Stockbridge Forests

My good friend Bob Leverett is a giant in the field of old growth forests and a member of the Native Tree Society (NTS). I've excerpted and summarized some of his observations on Stockbridge forests below, including the fact that Stockbridge is #1 in a key measure of forest presence in all of Massachusetts!

NTS' mission is to measure and record important big and/or tall tree sites for historical, ecological, and increasingly climate mitigation purposes.

We measure the heights, circumferences, and sometimes crown spreads of individual trees. We also measure trunk volume, and on rare occasion, full above-ground volume. All this work is done in a non-invasive fashion and does no harm to the trees.

From these measurements, NTS develops site-level statistics, one of which is called the Rucker Index. To compute it, we pick out the tallest member of each of the 10 tallest species and average those heights.

These measures provide a top-down way of analyzing the growth performance of a site, and when done over time, allows them to compute intervening growth rates and to project future growth. Beyond identifying sites with exceptional characteristics, our site-level statistics are beginning to play a role in climate-based analyses of our forests. I've been engaged in tree growth measurements for climate mitigation since 2015.

The current RHI for the Sedgwick Reservation stands at 127.4, making it the second highest in Massachusetts. Nearby Ice Glen is a very close third. For a New England site, these are extraordinarily high numbers. For example, we have not gone above 118 north of Massachusetts.

For the named sites in Massachusetts, the list of the top three is now:

1. Mohawk Trail State Forest: 136
2. Stockbridge's Sedgwick Reservation: 127.4
3. Stockbridge's Ice Glen 127.3

At the level of an entire township, currently Stockbridge reigns supreme in all Massachusetts. Its RHI is currently between 132 and 133, or about 10 points above Northampton, currently number 2. Most Massachusetts towns with a wealth of mature trees will be in the 110-to-120-point range. Many more municipalities lie between 100 and 110.

Forest managers often claim the highest carbon sequestration occurs in young woodlands. Young forests do grow fast, but they're starting out from seeds. It requires 35-40 years for a pine to begin pulling really significant amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere. And after that, high amounts of annual carbon capture can continue for another 80 or more years. This represents an entirely different assessment of forest carbon capture and storage than portrayals of young forests as the ones doing the heavy lifting. It is actually the other way around.

Stockbridge is making a significant contribution to mitigating the impact of global warming. I think that deserves greater recognition and appreciation.

Thanks, Bob! Let me just add, none of this happens by accident. Generations of volunteers have stewarded forests for the town or its nonprofits, including the Laurel Hill Association and the Stockbridge Land Trust. The Town has been a state leader in its efforts to preserve Ice Glen, winning the MMA's Kenneth Pickard leadership award for those efforts, the first Berkshire Town in over a decade to be so honored.

In 2021, we appropriated town funds and successfully applied for a USDA suppression grant to save the old growth ash and hemlock trees in Ice Glen. Unfortunately, that money has run out. To continue to protect these trees from the ash borer and woolly adelgid, we will need to reapply for state and federal grants and potentially provide some stop gap funding at Town Meeting this year. I look forward to working with our Agriculture and Forestry Commission to secure the funding to maintain this important stewardship.

Bob Leverett and Monica Jakuc at Ice Glen, as featured on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine in 2022.