Vermont climate forester: simpler, younger forests are more vulnerable to pests, extreme weather

Al Freeman, climate forester for the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, told the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry committee on Oct. 12 that Vermont’s largely young, regrown forests are more vulnerable to pests and extreme weather and need management that increases structural and species diversity.

“Forest resilient is the ability to withstand and recover from disturbances such as climate change, pests and pathogens,” Freeman said, defining the agency’s working concept of resilience as he opened the department’s presentation on forest and climate resilience.

Freeman said Vermont’s forest cover returned to roughly 80% of the landscape after large-scale clearing in the 1800s and early 1900s; because many stands developed around the same time, they often have “simple” structures with similar ages and species. Those simple forests, he said, have fewer recovery pathways than more structurally complex forests with diverse ages and species. That matters…