PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 21, 2022
Mainers have worked and played in the woods and manufactured and used wood products harvested from the state’s forests for generations. Maine’s forests provide wildlife habitat, sustain cold water fisheries, absorb and store carbon dioxide and provide clean water and clean air. Maine’s forests are also the source of wood, the renewable material we use in our everyday lives. That is the key point overlooked in a recent op-ed by Zack Porter and Joan Maloof (“Commentary: Don’t be fooled by myths of carbon in Maine, New England wood products,” Nov. 7). The authors argue that all timber harvesting should cease on New England’s public and private lands, that we should leave the forests to grow old, and that this step alone would magically remove more carbon from the atmosphere. If we don’t harvest the wood we use here in New England, it will be harvested and processed somewhere else. Concrete and steel are far more carbon intense than wood. Doing well in Maine’s forests and for the forestry community requires being more informed. ~ Patty Cormier, Maine state forester