Click here to view the Howland Research Forest Presentation
Howland and Edinburg, Maine
In November 2007, the Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased and permanently protected the 550-acre Howland Research Forest, located in Howland and Edinburg, Maine. Howland Forest is characterized by old-growth spruce and hemlock and provides habitat for species such as moose, black bear, bobcat, and bald eagle.
Initially established as a research site by International Paper in 1987, Howland has hosted scientists from around the world for studies on forest health and climate change. Over a decade ago, Howland scientists began to examine how the forest stores carbon and helps stabilize our planet from three meteorological towers on the land. These scientists now have one of the longest records of carbon intake and output (flux) in the world. This data forms the basis for policies that mitigate the impacts of global warming.
In 2004, Howland Forest was purchased as part of a larger land transaction and was scheduled to be logged. Concerned about the fate of their research, scientists from the University of Maine, Woods Hole Research Center, and United States Forest Service contacted the Northeast Wilderness Trust to develop a solution. The Northeast Wilderness Trust with the support of conservation partners raised the necessary $1 million to purchase and preserve the forest in perpetuity.
Climate change. Seemingly over night it has become a household phrase. It has found its way into curricula, marketing schemes, and political platforms with a fervor and prominence that would have been inconceivable only a few years ago.
But long before Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, Hurricane Katrina, and winters so warm they made converts of skeptics, teams of international scientists were scaling the research towers and convening in the cool under-story of Howland Forest, collecting data that would form the basis of climate change research. Howland scientists have one of the longest records of carbon flux measurement in the world.
Howland Research site is a magnificent 557 acre forest in central Maine. Here, for decades, scientists have been studying the ecological dynamics of a truly wild place, home to red spruce, hemlock and white cedars that started growing before our country's independence.
 Researchers from the University of Maine, Woods Hole Research Center, United States Forest Service, NASA, NOAA and numerous other institutions have developed pioneering studies of acid rain, nutrient cycling and soil ecology at Howland Forest. For nearly 20 years, continuous measurements of forest carbon uptake and loss have been taken—a critical lens for understanding global climate change. Hundreds of scientific papers and findings have drawn on discoveries made at Howland.
Howland recent scientific findings on carbon sinks and sequestration are critical to our communities, economy and ecology as climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. The scientific studies underway at the site are critical to our understanding of climate change and will help shape policies and strategic programs to curb carbon emissions.
Research forests provide a long-term portrait of the changing health and composition of our returning forests, as species rise and fall in response to forces like forest maturation, pests, and air pollution. Howland Forest stands out from other long-term study areas in the Northeast because it is not managed, logged or manipulated, and its trees are older that any other research forest in the region. Now preserved, Howland Forest will continue its unique role as a forever-wild research site, serving as a vital baseline of ecological normalcy.
The Howland site is a research station, a place where questions about the workings of nature can be asked and answered at many levels. The answers complement one another over time, building the story of the landscape. Yes, of course, it would be of interest to have a vast expanse of forested land whose pulse can be taken and monitored over years, a magnificent continuing natural laboratory of ecology that offers an "experiment" that can be followed over years.
Our best approximation is our 550 acre tract of old-growth. Within that tract we can examine details of gross metabolism of the forest, its total respiration, carbon budget, nitrogen budget, energy budget, water flows and a score of other vital attributes. We can follow changes in populations, of plants and animals as climate and environmental chemistry change. We can, and do, follow soils in the same way, in great detail, defining sources and sinks of methane, for example, and scores of other fluxes as affected by environment and as effects on environment. It is the continuity and accumulated and complementary experience in one place that is the primary value. But even beyond the science, the protection of the integrity of function of the landscape is clearly in the public interest in this badly destabilized world. We need this land, and much more, preserved.
— George Woodwell, Founder, Woods Hole Research Center. Founding trustee of NRDC, WRI and EDF. Former chairman of the board and member of the National Council of WWF and former president of the Ecological Society of America.
Howland Forest Leadership Committee
Bryan Dail, PhD, University of Maine
Eric Davidson, PhD, Woods Hole Research Center
David Hollinger, PhD, United States Forest Service
Merloyd Ludington, Northeast Wilderness Trust Director
Keith Ross, Maine Consultant, LandVest
George Woodwell, PhD, Woods Hole Research Center
Download Howland Research Forest Profile (.PDF)
Check out the Howland Research Forest WebCam and web-site:
http://howlandforest.org/index_files/towercam/camera0.jpg |
