Clearcut of Forest in Mass. Should Doom Pending NJ Legislation

“Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre”

Savoy State Forest, Mass. (source: http://clearcutma.blogspot.com/ )

[Important Update below]

Information being distributed on email listserves is stoking major new concerns by some NJ conservationists that Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests in Massachusetts have been clearcut.

There is pending “Forest Stewardship” legislation in NJ – the pending NJ bill would rely on the same FSC certification process that failed so badly in Massachusetts.

These developments should doom the NJ “Forest Stewardship” pending legislation we have criticized several times here as likely to produce exactly these kinds of abuses.

In addition to the Massachusetts abuses, the pending NJ bill lacks important regulatory safeguards, as we’ve noted previously.

If there is any doubt about the nature and extent of the clearcutting abuses in Massachusetts State forests, check of the photos posted on the website “$ The Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre $”.

The abuses of the Massachusetts FSC certification program have been subject to oversight by another website called “FSC Watch“, who wrote:

The more than half million acres of Massachusetts Public Forests, including the Savoy Forest, were certified by Scientific Certification Systems Inc, in August 2004. SCS evidently had difficulty in massaging the state public bodies through the certification process: of the 17 ‘conditions’ which SCS had attached to the certificate between 2002, when assessment began, and 2004, only two conditions had been ‘closed out’ by the time the certificate was issued. SCS’s Public Summary Report of the certificate reveals that, at the time of certificaton, the various public bodies responsible for managing forestlands had no landscape level forest management plan, very few actual forest management plans, no means of identifying or delimiting areas of High Conservation Value Forest, had no credible calculations of annual allowable harvest, and had failed to identify, designate, or map representative ecological reserves.

[Update: 7/2/12 – I just received this note requesting clarification:

Thanks for your recent blog post about concern in NJ and lessons from MA.

However, you left out one very significant detail: MA lost it’s FSC certification due to the actions you describe. As a voluntary effort, withdrawing certification is the most significant step FSC can take. See the attached articles as a reference ( for attachments, see this and this).

I’d appreciate it if you’d update your blog post to reflect this fact, which I think is quite material to the story.

Please let me know if I can provide additional info or if you have questions.

Thanks very much.

Savoy State Forest, Mass (source: http://tinyurl.com/canjvuy )