The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management wants landowners to see the forest for the trees — as well as what those trees provide — with a new Alternative Forest Businesses program.
The program encourages Rhode Island landowners to adopt innovative forest-based business activities as a means of additional income. Suggestions for resources include maple syrup, witch hazel, and floral greenery and specialty wood products. The emphasis is on preserving healthy and sustainable forests.
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“There’s limited potential to generate revenue from conventional timber products,” said Scott Millar, administrator of the Sustainable Watersheds Office for the DEM.
Millar and Environmental Planner Gregg Cassidy received a grant to get the Alternative Forest Businesses program off the ground a few years ago. The grant was from the United States Forest Service for $30,000.
According to Private Forest Landowners of the Northern United States approximately 26,000 landowners in Rhode Island own forestland. Four thousand of those landowners own more than 10 acres of it. The goal of the Alternative Forest Products program is to make sure those 4,000 people hold onto their land.
“The hope is to just interest more people in finding ways to improve the economic viability of the land they’re holding so there is less pressure to sell and divide the property,” said State Forester and Chief of the Division of Forest Environment Thomas Dupree.
The program, which the DEM put together in conjunction with the Rural Lands Coalition, will assess alternative forest uses to replace or augment traditional forest products and to foster natural resource-based economic development in rural areas that is consistent with rural character and lifestyle. Other suggestions for forest byproducts include mushrooms and ginseng.
The first step in initiating the program is education.
“Almost everyone recognizes wood and timber as a valuable product, but the important thing is to show that there are other things, so we made brochures and tried to research and think of every possibility for Rhode Island,” said Cassidy.
Dupree said education is the most important step because there are so many people who own forestland in the state.
“The state is still 56 percent forest and 85 percent of that is owned by private landowners,” he said. “When you think of traditional forest activities there’s not much opportunity if you just focus on traditional logging efforts, so the concept we worked on was trying to educate landowners on alternative products that could be grown within the forest that could provide hobby income.”
The hobby income could be enough reason for a landowner to hold onto forestland if there is a possibility of a need to sell, said Cassidy.
“This program will try to make sure there is no neglect and no overtaking,” he said. “It can give someone an alternative when their backs are against the wall.”
Dupree agreed.
“We’re bringing the message to owners of forests and the hope is that some of these owners will be able to generate some side income that will help them pay taxes and enable them to hold onto the land longer,” he said.
Millar added that oftentimes there is a need to make the land economically feasible to hold onto.
“Really all of Rhode Island is subject to development pressure,” he said. “A lot of landowners’ ultimate last resorts would be to sell their property because they’re land-rich, but cash-poor.”
The DEM holds workshops and goes to individual properties to educate people about what kinds of resources can be cultivated from their forestland.
Dupree is very optimistic about the program.
“I sort of liken it to 20 to 30 years ago when the Christmas tree industry was a very minor scene in Rhode Island,” he said, “And then we started to work with landowners and boy the local Christmas industry just took off!”
