate and re-nominate the board of directors in ASQ to support those nominations. Our board has a nominating committee and we propose a short list of nominations and I'll invite Marley on the nominating committee to list those names and we'll call a vote. We'll call a vote, call a vote. Okay, thank you. Well, on behalf of the nominating committee, which is Leo Laferri, he's here, and Chris Bif is not, and Marley, you're going to assess me. We want to put forth the following slate of officers. It's also in your program. So first I would like to make a motion that we vote on these all as one slate. Second. Thank you. There's a second favor. Great. Okay, so I'll read the slate and then you can vote. Okay. So for the board of directors, three of your terms, Gary Ames, do you want people to stand up? Please. Sure, Gary Ames, White Redemption, right back there. Susan Colt, Newbury, Vermont, Steve Haddingham, Waterbury Center, Vermont, John Manchester, Hanover, New Hampshire, Ron Millard, Hancock, Vermont, okay. David Potter, Clarendon, Vermont, Dave Wilcox, Burling, Vermont, okay. And then for board of directors, one of your terms, Steve Hanfield, Poltney, Vermont? Absent. Absent, okay. John McLean, Randolph, Vermont, nice to meet you. Okay, hi. Okay, you want to call the vote? And thanks for all who are standing. Appreciate your willingness to serve. Can you serve for the board? It's a good crew. I'll make a motion to approve the slate as presented. Doc, thank you. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. We're done. With the business meeting, I'll let you take over. We'll introduce John Buck to the vice president, he's going to emcee the rest, and he'll probably take that on the next step. You're welcome. Good afternoon, everybody. It's been a pleasure to be here. It's really a great pleasure for me to be able to introduce you, our speakers today afternoon. And the first person up would be my good friend, Brian Kilburn, who will be just presenting information about the true farmer of the year award. Is that right, Brian? Last year. Oh, yeah, with the whole COVID thing. It's really interrupted the calendar. I'm sorry to say, but I think we're all aware of that sort of issue. But if you could come down, please. And Al, all right, would you like to, you would like to say something about true farm too, wouldn't you? Yes, one. When we're done here, we'll have you up next. We'll all get running up there. We should be up front here, yes. So when the music stops, sit back down in your chair. This is one of those moments when you all say, it was working 15 minutes ago. Can I look also, I think there's folks on this side of the audience. Oh, there's bull. Or just if they can go, yeah, maybe against, go behind all of us in some way. It seemed to project. I get the sense you can all hear me really easily. Is that true? Because I'm not really standing on this very close to the door. Okay. You all right? Yeah, okay. Thank you. All right, here's a little change, field change number one. Please introduce to you Mr. Al Robertson, who's the chair of Vermont Tree Farm Program, who was intimately related to the Vermont Woodlands Association. And here you are Al, thanks so much. Thanks, John. Actually, past chair of the Tree Farm Program. I'm filling in for Rick Pizzazaro and Kathy Bland who couldn't make it today. One of the Tree Farm Program is alive and well. And it's very clear just by looking at the back here, they're not all old either. We have some, some Tree Farms of note here that have achieved 25 and 50 year Tree Farm status. And I'm not sure any of you have been able to make it, but we have 250 year Tree Farms. One is Joanna Maynard, Tree Farm number 249. Is she here today? And William Emmons III, Tree Farm number 261. They are going to get special signs that they can put up and silver and the gold indicating that status. But we have a lot of those Tree Farms in Whiting that don't have quite those ages yet. They'll be coming up in future years. We have three 25 year Tree Farms. Joseph Weston, Tree Farm number 1196. Ken Weston, Tree Farm number 1317. And I have here no relation to the other Weston. And last but not least, Mr. Arthur Dugas, Tree Farm number 1322. Not good. Anyway, I would say please congratulate these people for achieving that status. That's a lot of years behind the plan on doing Tree Farm work. And I would also add we as Tree Farmers like to have our Tree Farms open to the public to take a look at what we're doing. If any of you Tree Farmers out there want to show off your Tree Farms, we're always looking for somebody to sponsor a walk in the woods. Keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Can you stay here for me? We had a walk at Marsh Billings a few weeks ago. Can you just describe what that was about? He wasn't there. Yeah, he wasn't there. That was what, the 50 years? That was the 50th anniversary of Tree Farm number one in Vermont, Marsh Billings Rockefeller. Yeah, that was a pretty big day, pretty big scene. 50 years. Actually, 63. About 63 years. Tree Farm number one. There wasn't as more. 63. Yes. It was a big year, 63. Because they are the first forest of recognized importance. Thank you. Forest. First forest of recognized importance. It's a forest that is very, very historically in the nation. Let's come up. Yeah, but the pictures are really pretty important. Ryan. Let's do some Ramble on them. Ramble first. We explained a little bit. So, honestly, last year with everything going on, we couldn't do the typical Tree Farm of the Year award, which was presented to the Star Family up in Troy. Troy Vermont has been a client of mine for a little bit now. Unfortunately, yeah, because we couldn't do a big gathering where we historically, people can come, do a tour of the property, have a nice lunch afterwards, and congratulate the family for all their hard work. We did. The Star Family is very large, so we had our own party. And two or three of us on the committee went up with the Tree Farm Award assigned and had a very nice afternoon. We got to meet people that I didn't know. I believe there's five generations, is that right? So five generations of the Star Family up in Troy that I want to continue on with the legacy. And my involvement first started with Jim Starr. He was one of the I-list sons, and Jim had a very infectious character. Always excited about the woods, and he was always looking for a good time and looking for the next project. Unfortunately, Jim passed away a couple of years ago, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to try to honor Jim for his land ethic and his drive in the community, but also represent the whole Star Family. So this award was a little different. Typically the awards nominated are given to one landowner. The Star Family has five different parcels, two of them owned by Isla and a trust, and two of them owned by the siblings, and another property owned by Jim Starr and his wife, Jennifer. Oh, there we go. There we go. So this is their sign that we presented to them last year. It's right up off their property off the main road. They are right adjacent to J.P.E. They have a lot of traffic, and another brother, Gary Starr, unfortunately passed away this past year, and they have chosen to do a memorial for both of them using the tree farm sign, which I think is very honorable, and it looks beautiful from the road. So unfortunately they can't be here with us today, but they're wonderful people. So here are some of the five generations from last year. We had a beautiful sunny day. Nice big family. It felt like we had a typical tree farm meeting anyways. So it's a little bit hard to see, but this is the makeup of the primary ownership of the Star Family, the four parcels. It extends, this chunk extends over 430 acres total. What's not shown on this map is the 84 acres that Jim and Jennifer owned about a mile or so up the road. And another property that Jim worked on quite closely, the village of Troy owns 116 acres that he helped get conserved. And what's really cool about that is that property has over a mile of river frontage on the Mississippi River. And between that property and the Star Family, there's nearly three miles of river frontage. And although the Star Family's property is not conserved at this time, it's pretty well protected through them. So it's a really nice attribute. And the ownership's made up, as I said, is about 100 acres of open land. Most of it's being farmed by some local agricultural crops, mostly hay. Some of the family does also raise beef. And that was a local resident. I started doing the inventory for the management plan update when I was small and I was greeted by this fella. And he didn't follow me around the woods, but he certainly knows the area quite well. So this was their tree farm sign, again, right on the main road. And back in 2016, we did a timber sale on the property. And part of that sale, a big focus, was some wildlife habitat improvement. And this was one of two areas we did some aspen patch cuts. So this is about 20 foot tall aspen saplings that have grown back in about five, six years. So it's pretty impressive. Other things that the sale focused on was some improvements to some trail crossings. And we did some timber stand improvement and removed some high-risk white pine. The property also has a cabin on it besides the farm. This cabin, the family gathers at, I think, I don't know about every weekend, but very frequently. And it's kind of their central meeting place. And it's a great location. They also have this nice little cottage or camp on the property just for some getaways. And right adjacent to that is a beautiful apple orchard that they keep mowed and keep a lot of wildlife use. They also have a little sugar house, a little hobby operation, a few hundred taps, I believe. And so they do a little bit of everything on the property, which is really neat. This is one of their trails. I haven't finished mapping all the trail network yet, but I'm sure it's probably over four or five miles of trails that they keep open that they use, the general public use. And a lot of these trails will go down and access the river where they have a couple of different campsites, again, for family gatherings. And it seems like each sibling and everyone has their own favorite spot along the river and lots of different access points. So this continues to lead, again, the highlight of the property in my mind is really the river frontage. The Missisco River is a beautiful river, historic, a lot of history in Troy. And Star Family's done a tremendous job of protecting the river and keeping the forest buffers and also keeping access for locals to use. So just a couple of pictures here I'm moving through. One of their well-maintained campsites, plenty of firewood. Interesting note, and this is probably a theme that unfortunately is going to be happening in Vermont more often, is that as I was doing my inventory one day, I could smell some smoke. I didn't think much about it, but as I was coming up to one spot right next to the river, there was about a 10-yard by 30-yard patch of a smoldering duff fire that had just been smoldering and smoldering and smoldering for days on end. No idea how to get started. It wasn't near a fire pit. It wasn't really near too much of anything other than a trail. But I called up Jack, and Jack came strolling down with his UTV. We got some buckets and some water, and we distinguished the edges. But it was pretty interesting. I haven't really come across something like that yet. And this was under a hemlock spruce-ware forest right next to the river. Not something you think would be dry, but the fire had definitely been smoldering for multiple days on end and really exposed the root systems. So just keep that in mind as things change. But this is a picture of the family, the planes in Isla. Starting on your left is Jim Starr. Then there's Betty. And there's Gary. Jack Starr is to the right of Isla. And then there's Virgil and Billy. So those are the core group of the Starr family and with three or four other generations behind him. So we couldn't properly congratulate him last year, so I'll give him a round of applause for this year. Last year, when we couldn't do this event, Rick Pizazzaro and I went to the family's home to their property to present that beautiful tree farm sign. And we were going to a small family gathering. There were 50 people. Just an immediate family. That's what we were told. We didn't even invite everybody. So this is a generational tree farm. And it is so wonderful to have those properties in our system because it means that property has been cared for a long time and will continue to be cared for for a long time. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you again, Starr family. Thanks for coming down today. Great to have you here. Where is Michael? Where are you, Michael? Great. Our next guest is Commissioner Michael Snyder of the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation. And he's here on behalf of the state to share joys and concerns as far as the forest resources concerned from a state perspective. Michael is a professional background in forestry. He served as Chittenden County Forester for a number of years before being called to the state house as the commissioner of forest parks and recreation. And I think one of the, and he's a wonderful guy, he's been a great leader. And I think one of the most significant attributes to Michael's tenure and leadership is the fact that he's been commissioner under two different, very different governors, one Democratic and one Republican. And so I speak, I think that speaks very highly of his ability to see very broadly and to address issues in a very judicious manner. He's also, he lives here in Stowe with his family and he is quite a good deer hunter too by the way. So I like to bring up Michael Snyder. Thanks John. I guess the pressure's on for deer season now. I think Wilcox really is the one who gets that. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. I'm really happy to join you all here for the annual from our Woodlands Association meeting. Give it up for the Star Family. That's a tremendous story. And thank you, Ryan, for sharing that and your work with them. It's good to hear you, Johannes. I do live here in town. I live across Root and Hunter over in Stowe Hollow. You wouldn't think it by how long it took me to get here today. But I'd like to actually just acknowledge you, Johannes a little bit further. I moved to Stowe 30 years ago and he was very kind and very welcoming and we kind of connected and early on discovered a mutual interest in forestry. And I don't know if that was made clear, but Johannes has a background. He'd gone to the Yale School of Forestry. So we had a connection there and it's lasted. I consider him a good friend and he's been an awesome kind of community member speaking on behalf of Forestry, on behalf of EWA Tree Farm. And that's really valuable. I get a kick out of this story about the early cross-country ski. You know, it's probably the premier Nordic center in the world, or at least in North America. And I left a ski and took my daughter skiing and she really got addicted to it, particularly the riding the lifts part and zooming down. We said, well, you've got to learn how to do some Nordic skiing. So I took you over to Traps and I really wanted to tell Johannes a few... I wish she could have heard this. She said, we did this and she came and it was beautiful and all. And she said, Dad, when are we going to go back to the fun kind of skiing? So, yes. I'm really happy to join you here and I've been asked to give a little State of the Forest kind of thing, which I'm happy to do. I won't carry on very long, but I think it's... I'd like to think... you look around, at this time of year we are world famous for our foliage. To me, it really ought to be an annual reminder, not so much to EWA members, foresters, loggers, people who work in the forest industry, but to everyone else I really wish they would just see it as an annual reminder of how lucky we are. Not just to live in a beautiful place, but a really forested place and that there's reasons for it the way it looks. And it's largely because of the 80-some thousand landowners that own the majority of Vermont's forest lands. And it takes an awful lot more. There are people who work in those woods and related industries, et cetera, but it's kind of the backbone. And so I'm very pleased to come share with this audience at this time of year where we really need to have these trees come out of the background because for most people they really are taking for granted this green mask behind us. And once a year we get to say, wow, look at this, I'd ask all of us to push that and say, well, why does it look like this and take credit for it? I try to do it with all the reporters I get to talk to every year as the leaf chief giving sort of the foliage forecasts and observations that's largely crowdsourced every time I get interviewed and it's a lot from the CBS Evening News to Morning Edition on NPR to the Stowe Reporter I always say that part about why does it look this way? We claim it's the world's best foliage it's a lot of fun to pick on Maine I say give it up for their lobster every time but we're going to claim the foliage and we make a push for that and say well there's a credible, it's fun, fun rivalry, but there's a credible claim and it's because of this the working forest the families that own it the traditions and the culture of forestry and they always put in the part about peak or that I'm not sure what peak is but they never no journalist has ever included that part think about it I say it pretty much every time and it's just not an interesting story to them they want to know when's peak I think that's something for us all to think about and then maybe help push it because it's true and indeed we are I like to say forest strong we're Vermont strong Vermont is forest strong and what I mean by that is we have an unbelievable number and array of valuable important benefits that are crude to all people from our forest lands they just give us so much again a lot of it's overlooked I don't think I need to go on and on about the benefits and values of forest land to this audience I think you do know but it's a range of things from habitat biodiversity connectivity atmospheric carbon mitigation sequestration storage water quality water supply flood resilience and outdoor recreation the tourism economy of our state it's like the natural infrastructure for those things and I haven't even mentioned the one and a half billion dollars of annual economic activity the 30 million dollars paid annually to Vermont landowners and stumpage that's a significant part of our economy and it's bedrock for our rural economy and our culture and it all comes from the forest enormous public benefit mostly from private land from mostly private land I just can't give it up for the private landowners enough and so that begins the state of the forest kind of spiel we are forest strong we are really lucky because of that for that and it's in relatively good shape we don't just have 75% of the state covered in forest land in a very darn good shape where big picture things no notion of sustainability begins without cutting less than to grow so our growth to removal ratio as we call it in the state is still over 2 to 1 over 2 to 1 that's good we're growing more than we're harvesting or removing otherwise so that's a big picture statement that's good now when I was in forestry school it was 3.5 to 1 that wasn't another century things are changing and we probably ought to be paying attention which leads me to we're strong because of our forest we have all these benefits it's in relatively good shape and there are unsettling trends from regeneration failures mortality die back you know sort of ecologic issues and growth issues for sure nothing too alarming I don't think just yet I don't want to be that way but I think we track them forest health and function is really important we have ways of measuring and tracking it's doing well but there are some unsettling trends the biggest of them there are two big ones I think one is the loss of forest land estimates of how much forest land we're losing now year-to-year vary depending on which model or which study a few thousand acres to maybe 10, 11,000 acres or more every year so we don't have to quibble about which number none of the reports say it's going in the other direction they all say we're losing and that's something to pay attention to if nothing else let's over a century we're not accumulating adding forest we're losing forest land that's not logging that's not canopy gaps that's conversion of forest to not forest and that's the most concerning threat I think to our forest right now maybe paired with I'm going to actually change it up and I'm going to say even worse is the loss of the culture of forestry in our state fewer and fewer people from the land of the land and that's kind of how it got the way it is and all those benefits and yet that's really threatened it seriously is I get a lot of mail I get a lot of calls and our staff do an amazing job of work in private lands and public lands and they hear it back particularly on public lands with calls for ending of all harvesting and any management on public lands that's real that's a wildly loud statement of a cultural shift and it's I think it's dangerous and in every bit of what I've said here every little piece of it we could talk all afternoon about it's complicated stuff it's really important stuff but I'm just trying to hit the high points I'm going to finish up here and then maybe I'd love it if there was questions I'm always happy to try to address that way I know I'm getting what people are interested in and you know John said an hour and a half but it's not going to go that long I'm just kidding John's looking at his phone over here I'll finish with this and I really I hope that you will make questions or comments whatever I'd love to engage with you so I think that's a pretty mixed message right we're lucky to have all these forests they're largely in good shape there's some unsettling trends worth paying attention to the big ones being I haven't really talked a lot about market global market forces the loss of the low grade buying mills in Maine, the pulp mills that have closed but it's strong but we have some trends and then this one of the cultural shift I'm going to end on a high note what if I'm not mentioned here and how could anyone talk about forests or the role of forestry right now without mentioning what climate change climate change and now I want to talk about climate change what I'm going to say about it is it's probably the best moment that we could possibly have in the role of good forestry and keeping forests forest if not now I'm going to hang up my boots and I don't know what because this is our moment forests are both vulnerable to climate change and we're seeing that now in sort of changing of timing of things in the woods naturally and also in disruptions in our work with the forest and how we have to adapt to that but forests are clearly the best solution to forest to climate change forests are the best solution to forest we know this they're the lungs of the planet and we have and everyone's starting to turn and face that's part of the problem is people say well jeez commissioner trees are good for climate change they take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere why would you want to cut any of them down we have to have a little bit longer conversation about how that works it's counterintuitive for forests we're going to save forests and all they do for us by cutting some trees in the element and doing it thoughtfully and intelligently and more locally and ecologically based but yeah that's the premise and it's a really good opportunity when you think about the ability for forests to take it actually take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere but beyond that to the resilience against the effects of climate change that forests provide for us they make us strong they hold us together those of you who experienced Irene and its challenges and difficulties that would have been way worse if we weren't so heavily forested there's no question about it as bad as it was and so it's this resilience to climate change even while forests are vulnerable to climate change and so we need to protect them and what we know is that we have a long history of good conservation the little sea we call it conservation of like easements and acquisition and protection of forest lands but it's really the big sea conservation that we're really interested in that includes the little sea which is all the tools and tricks that folks use to be to do what I call the peaceful and productive coexistence of people and forests forestry forest stewardship knowing your land working with your land in the reality of an economic reality owning and paying for land taking good care of it people invest in it that is the ticket to resilient Vermont in a changing climate and we all need to stand up and claim it and we're pushing hard for we have to protect all the things that make it so the strong history of conservation little sea and big sea need to continue outreach and education you all share with each other our county foresters and our friends in consulting forestry do for landowners that's great we have to continue to build on it I'll continue to learn we need to protect incentive programs like the current use program by far the most important and successful conservation program in our state's history and we need to champion sustainable ecologically based forestry and we need to modernize and invest in a modern forest economy when we make forest products and I'd say world-class food products we make Vermont we make it what it is that's why it looks the way it does today and the culture of forestry and the economics of forestry are at the core of that and they're both really in trouble I think this climate change reality is actually the good news oddly that I think the world our country when you think about floods and fires even all the way back to our region and our state and our towns people are starting to turn and face we're really lucky to have this forest land and we need to all be sort of all hands on deck as we think about policy change and the climate context to think about supporting those things that support forests that support us hope that makes sense I hope I didn't bum y'all out and thank you all again for what you do as VWA I'd be happy to thank you question for the commissioner yes sir on the loss of the culture surrounding forestry supporting it how much how to affect the people not living in Vermont have on the loss of that culture people that have second homes here yeah I it's a factor it's got to be I don't pretend to know a lot about certainly not going to claim to know their motivations and their philosophies but there's a lot of them and it stands to reason that if they're not really here what is their connection I think there are many of them who work with some who would say they are super into this and it's everything for them they just can't be here so I don't know I think it's next I'm guessing that some from away just own for different reasons maybe right so there you go I'm sure glad I said that a part about them being really intimate I honestly I don't know I think it's certainly worth considering that said you know we've benefited from people coming from away and you know Johannes will be an example his family and become Vermonters and then become iconic Vermonters so fascinating we got one more sure I see quite a conflict between a development and forestry and particularly with fragmentation of forests and I wondered if the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation has a stand on that issue and that's what I mean by forest loss speaking earlier about losing forests largely through fragmentation so we have a very clear position on forest fragmentation we're against it we're for forest health and integrity and we have worked for many years now to push legislation that would add a reasonable lens for forests in our permitting and regulation schemes we've done a lot with guiding towns, many partners in the room and others have helped create good guidance to towns when you're considering local development and the role of how do you have human habitat and growth with healthy forest habitats there are ways and we have put a lot of work into showing that we've also done a lot of work to advance legislation that would add that lens to the 2050 level in a way that trying to find a way to do that that is an overly burdensome or regulatory but that gets that sweet spot of balance and valuing forests and what they do for us while recognizing private property rights because they're both really critical it's not easy but we do have a strong firm position and I'm going to be honest with you because I went from one governor in a second one appointment Governor Scott asked about he asked me this question in his interview with me and I told him much the same and I said I think we have a chance to push on support for forestry and enterprises that add value to forest products, forest businesses as are the last piece of the puzzle together forest and it's why he kept me on because we agree it's a problem it threatens everything I talked about is threatened by it and we need to have thoughtful approaches to avoiding it even though we live in a real world of economics and private property rights it's not easy if that makes sense just being super honestly over by Route 91 in Thetford and all day long I see logging trucks from Quebec headed north and all day long I see probably the same trucks headed south with lumber and I just can't figure out why we can't seem to create sawmills in Vermont that would save all that diesel fuel and keep the value of the timber here rather than going across the border I agree to make the same observations we all do there's some reasons you know they're not justification they kind of explain why it happens it's not an uneven playing field the mills lined up across the border are there for a reason and they're very much subsidized and they have healthcare and energy is cheap and there's a lot of advantages there and let's face it for me as a landowner at least it provides a market for my timber we do have mills in Vermont fortunately still we've lost an unbelievable in the last 25 years 40% of our milling capacity and it's shrinking further we still have a handful of mills I've tore recently for example that are investing and being really thoughtful about their businesses which is great but that's what we're talking about how do we keep the ones we have allow them to remain or become profitable grow and then attract new businesses, saw mills and other wood using value adders because why do we want to send it there for value adding so agreeing and saying that that really is one of the issues is like how do we retool especially with the loss of the low grade markets in Maine former deputy commissioner Lincoln he coined this it's really bright what right thinking Vermont would put all our sap into tankers and send them to Maine for value adding into syrup but that's kind of what we've been doing for a really long time was pulping we're not pulping facilities here but we're really curious about other markets for low grade rebuilding some in a mixed sort of portfolio and I do believe that getting back to we still have some pretty strong wood manufacturing in this state too and I think there's opportunities to kind of modernize and turn towards the future and let's say to people an example is in legislation for Act 250 we've made the case that it really needs to be a change in how we consider businesses that have value of forest products because we're losing them for a reason and this is part of the reason and we got to think of a sawmill, a kiln a firewood processor whatever not like a box store when it comes to Act 250 we need to think of them for their conservation effect because they do for every 1,000 feet of wood that comes in it's acres being conserved and maintained and stewarded and cycling that money locally that is a really good deal and it's extremely different from Walmart or anything else as industry and as something to be feared and to be avoided and we're utterly dependent on them so getting into the weeds a bit to give you a couple examples about how very right you are it's something we're working on it's the best example you could give it's like where we need to focus on rebuilding and modernizing and part of that is the culture of having people support that you're going to shut me off thank you all very much thank you commissioner is there an IT person in the house just want to make sure we don't mess this thing up while it's working I think we're ready to continue forest landowners own their property for numerous reasons and probably no single one reason alone describes that and survey after survey by forest economists and forest sociologists study these sorts of trends in human interests and survey after survey comes back as one of the leading reasons that people own their forest land is for wildlife the other reasons are valuable as well too but wildlife time and time again comes out on top and for that to be meaningful in a biological sense in a state like Vermont that's forested as it is that requires habitat forest habitat and with a state that's largely owned by private landowners that falls to the private landowners to support those wildlife species that depend upon the forest and so in this group especially I couldn't think of someone more to present to you information and enlightenment about the value of everyone's forest land and the contribution that that makes to the overall resilience and the benefits of wildlife that we enjoy in this state and so it's my great pleasure to introduce my former colleague and a 30 plus year veteran of wildlife habitat management and wildlife habitat science Mr. John Austin Thank you John I've got the $50 here I'll get that to you for that very kind introduction Well good afternoon everybody and it's a real pleasure to be here John and I worked together for many many years in the Fish and Wildlife Department and John's a dear friend and a valued colleague and he could give this presentation better than I can so I'll do my best there's a couple of tough acts to follow there they are back there the previous speakers they've really set a high bar so I'll do the best I can and I think so John asked me to talk with you all today about the concept of ecological connectivity or habitat connectivity really how we understand the larger connected forest landscape of Vermont and the region and what that means in terms of forest health and integrity as well as what it means for Fish and Wildlife Conservation so I'm going to go through briefly sort of a basic overview on connectivity we'll think about it in sort of the larger context of the region as well as Vermont specifically I'll look at some examples with you about how various species of wildlife rely on the connections of the Vermont landscape and what we know about all of that and then talk a little bit about some of the things that are going on both in the Fish and Wildlife Department with our colleagues in Forest Parks and Recreation and such as this one right here that are all working to make sure that the connected landscape of Vermont and beyond remains intact and healthy so with that let me just dive in here's the mission of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department it's a big one we're responsible for looking out for the needs and interests of all species of plants and animals in the state and all of the interests that the public has around that so that's a lot that's not happened with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department independently or alone this is a partnership effort conservation fish, wildlife, forests, water it's all a partnership effort you're all a part of it Forest Parks and Recreation is a big part of it everything we do is partnership based and as I go along that will also be a bit of a theme with the points that I try to share with you today but let's just think about this big responsibility in sort of practical terms so there's a lot of species of plants and animals that exist in the state of Vermont never mind the surrounding region or throughout North America and to try and look out for the needs and interests of all of these different species of plants and animals is simply impossible can't do it and we don't even know all of the species of plants and animals that exist so what do we do about that well one of the ways that we approach fish wildlife conservation is through sort of this lens of a course filter approach looking at the larger landscape understanding the relationships between plants and animals, habitats, natural communities and the conditions of the land itself if we're able to understand it at a high level that is how fish, wildlife and plants interact with the larger landscape then we can focus conservation on that larger landscape and in doing so look out for the needs and interests of all of these critters so I'm sure all of you have heard from one time or another this idea of a course filter and fine filter approach to conservation a course filter meaning essentially what I just talked about so looking at things like forest blocks and the relative condition of those forest blocks to what extent does fragmentation affect the size and condition of those forest blocks how are they interconnected by riparian areas, streams wetlands, other types of natural communities and how do you even think about things like unique or rare physical landscape conditions in a place like Vermont because as you well know not every part of the geology and soil makeup of Vermont is the same and we've got some areas in Vermont that are pretty unique not just to Vermont but to the region where there's alcarious bedrock and uniquely rich soil so all of those things taken together help us understand the interactions of plants and animals and how they support one another again getting at this more efficient approach for conservation so Commissioner Snider mentioned a moment ago this issue with climate change I would argue is aside from some of the cultural and demographic challenges and economic challenges that we face right now with forest land ownership in Vermont which are enormous and complicated and significantly important climate change is really the issue of our time and figuring out how we're going to look out for the future needs of fish and wildlife plants and forests with all the unknowns the unpredictable nature of a changing climate is going to be really challenging and it's inherently complicated but I'm going to come back to this one simple point over and over again one of the best things we can do is keep forests as forests if we have forests, intact forests that are well connected you'll preserve a platform for all of these ecological processes and the myriad of species that are out there to move around and adapt as they're going to need to we cannot predict that and we can't account for how to move things around it's simply out of our hands so we've got to make sure that we set the stage for these things to be able to move around and adapt this concept of a resilient landscape that I'll get into more in just a moment the graphs on the side there is just an illustration to show that even for millions of years plants and animals have been moving around the landscape in response to all sorts of environmental changes so in these examples you've got American Beach, you've got Eastern Humlock you've got Red Oak and they've been progressing northward for a really long time so it's not a new phenomenon what is new is that there's a lot more of us on the planet there's a lot more development on the planet so there's a lot more impediments for things to be able to move around and respond to all of these changes and perturbations so and it's happening at a faster rate than certainly to our knowledge it's ever happened in the past so these are important considerations so back to the course filter approach forest blocks is a pretty obvious one when you think about how are we going to look out for the interests of fish and wildlife conservation broadly in an efficient way all these different species of plants and animals well let's start with forest blocks look at how to conserve those and I say conservation in the largest sense the big C of conservation Commissioner Snyder likes to call it I like that term in the largest sense meaning it's not public ownership that's not going to solve the problem it's how we manage all of the forest land all of you are really the key to success in terms of dealing with conservation landscape so let's think about connectivity a little bit more well alright so we'll start off at the continental scale maybe you've seen this slide before it's kind of a cool slide that was produced by the nature conservancy and it's intended to just illustrate how plants and animals are going to move around North America as the climate changes and so even though it's sort of crude at this scale and there's so many unpredictable things that could happen that this is not really that fine-tuned one of the things that it does illustrate quite well I think is the significance of the Appalachian mountains and the connection to the Acadian Ecoregion which is where we exist so there's there's a lot of plants and animals that are relying on what we do with the landscape along the Atlantic coast make sure that they're going to be able to move as things change so there's the continental concept of connectivity all this ultimately to get us to the point where we think about how each individual landowner in the state of Vermont, New York, and Hampshire, Maine doesn't matter where, contributes to maintaining this network of connected forests and natural areas so here's a regional scale so we've got the Northeast Maritime Partners this is a map maybe you've seen before it was produced as part of the Stain Connected Initiative which is a collection of federal and state and non-government organizations that have partnered together it's bi-national so it's organizations and governments from Canada as well as the United States in fact some of you here have been part of this partnership and it is looked at and drawn attention to and raised awareness about the importance of the connected landscape within this region this larger northeast region so what the map shows is both the focus area which is for the most part New York, Vermont and Hampshire, Maine and up into the Canadian Maritimes and then it illustrates some of the larger areas that at the time this map was produced we knew to be important regional connections for that larger forested landscape I would tell you that this map is outdated and at the time was a function of imperfect information so it illustrates Vermont as a crossroads point for a lot of these landscape connections for wildlife but actually at the time Vermont had more information than some of our neighboring states that since changed most states in the northeast now and some of our colleagues from Canada have maps that are specific to each state and show what the connected landscape looks like for their jurisdiction in much more well defined terms than this map shows but nevertheless what it does highlight is how we think about the connected landscape at a really big scale again we'll just keep drilling down then this is great but what really matters is who owns all the land in those areas and what are the decisions that they're making about what's going to happen with that land that's really where it all comes together so still thinking it's sort of a regional scale about connectivity in 2018 there was an opportunity to come together with the New England Governor's and Eastern Canadian premiers to raise their awareness about the importance of this regional connected landscape its contribution to biodiversity conservation and what it means to support our interests in being able to adapt and be resilient to the changing climate so the governors and premiers they have an association they meet every year and they deal with all sorts of various policy interests that are regional in scope from economic to transportation to the environment and in this case they were really keen to reflect their interests in this larger connected landscape what it means to the region in terms of an economic sense a public health sense a sense of place and the value to the culture of people who live in these states and provinces and so it's basically a policy statement that set very strong standards for an interest in making sure that the forested landscape of this region remains intact and you know it's a policy statement and those things only go so far but over the past five years since it was signed well there first of all there were expectations laid out in this proclamation it said we're going to direct all the states and provinces to work together and think about one how do we define the connected landscape a unified vision for what it looks like so dig into the science states and provinces and tell us what does it mean so we can have a vision for where we are today and we can have a vision for success 50 years from now in addition it said we want all the states and provinces to figure out how you're going to work together to advance conservation interests through things like land use planning land conservation land management and stewardship and I would argue perhaps the most important part of that transportation plan and so it made directives to elements of state and provincial government to say this is what you're going to do so there was a plan pulled together and you know these things sort of move at a glaciers pace although I guess that has a different momentum in these days it's more like water dripping on a stone it doesn't move quickly but in any event one of the great things that's come out of it is we have created sort of a shared vision for what the regional and connected landscape looks like and the states and provinces are sharing information back and forth about what they're doing to advance conservation strategically to maintain connectivity and I would argue that's the best outcome of this it's just the collaboration that has resulted so that we can be making strategic decisions regionally not just jurisdiction by jurisdiction so that the decisions Vermont makes about where to conserve land or how to provide incentives to private landowners to maintain forested land also a concert with Hampshire and Maine and Quebec and beyond looking at the larger picture so we know a lot about what this connected landscape looks like around the region there's all sorts of really smart people who have taken all kinds of useful data and information to map it out set a blueprint together for us that says okay here's what this connected landscape looks like for all of you the one on the left is called Nature's Network it was developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a lot of pieces of information under it a lot of scientists work on it work on it and it's helpful but you'll notice that it stops at the border it doesn't go up into Canada and that's one of the limitations when all of that was being put together Vermont had a seat at the table and we had some reservations about the lack of types of information that were incorporated into the analysis but that's near the end of there it's a really useful map it's a useful piece of information and it can guide important decisions about conservation at a large scale to one on the right it's called the resilient landscape analysis produced by the Nature Conservancy that one is multinational it goes into Canada I will note however it doesn't go all the way north and one of the missing pieces in every analysis I've seen is nobody's looking up in northern Quebec nobody's really paying attention to nuclear labrador and I argue that's a mistake we don't need to get into that now people tend to assume that because it's so remote up there there's very limited development and conservation issues aren't a problem they actually are and I think we need to be given thought to the connected landscape from Connecticut and Rhode Island right up to the barrens northern Quebec and labrador it's just as important but at any event the point is there's a lot of useful information out there to understand what this connected landscape looks like this can inform our conservation decisions so now we'll look at the great state of Vermont what we know about the connected landscape of Vermont and what it means to our interest in forest health integrity and wildlife movement to conservation number of years ago I don't know five six years ago there were a number of folks from Department of Forest Parks and Recreation my department, Fish and Wildlife Department Nature Conservancy, Vermont Land Trust and others who had expertise in landscape and forest ecology got together and did a similar analysis to the ones I showed you on the previous slide but more specific to Vermont so we took all the information we have on forest rocks all the information we have on our riparian systems our wetland systems our natural community systems are rare and unique bedrock and geology types all this different information is pulled together and people far greater than me analyzed it all to come up with a map that we call Vermont Conservation Design a map I'll show it to you in just a second but it's a map similar to what we were just looking at but it's specific to Vermont one of the really cool things is I think every state in the Northeast now has done a similar mapping effort so they've all done it a little bit differently but they're all compatible enough that we've got some really great information to be making some good strategic decisions on conservation at this sort of larger scale so this is what it looks like Vermont Conservation Design I'm just curious how many folks here have heard of Vermont Conservation Design or this product before great, thank you so it's still relatively new and the idea is that it is simply a piece of information to inform all of us landowners government people who are making land acquisition decisions and have you about sort of the landscape condition of the state so what it shows you is that you drill this is available on the Agency of Natural Resources website you can find it, it's listed as under the biofinder tag which is a tool on the website to give you access to all kinds of information so pull up Vermont Conservation Design and play around with it it's pretty cool as you drill in you can see all of the specific details of the forest blocks and the connections and the stream systems and the natural communities and all that cool stuff but I will say I hope Commissioner Snyder won't hold this against me but if you went back 20 years ago you know some of us have been at this a long time in state government went back 20 years ago there was simply no appetite for a map like this to exist there were too many there were concerns about the perceptions that a map like this could create that this is a government land graph that we want this to you know guide what we're going to do or how we're going to influence things on the climate well so a couple of things one is I think we're very fortunate to be in a position today where we have support from now two different administrations both governor and republican governor both of whom have stood behind this sort of science as a useful tool to guide decisions to guide potential opportunities this is not a map for government ownership of land anything but it gets back to Commissioner Snyder's concept of the big sea of conservation this is another piece of information amongst lots of pieces of information that we all use to make complicated decisions about what are you going to do with your land and so I'll show you an example of how you could use this now I think this next slide this next one is a really cool compilation of layers that I'm going to go through that was created by your president Mr. Thompson back there and it's I think it's a really cool illustration about how to use this sort of information and it's close to home so here's that regional scale to connect the landscape of the northeast and in the middle there are just pulled up Vermont so there's the state of Vermont highlighted and you can see there's some of the forest block information that's part of Vermont conservation design coming up so we're going to drill in further and further from the regional scale to the state's dale now let's look at where we are right now this is the way we're sitting at this moment in the Waterbury and Stowe and we'll drill in a little further now you are able to begin to see the value of the information that's part of Vermont conservation design it's beginning to show you some of the unique forest connections amongst these larger forest blocks and so here there's we're right up there in 1889 that's where I got off to come over here today backed up about a mile under the interstate and the area that's surrounded in yellow is what we call the Sheetsville Hill area right in the Waterbury Stowe County line and we discovered through the course of this analysis although I think people living in the area already knew this that that was a really unique connection to this larger matrix of forest and the boosters on these the Mountain Hainesfield State Forest on the west it actually is except for when you go south of 89 north of 89 you've got to go quite a ways further north before you find another intact area of forest that connects this larger matrix of forest this actually turns out to be an area of regional significance so if we want to make sure we go around the landscape ultimately north up into the north east kingdom northern New Hampshire the Gaspe Peninsula turns out this is a really important connection and the communities have done just an amazing job of rallying around this I think it started before we had a Verizon self-tower case we don't need to go into that but somebody mentioned Act 250 earlier in the 248th Public Utility Commission believe it or not this is where some of this information comes into play it guides decisions in all sorts of ways and I think that's part of the really useful value of this kind of information is that it enables us to make decisions about how to site develop for instance so in any event you can just see at a different level here the shootsville hill connection and why that becomes so important important for wildlife movement between Mansfield and the Worcester Ranch so I really would encourage you if you haven't already pull up from our conservation design for Biofinder it's a lot of fun to play around with you can zoom into where you live or areas that you know fascinated by and just see what it looks like so this is going to show you just put into context the scale of forest patches relative to the types of wildlife that they support so it's a pretty simple concept right the bigger the forest patch the greater the diversity of wildlife that can exist there and as those patches grow smaller their ability to support some species is diminished so here's so we'll look at it by block size so if you have forest blocks this is very crude I'm going to admit right up front this is not a one size fits all this is not how it always works we all know that you're going to see some of these species of wildlife in developed areas it happens their behavior is as complicated as our behavior and they're unpredictable sometimes and where you're going to find them and what they're going to do but generally speaking some of these critters need their space from us so having big areas of forest are important and there's no rule of thumb as the forest blocks get smaller you just start to see some of the species drop off from us again it's a general concept it's not a guarantee and down to 2800 acres and then 1 to 20 acres you really just start to support those species that are highly adaptable to living in a human development industry so I thought this was pretty cool so if we just take that premise as forest patches get smaller their ability to support wildlife and I would say other forest ecosystem processes is diminished well let's think about what we have around the region or not specifically for large forest blocks and we'll start with areas that are 20 acres or greater looks pretty green that's a good thing well here's what it looks like when you get to 500 acre blocks it's not bad but it ain't what the other one was and here's 2,000 acre blocks so you get the point these large forest blocks in Vermont and Northeast they're not on a limitless commodity there's only so much of it to go around and the folks who almost are owners of part of those forest blocks are pretty darn integral to conservation success moving forward and there's 5,000 acres or greater so let's think about what this connected landscape means to certain species of wildlife in Vermont we can talk about any number of species I've thrown a couple of examples up here folks to consider this one is with bobcat and the department undertook a study with the University of Vermont I don't know 10 years ago we wanted to get a better understanding for how an animal like the bobcat which is why ranging carnivore our initial inclination was to think that they were averse to being around people and develop landscapes and so we really wanted to understand what that meant and that could inform land use decisions so we collared put GPS collars on a bunch of bobcats in various parts of the state a lot of them in the Champlain Valley it turned out because bobcats like to eat rabbits and there's a lot of rabbits in Champlain Valley so this is an illustration of one of these cats who took up residents on the south end of Shelbur and they were using this area of wetlands here a lot of these areas big wetland system feeds into the Platte River and ultimately into Lake Champlain and Shelbur and some surrounding forest patches it's near Shelbur Farms it's loaded with small animals rabbits in particular and that's why the bobcats were there it was a very attractive source of food for them so they figured out how to eat out a living in there it was worth their time to figure this out because the value of the food to them was so important but the only reason it worked is because they still had access to get in and out of there when the need arose because there's a lot of pressures on them in there there's people recreating there's dogs, there's development there's traffic, there's a lot going on in there but there's enough open space for them to eat out a living but look at what they're using to move around all these yellow dots are telemetry locations as these cats moving around it's pinging off satellites and that's what these dots represent so each dot is a location of that animal at a particular moment in time but showing you where it was moving around well it's using fence rows and hedge rows in that otherwise agriculture and developed environment to get in and out and it actually has enough connection to areas further south of Sheldon where you've got larger patches of forest and habitat and a little bit less development where they can find refuge when they need to so it's the attraction of the food but it's still the connections even at this scale that enable that an animal like the bobcat which moves great distances even over the course of a short period of time to eat out a living here John how am I doing on time? okay here's another example this is a telemetry study that we did on black bears it's actually just wrapping up now I think it's the second or third telemetry study we've done on black bears in Grumot to understand their behavior and movements relative to human activity and development so this was done in conjunction with the development of the deer field wind project we wanted to get a better understanding for how bears would react to this new industrial scale wind energy development that's in prime bear habitat country in southern Vermont the yellow docks are the same thing they're point locations for where that one bear was a 6 or 7 year old male was moving around so that bear was in those various locations and you can see over the course of one month this time of the year when bears are really actively feeding trying to get as much fat as they possibly can before going into den for the winter pretty critical time that bear was willing to move 140 kilometers in a pretty short period of time in order to access important sources of food so again and look at its relationship to route 9 and oddly it was it was one of the few times in the course of this study we had I don't know 30 some bears collared down there where one of the bears got that close to Brattleboro I'm not quite sure why that bear decided to do that but you can see that he didn't stay there very long and so one of the things this illustrates is not just the wide range of nature of these animals and why it's so important for them to be able to move around but their relationship to roads and development we also know from previous studies with the Stratton ski area a long time ago that bears are really selective in terms of where they decide to cross roads they don't tend to cross roads just anywhere if they have the choice they figure out areas that have short lines of sight and dense vegetation on each side of the road so where they cross roads it's really important that they've got good habitat on both sides otherwise what's the point just another illustration all these yellow points their GPS points where that bear occurred on the landscape at a particular moment in time this one just showing that bear didn't care whether it was in Vermont or Massachusetts it was looking for food it was an adult female and it was moving long distances also over relatively short period of time so again it's got to be able to move around in order to meet its life needs here's a pretty cool map that shows you what we know right now about the genetic variability of the black bear population in the state of Vermont it's not consistent there appears to be unique genetic compositions of populations of bears depending on where you are in the state and while we don't know cause and effect for sure one of the things that we begin to see is a pattern of where these populations exist relative to roads major roads, state highways the interstate system so it isn't to say that those roads define the genetic variability or lack thereof of some populations of bears but it is to suggest that it could have an effect on that and that's one of the things that we always want to be guarded about is the so-called island effect of populations if the animals don't have the ability to move around and exchange genetic material then ultimately their fitness goes down and that's not a good thing for them how many more minutes John? five okay a couple of things that we're doing right now so one you got to deal with roads and development we've worked for years and years with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to try and understand wildlife's relationship to state roads in Vermont and now we can improve circumstances for animals to move across or under those roads since it's a tunnel that was installed on a road state highway in in Monkton, Vermont to move amphibians and other wildlife underneath the road happen to be an area where you get the annual mass migrations of frogs and salamanders over the road now they're all safely going under the road the fence is directed into that opening and it's absolutely astounding the tens of thousands of salamanders and frogs that move under that road it was a worthwhile investment guided by good science this is the Bennington Bypass we don't build many new roads in Vermont these days but this one was probably 15-20 years ago and when it went through the planning process we worked with VTRANS, Vonage and Transportation to understand how we could construct a new state highway in an area that was previously undeveloped and make sure that wildlife were able to continue to move around so actually there's a number of large bridges and oversized culverts that are part of that transportation system down there that are designed specifically to move animals into the roads I'm going to go by that one so because of limited time I'm going to wrap up with this all the work we're doing with VTRANS on roads the work that we do as state agencies to buy land to support public interests it's all important it's really important stuff but none of that really compares and to some extent with the road crossing it doesn't matter if private landowners aren't also part of that program it is private landowners who own roughly 80% of the state for conservation success rest so if you put in a tunnel but it's the tunnel to nowhere or the bridge to nowhere it doesn't matter it's a poor investment so it's all about what happens on private land and I would just end by applauding all of you for having such wonderful interests in being excellent stewards of Vermont's forest and landscape you all and all the other private landowners in Vermont are why Vermont is such a special place and why it is still a healthy environment that supports all of these wonderful ecosystem processes so thanks to all of you for what you're doing to advance that sort of conservation work I'm going to call it there sure and that includes just about all the forest now there's so few 5000 acre blocks in and of themselves that makes those 28 acre blocks so important makes all of us so important in this habitat connectivity need for viability in our populations well let's move on to our final speaker for this afternoon before we break for a moment and then we will begin our tribute project oh this is all good so I did turn on that for you can you still hear and I could turn the other one on if you feel a little more I'll push up if it gets too loud we can turn it off I mentioned briefly before John Oscar came on about only land over surveys conducted here in Vermont and management of life and nature are kind of again our number one raising people have for a solution but the second most important reason and they're all integrated is access to those wildlife so they can go and enjoy nature enjoy their property they're very very much interested in the need of trails to get them through the woods and the trails and the wood trails that service so our next speaker John Morton is an international foremost expert on trail design John is a story history of service to our country he is an Olympic athlete he is an Olympic coach an NCA cross country coach and most recently in the last several decades as I said an internationally renowned designer of recreation trails scaling from 20 acre landowners who wish to have a great walking path behind the house to international governments designing biathlon trails for their next Olympic Games and so I can go on and on and on just leave it just leave it just enter whenever you want wherever I go thanks very much for the opportunity here if I figure out how to do this thing here ok so a little bit of personal background first I skied for millbury back in the wooden ski and knicker socks era they had an ROTC at the time and so I had a military commitment but I was able to get into the biathlon training center at Port Richardson, Alaska that led me to a couple of Olympics 72 in Sapporo 76 in the Innsbruck and in that interim 5 biathlon world championships and then I ended up at the coaching the Dartmouth ski team for 11 years and actually I was happy to see one of Dartmouth's former great alpine skiers here in the audience today Bobby Hill and then when I decided to leave with coaching I really didn't have a clue what I was going to do next and I just lucked into this what has turned out to be a wonderful game I'm not sure I call it a career this little niche of designing trails and I have no background in engineering or landscape architecture the only thing that gave me a little bit of a start was that I had skied almost everywhere you could ski cross country Asia and all over Europe Soviet Union all over North America and that gave me a good start our 5 stages generally speaking of recreational trail development first is a conceptual design and layout and a lot of the trails and unfortunately I think that we all experience throughout this country have the misfortune of just evolving without much planning they might have been under a power line to begin with they might have been an old forest road they might have been a skid trail and somebody said hey we can follow that and then we can cut through the woods a hundred yards and then we can come back on the power line and it doesn't really make for great recreational experience in comparison to say we could find in Scandinavia the second phase is cutting and clearing which you're all familiar with third is construction and in former decades or generations the concept of a trail was a very narrow path in the woods and a lot of trails were constructed simply with a pair of nippers cutting off branches and maybe a little bit of earth work but that's changed recently for a number of reasons finishing usually involves signage maybe some sort of raking of the trail perhaps seeding and conservation and then finally ongoing maintenance and I'll talk a little bit about all of those it's ironic in a way and gratifying to me to be here at the Trap Family Logs because this project here first of all many of you know the Trap Family Logs is the first destination Nordic center in North America and Johannes is a little bit humble when he was speaking earlier and didn't mention that but it was the first place in North America where people came here specifically for cross country skiing one of the issues that evolved here was that they have a number of skiers that go out through the woods which many of you walked earlier today and through the years that became also a facility for competitions largely involving University of Vermont ski team and local high school ski teams regional ski teams the dilemma was that when those events were going on the paying guests at the Trap Family Logs were inconvenienced and the trails that they had hoped or anticipated to ski were being blocked off because of the competition also internationally the International Ski Federation had started to create what they call homologation guidelines so that athletes skiing in different parts of the world wouldn't be blindsided by some horrendous two kilometer hill or something all of the trails of where they are in the world have to meet these different guidelines so Johannes was eager to have a race course here that would be good for spectators would meet the international guidelines and would also not conflict with the recreational trails that the guests at the lodge enjoyed skiing so this is what we came up with and it also the rest of the trail system here fulfills other objectives of a trail, a typical trail system one of those objectives which is most important is people love to get out on a trail without having to drive someplace so if you're at a resort or a community or a development it's a big advantage if folks can just leave their home and perhaps walk a short distance and get on a trail that's a huge advantage and that's something that Trax offers here to great degree of success they want convenient off-road access to other destinations or sites, those of you that have skied here at Trax in the wintertime know that one of the most popular destinations here is the Slate and Pasture Cabin up high on the mountainside a lot of guests from out of state that's one of their objectives when they stay at the Trax family lodge is to ski to the Slate and Pasture Cabin have cocoa or chili or something and then ski back down another more recent destination is the brewery down the hill also a popular destination another objective is convenient locations off the site many of you are probably aware that the Catamount Trail which goes the length of the backcountry ski trail goes through the Trax family lodge trail system so in addition to having good access within the venue or the resort here they people can stay at Trax and ski from here to Bolton Valley for example or see more and then finally as I mentioned at the start it's nice to have an event venue that's created with the events in mind and that's not just limited to competitions one of the most popular events they've had here in the Hormor cons and I presume it still goes on is I think it's ski for life or really I feel so they have a number of different events that are not competitive but draw a lot of people and oftentimes do wonderful work for various charities more specific trail considerations are one of the landowners objectives one of the first trails I did was for a retired couple in northern New Hampshire they had a nice old farm a couple of hundred acres they were getting on in years even though they were avid skiers and the wife took me aside earlier and said I want you to make this the most challenging trail you can create on our property and they had some real terrain on the property and I said really yet I've got four sons three in full ski competitively in high school and college and I want a trail that every time they have an opportunity to go somewhere to ski this is the place they want to come back to to ski and so that was her objective I had another client down in southern Vermont western Vermont again a retired couple they had also challenging terrain and he made it very clear they didn't have to get to the high point on the property they just wanted a nice suit that they could walk or ski or snow shoe with their grandchildren when the grandchildren visited so it's important to know what the objectives of the landowners are this is something I've learned the hard way you want to be very clear where the boundaries are very embarrassing to go flagging a trail off on the neighbor's land and it's surprising I don't suppose this is an issue with many of you in this room but it's surprising how many landowners are not really clear about where the boundaries are they'll say oh yeah I got to follow the stone wall down there and then it sort of disappears what you'll see elements of the old barbed wire fence and you want to be very clear about where the boundaries are having said that oftentimes the neighbors will be equally as enthusiastic about a trail project so if you get involved with developing a trail and especially if you have some feature on your land like a smear hill or cliff or a pond and you don't own land around it sometimes the neighbor is very cooperative and willing to participate in the project early on identifying the natural features or significant aspects of the property like vistas or ponds or that sort of thing possible destinations and I would say most, I was speaking to someone here earlier that confirmed this most people prefer a loop for a recreational outing rather than an out and back and sometimes out and back routes make total sense because of the terrain or because of limited property there are a number of reasons why it makes sense having said that if you can create a loop generally that's more enjoyable and it also allows you to establish one-way traffic and that's not significant for walking or snowshoeing but it is significant for cross-centric skiing and for mountain biking or fat tire biking anything that involves any amount of speed I'd really emphasize one-way traffic you also want to think about who your potential trail users are and it obviously can include anyone from young school children all the way to senior citizens but the potential users will dictate to a certain degree the actual technical aspects of the trail how long it is if you have most of your trail users are going to be elementary school kids they're probably not going to have the time to go on a two or three kilometer trail they'll be much happier and have only the available time during their school day to do a much shorter loop you can always create cut-offs I like the concept of stack loops so you have a shorter loop an extension off that an extension off that that allows the loops closest to the starting and finishing point more gentle, more mellow for the people of let's say more modest ability and then the extensions farther out can be more challenging for the more advanced people and then you want to think about what activities the trail might accommodate and they can accommodate a lot of different activities my background is in Nordic skiing and I admit to being sort of prejudiced that way I believe that a well-designed well-constructed trail for Nordic skiing is very suitable for most of these other activities the two exceptions might be mountain biking as many of you know has become really interesting in terms of it's fragmented into a number of different sort of specialities you have these down mountain trails at alpine skiers where everybody gets armored up with all kinds of padding and protective gear and helmets in there going off really technical jumps and highly banked turns and so forth but I think there is another whole group of mountain bike enthusiasts that would be perfectly happy to ride on some of the ski trails that you walked on earlier today they're not as narrow and as technical but they still have the same kind of flow and enjoyable terrain here are a couple of tips that I guess I picked up through the years in terms of designing trails first focus on the elevation changes the most significant thing about recreational trail design for non-motorized activities has to do with elevation changes you want to make the climbs manageable and by and large you'd like to keep people guessing as to how long the climb is if any of you have either height or ski out west on some of the forest service roads out there some of the forest service roads are beautiful they're very well engineered they're terrifically built probably at significant expense but you can see forever and some of you would have ski in places like Montana or Wyoming and you're starting a climb and you can see this climb gradually going up some side hill for the next five months very discouraging so as much as you can try to conceal the climbs keep them guessing break the climbs up with a short traverse or dip and make the downhills worth the climbs whether it's for skiing or mountain biking or even walking or trail running that's the fun of cross-century skiing is the downhills they can be technical they should be and the best thing you can hear the comment earlier about the child say when can we go back to the fun type of skiing the best thing you can hear regarding Nordic skiing there's some kid that comes down some wonderful long rolling descent and says to his grandfather can we do that again knowing that they've got to ski all the way back to the hill to do it again I'd showcase the properties nice natural features and then I'd say deal with the most challenging aspects of the property first so in other words if you know the properties divided by a stream and maybe the properties pick a number and say a quarter of a mile wide or something like that walk the stream and find the two best crossings and say okay we know there's a nice narrow crossing here with high banks great place for a bridge where's another place and then you can develop your trail to those crossings rather than getting locked into something that leads you to a less desirable crossing trail width is a big issue as I mentioned earlier in former times even cross country ski trails were relatively narrow too little parallel tracks through the woods and often times we didn't have to involve a lot of cutting of timber just limping up branches maybe removing some rocks and stumps that's changed it's changed for three reasons the first one is what was discussed earlier and that's climate change and we don't get the kind of snowfalls that we used to get we're all aware of that it's very important that you open the canopy enough so that whatever snowfalls actually reaches the ground if skiing is one of your top objectives and the second thing that sort of fits into that equation some of you may be aware of the fact that in early 1980s one of our fellow Vermonters Bill Koch basically pioneered the ski technique in cross country skiing that changed everything for a cross purpose sport and now if you want to both accommodate classic or kick and glide technique and skiing technique you're looking at a trail surface probably 12 to 14 feet wide so in the international standards where they are doing a lot of mass start racing those trails are 30 feet wide on the climbs 20 feet wide on the descents so that three skaters can complete side by side without impeding each other okay cutting and clearing so this is where you folks understand all about this typically the clients I end up with they don't want to cut any trees they would love to have a nice beautiful trail going through their woods but they don't want to cut any trees what I try to convince them is that very often their woods could actually be improved if they do a little bit of harvesting, a little timber stand improving so there's two approaches to this if it's a very healthy relatively mature forest and you really want the aesthetics of the big mature trees you can thread the trail through the nice healthy existing trees on the other hand, if the whole property could stand a thing and you could coordinate with your consulting forester then you can just put the trail through the openings created by the trees that are harvest for the timber fires take either approaches is equally a success the issue of existing woods roads and skid trails so I don't know how many times I've been approached by landowners that say we'd like you to come and connect our existing skid roads and logging trails so that we can have a nice skid trail it oftentimes works to some degree but all of you know that if it's difficult terrain the objective of the skid trail is to get the timber out in the most direct, most efficient way and that's usually down the following that's not the best orientation for a cross-tempted skid trail it's possible sometimes to include sections of existing skid roads on trails but my recommendation would be if you're going to create a trail a recreational trail don't be drawn into saying well we've got this logging road here already and let's just use that and then we'll just supplement it with some connections because then it's sacrificing the quality of the recreational trail and we're going to include those existing trails when it advances the recreational trail project but don't sacrifice the quality of the recreational trail just because you've got some existing skid roads and many of you will find that some of those existing skid trails are not sustainable any that some of them have been degraded and you better off creating a new route construction nowadays the most effective way to create these kinds of trails we're talking about relatively wide say 12 14 foot skid trails is with a medium size excavator and they are extremely efficient probably people in the audience here would either use them or have use them they're unbelievably versatile, efficient they can pop out the stumps you know remove boulders one of the first jobs I had was up in northern New Hampshire and I ended up getting into this boulder field and there was just no way out and the boulders were huge there was an excavator operator on the site at her time at lunchtime I went back to talk to him I said you're going to just kill me because I've got myself into a bind here in this boulder field I don't know how to get out of it and he sat in this machine it was the first time I really talked with anybody that was actually operating a machine and he said well let me tell you something and this was not a gigantic machine it was an average size and he said anything the size of a Volkswagen bug or smaller is no problem anything bigger than a Volkswagen bug just takes longer and he was absolutely right he put the trail right through the boulder field it was remarkable they are very effective in putting in culverts building bridges I'm a big fan of excavators so they are effective in terms of doing cut and fills across side hills you want to very slightly crown the trail surface so that as it gets more traffic you don't end up getting a rut in the middle of it you can bank the same in turns that's another reason why one way traffic is advisable because you can bank the turns and make the downhills more fun finishing basically most of the trails again that are reasonably wide like this are best finished often times the excavators they are so skillful you don't even have to rake the trail surface after they are done just seed it with conservation mix and some people get better germination not if they mulch on top of it sometimes you can just seed it and maybe rake it once and it will grow just fine and then also part of the finishing is putting up good signage one of the things that Johans mentioned here which I think is definitely true a lot of people are just if they don't grow up in this part of the country or with access to the forest they are uneasy about getting out in the woods if they don't know where they are so having just trail markers on trees so that they can always see a trail marker and having good signs that's very reassuring to people who aren't commonly in the woods I did a trail a number of years ago for a retirement community down in Lebanon, New Hampshire and they had sort of a group project of how to design and come up with these trail markers and I thought they had a wonderful idea in that they use these images of different birds but then they made a sort of a double sign in that they had color coding so they both had an image of a particular bird and the color coding so that can work well ongoing maintenance is pretty much the same as you would have within your wood lots if the trail is properly built and drained with good culverts and swales on the uphill side all you basically have to do is mow it I've got a flail mower on my tractor which is terrific I feel like it does a better job than a bush haul and it's what the same sort of thing you see them mowing the interstate median strips and just occasionally remove the branches that fall down and you're going to have some of that you're going to have a couple of trees that fall across the trail it's very important to check the culverts a couple of times a year just make sure they don't get clogged down because they will and a clogged culvert if you have one of these severe rainstorms that can be a problem you're going to get some a lot of people are nervous when I'm talking about trails as wide as they should be from Nordic skiing but they grow in packs and it's important to kind of keep them cut back and you can almost always get volunteers to help you people who enjoy being out on your trails will if you just say we're going to set a date in the spring and the fall to have a trail maintenance day you'll have more people than you know to do it so in conclusion many of you are probably aware of and perhaps have even participated in a big big boom in outdoor recreation as a result of this pandemic people really want to get outside successful recreational trails can range from very simple paths through your would lot to very more expensive elaborate venues like what you may have walked earlier today and then finally just to quote Stephen Covey remember his seven habits or whatever start with the end in line so know what it is, who you think the trails are going to service what kind of activities you anticipate having on the trail and you can't go long thanks we have time for three questions and we'll begin right there and then we'll go to Dave go ahead, yes sir you know I have made that suggestion to a number of clients because I've had a number of different places where it just seemed to me to be ideal the train was great the way that the cross-country trail was configured would make great access both from the top and the bottom of the glade I'm trying to think of any that I was never involved in actually creating and building any but I think it's well worth considering if you have the terrain for it absolutely absolutely, you bet yeah but the beautiful corridor that may or may not be suitable for mountain bikes or some other activity I'll add so the question was about your shared use perhaps summer and winter skiing maybe in the winter time mountain biking in the summertime one of the things that is a determining factor in terms of shared use I'd say within the same season is the speed of the participants so in the winter time for example if you have a relatively narrow trail let's say it's not the case here because they had nice wide trails but if you had a fairly narrow trail and you were going to try to provide in the winter time cross-country skiing and snowshoeing on the same trail you know it can work it may not be ideal just simply because of the speed and you throw another component and now this fat tire biking craze is getting more popular that's another a component of speed that's kind of a problem in the summertime if you have walkers and mountain bikers on the same trail again it's a little bit of an issue of these different speeds that are a problem often times mountain biking gets a bad wrap because early on it became so popular so fast out west that they were really degrading their trails since that time the folks that are designing and building mountain bike trails have become very very skillful and environmentally conscious and I think in many cases they're setting the standard for how trails should be built and maintained I think for example if you wanted if you're talking about a ski trail in the winter time let's say your intention was to make it available for mountain biking in the summer one way to make that more appealing to the mountain bikers is just don't mow it to it's full width and you might find that what you would want like a two foot mowed strip and I would describe it as being the best line within the width of the ski trail and you might have to you might have to armor that somewhat you might have to put some gravel in there to if it's just if you're just working with sort of forest soils if you are going to get a lot of traffic mountain bike traffic but it certainly can be done and it's done successfully in a number of places yes horseback riding is the great key to horseback riding I learned in one of these big national conferences is that in terms of the parking area you've got to have a big enough parking area so they can park their trailers and get the horses out and everything and then if you have 100 meters of trail exclusively for the horses before they join the other trail the horses after they get out of their trailers they almost always use out 100 meters to relieve themselves and then they're on the other trail and there are no complaints everybody's perfectly happy about they can in wet conditions or moist conditions horses can have a negative effect on the trail that's right that's right okay yes recreational trails just because they're there but what about the other way around designing your recreational trails so they can be used for the skidder trails to be able to access your forest product when you need to yeah good question so the question I have for everybody here is using the skidder trails for recreation and conversely using recreational trails for forest management one of the challenges is that a good recreational trail is going to be far more convoluted than a typical skidder trail or logging road but there's nothing that says you can't cut the corners or just pick up sections of the recreational trail to get your logs out because it'll grow back it's just that you probably don't want to use your recreational trail with its in its serpentine nature to try to get logs out now if what you're actually doing is just getting in there with your tractor or your pickup truck to get firewood like that then there's no problem with that and I want to make it clear it's not that you can't use logging roads or skid roads for recreational trails there are certain sections that are just great and you kind of will get a sense for that but you'll also recognize there are plenty of places where the skidder has no problem going down a steep incline and that's not always ideal in terms of recreation so you can use sections that seem to feel right but avoid the sections that don't yes sir? yeah the limitations of skiing or any hiking only yeah so the one thing that I guess I would say along that lines is that if you have a wider trail like one that I've been talking about for skiing it's suitable for everything else you can hike on it and it's not like people are going to say oh this is a lousy trail because it's 12 feet wide they typically don't notice it's not that big a deal the converse however is not true it may be that your objective that's why I ended this up by saying be clear about the objectives you may not have no interest in skiing that's fine if the interest is a nice hiking trail to an overlook or a pond or any of the potential features and all you have in mind is hiking and you're not worried about how much snow gets to the ground it's not an issue there's no reason why you shouldn't build a hiking trail probably could be it doesn't have to be any more than 4 feet wide probably does that answer the question? building trails by sniffing branches yeah machines yeah I know there is some concern about that my experience has been and you folks have all seen this with logging jumps everywhere there's a big kind of a shock factor for a lot of people when they first see a logging jump a year or two later when things have started to regenerate everybody kind of relaxes they see a whole new generation of trees coming up and it's this beautiful carpet of green healthy regeneration all of a sudden it doesn't seem that bad I showed you a couple of slides there of trails that are wide enough to meet the international standards 20 feet wide on the flats and the descents they're all seated with conservation mix and they're beautiful people love them they can walk side by side talk to each other they love them and thanks for what you do John and Michael chose to spend time with us this afternoon on a beautiful October day just like to say thank you once again to all of them thank you all it looks like we haven't had anything to eat in the last hour and a half and there's looks like a lot of goodies being put out back there we need to take a break and freshen up a little bit and then I hope you all stay around as we share our remembrances of Putt Lodget so see you soon did you want to say something Kathleen? I'm sorry here's Kathleen I just want to say that on your tables there are magazines those are from the American Forest Foundation there is an article in there about Putt Lodget which is why we have passed those out and the little seedlings on your table were donated by one of our members from Windy Mountain Farm Becky Bluen and we are happy to have you take those home and put them in the ground and nurture them into lovely trees so thank you about four o'clock we're going to start the reception and there will be lots more food out so I hope you still have appetites please just take a minute to get up and stretch, mix and mingle and then we'll have a few more festivities going on I think everybody's had a chance to fill a plate at least once there is lots of really yummy food there we've got some time to keep eating one of my favorite things to do is to eat and to feed people and I get to do both of those today so we are going to start the last part of our program today which is the tribute remembrance and celebration of Putt Lodget who was our long time president 20 years he served from Oakwood Lines Association as the president during much of his tenure I served as the executive director we were not prepared to lose Putt not that you could ever be prepared for that but that was March of 2020 and this is our first opportunity to come together and really celebrate all that he did for Woodlands Association Woodland owners for just the forest industry in general he was a tireless man we have a couple of folks here today who are going to say a few words about Putt some of his sons are here we've met before at meetings but Peter is here as well we're going to hear from them a few words about their father I've been here from Jamie Feidell and I've got a few a few rememberances in this presentation too so I'm just going to show us some pictures I do want to mention this reception has been supported by Vermont Woodlands Association the Bailey Charitable Foundation many of our VWA Board members past and present and friends and our sponsors today FNW Forestry Gunna Lumber Landfest Warehouser and Minky Farmer are very grateful for all of that support that was our last indoor animal meeting at Vermont Technical College and some of these are just photos that have been sent this one I'm going to try to figure out how to play Jamie can I just do this in the later years he spent literally hundreds of hours pulling and chemically treating invasive plants within the 600 plus acres of forest land there and the result of decades of commitment to this forest resulted in an exemplary forest property that warranted a tree farmer a tree farmer of the year award not once but twice that dedication to task typifies the puppet idea he immersed himself in projects, organizations and causes that inspired him and those were many forest landowners from both Vermont and New Hampshire and his commitment to good forestry through his presence on numerous boards, committees and legislative testimonies in both states I was fortunate to have been Puts Forester for over 25 years and I firmly believe that Puts spent as much time in the woods as did many foresters with official diplomas and I can vividly remember hearing him state one clear regret I wish I had gone to forestry school so I could have been a real forest well cut I could I would award you an honorary forestry degree you truly deserve it I miss you cut Paul was here earlier but he unfortunately could not stay so he very graciously recorded this for me on Zoom Dan Kilborn is also a member of our board who couldn't be here today and he has done a recording for us he described it as always on his eastern horizon it was within sight of the Bradford tree farm that he owned where he grew up he said that he first aged 14 at 45 he ran up with the Dartmouth ski team at 45 minutes he made perhaps his final climb at the age of 88 just having to turn 45 myself I just think about the grit that that man had to run out at 45 minutes but that's the passion and dedication that brought to all that he did especially with the management stewardship they supported our local economies forest workers forest products industries but it also provided all the essential ecosystem services that we depend on cleaning our air and our water but it gave blood to provide a model habitat, habitat, hybrid adaptation at a time when so many of us need to recruit from our habitat the connection is to our world culture to make strong and I think public like that thank you Dan I have some photos that were sent John I think you sent these John Nininger did you send these photos to me I've got a few photos here John I don't know if you want to say a few words about them yes I feel very fortunate to have worked with Putt he first contacted me years ago I was building handcrafted log homes and I needed just perfect tall timbers white pine timbers and I remember the first time walking with him in the forest looking at his amazing trees as many of you saw but I kind of frustrated him because the trees I needed had to be with a very specific diameter range either way of say 18 inches depending on the house we were building and they had to be really straight and tall and I'd hit show me some trees and I'd look at them and I'd go well this is nice and straight but it's just a little small and he'd shake his head and we'd go look at another tree and I'd say well that one's got a little bend in it's just the right size but it's just a little tiny bend up there it's not going to work and eventually after marching through the forest of course that just got him going more to the next tree and the next stand of pine and but over the years it was just a joy to walk with him in the forest and see what an amazing forest he had and how he had grown this incredible timber and then finally the Dartmouth College decided to rebuild the Moose Lock of Veen Lodge which I got to do the log work on that project and putt as you know is so connected to the Moose Lock of Veen Lodge that he wanted to donate a bunch of logs and so we walked through the forest and and he'd show me trees that where was this tree when I was looking for timber this is amazing he looked at me and said I know I hold my cards close and then he would take us and he would find these trees that had been knocked over by the hurricane of 38 and the branches had grown straight up and these things had survived and grown into these unusual forms and he would like insist that I find a place in the lodge for this crooked tree and then one day he took us to this mountain along this cliff to this special tree and sure enough out of the side of the mountain was this hemlock growing in a big curve and then another one that had a branch coming across and reconnecting with shape just like a D for Dartmouth of course and that's in the gateway and he was just so excited about and knew every tree in his forest and where he wanted it to be and it was just such a joy and a privilege to work with him over the years and get to know him so well thank you John I'm just going to run through some pictures here this is Putt with Sydney Crave and Sydney could not be here today Sydney and Putt were quite close I guess it's going forward Sydney has provided the funding for the Bailing Charitable Foundation that is supporting much of this program today so we are very grateful to Sydney and this just wants to do its own thing and I should probably let it because there are photos in here that come from lots of different places where is that is that the launch the ravine launch ok from the outside ok this was a VWA meeting when we had a young gal who had won our essay contest and then of course Putt with his stacking firewood if I can hold this here this was sent to me by a colleague who was telling from the Northern Woodlands magazine Center for Northern Woodlands Education and I asked her to send me a few words about Putt and she said the best way I can describe Putt is that he was both a major disruption event and a keystone species he had the energy of five people did the man ever sleep he was passionate advocate for those landowners with Kathleen his long-term colleague slash co-conspirator he inspired from honors to pay more attention to forests and to cherish them there are so many people myself included who influenced and I'll always be grateful for his good advice and encouragement and that's my terrible typing there at least in action he sent it to me for whatever that is oh well should say grateful and yes Putt and I certainly were colleagues and co-conspirators for a lot of years there were lots of times we went toe to toe on things we didn't agree on nobody has had that experience I think yes that's the man I know and loved he certainly told you how he felt and what he thought and here he is with his Ben Killam Bears you know those are some of my favorite pictures Putt and Ben had a very long-term relationship as well those cobs are just nestled right in there couldn't be happier this was a presentation I went to when Putt was given the award by the Farm Bureau and what was the name of that award you were there Peter Burge I probably met you then and I didn't remember I apologize for that so that was a Farm Bureau award and we just have so many remembrances so many photos of Putt in the woods love to be more ravine lodge yeah and more bears so this was a Germany trip I think Al Robertson could talk about that one I think that was the last trip that American Forest Foundation did before what was that in Freiburg and what year was that 2018 2016 that has a very special mention in the congressional record as well something that Senator Leahy did for us so our dear past president is remembered in the congressional record I have that full record somewhere this is just a piece of it and so it would have been Putt standing here today greeting all of you and running the show I am very grateful to Alan Thompson who stepped up she filled some very big shoes and to the rest of the VWA board it is one of the most hard working boards you can imagine they are wonderful folks to work for it could not be easier to serve than to work with this board and of course as Paul mentioned Putt was a second time tree farmer in 2011 and this is a poem that was sent to me by Peter Paul Steltz who also couldn't be here today a challenge camp and he sent me a photo that I couldn't actually take out of my text and get here it was a great photo your dad saw in a big log this muscular man with all these kids just in awe at what he was doing and maybe you will mention his camp because you certainly know about that more than I do so this poem Last Water not since in seldom just before our last hike up Gorge Brook have I drunk from a mountain stream melt by its side and dipped my hand into its cool and freezing flow for fear of contracting disease as had happened to me on one incautiously defiant day feeling alive immersed in mountain air firm and fur, mud and stone and me striding steadily thirsting for a cleansing taste such as I've known when young I couldn't help but celebrate and drink in my exuberance worry aside weeks later I would learn the consequence of trying to relieve lost purity relive lost purity and therefore since then hadn't given into joy instead judiciously carried water from taps I could be certain of that is until we stopped for rest just as the section of trail you built swung north away from Gorge Brook's steep descent its current slowed along this flat where we paused too I watched surprised as you bent down and drank no doubt as you had ever confidently done during hours surveying laboring as much at home amid these woods as anywhere sharpening off my skepticism I knelt as you had done and drink my fill sustained so this was just my brief presentation and I'm going to turn the microphone over to the boob logic and we're going to have a couple of speakers and then I'll invite anyone who would like to come and take the mic and say a few words to do the same it's been a pleasure my father enjoyed this this group throughout his tenure he appreciated you and he talked about you all the time it was his life he was just in awe of what was trying to happen and trying to be part of that what I'd like to speak about today about my father is back earlier in his life he loved to wander I mean just to head out in the woods to be alone and he was content with himself a lot of us struggled with that we need friends and family and a lot of times dad didn't need that he was happy with himself he was content so he would wander and the more I worked with him everybody to wander and to wonder to go out to look at things to find a way to go around here back up go there but just to try and put forth an effort to make a difference I'll always remember dad we'd be walking around in the woods and then all of a sudden some logging trail and then it's boom we're headed this way we're just gonna wander and see what's out there and I think that's why dad spends much time doing all those invasive invasive species is because he wandered off the path and found all these things and of course he couldn't just go by we had to pull it up that's how he found it I remember pulling that piece of hemlock off a stone cliff for what John talked about that bee there he found it so now he had to get it out of there and it wasn't the easiest place to get it out of there but the wandering brings great surprises and great comfort in life and I think that's the message that by the past and hopefully when you wander you will always wonder and learn about life and enjoy it thank you