If you are a forest owner in Brandon, Pittsford, or the surrounding area and want to manage your land for both productivity and ecological health, County Forester Mark Raishart has a message for you: “I’m available to any of you to go for a walk in the woods or to do a little bit more intensive planning.”
Since August of 2024, Raishart has worked for Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources to support sound forest management on about 1,300 privately owned properties in northern Rutland County and southern Addison County. This Tuesday evening, he sat under a majestic maple tree in Brandon’s Wolf Tree Forest, introducing himself to about 20 landowners from the region and talking about his approach to forestry. The event was co-sponsored by Vermont Coverts, a peer-to-peer organization that promotes managing forests as wildlife habitats.
“I believe that utilizing our forests to produce forest products is a really effective way of keeping them forested,” Raishart said. “We’re committed to long-term stewardship and holistic forest health, not just resource extraction.”
Behind him, a chorus of birds sang in the verdant woods; managed by Len Schmidt and Jennie Masterson for timber as well as diversity and resilience, Wolf Tree Forest is a model of the principles he was describing.
Raishart grew up in northeast Ohio and says he watched his surroundings go from forests and farms to housing developments over a relatively short time period. He studied environmental science at Green Mountain College because he wanted to learn how to protect working landscapes in other communities.
Larry Rowe and Mark Raishart
Later, he taught forestry at Stafford Technical Center for 13 years and also worked for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. He lives with his wife Catie and their three children on Foxglove Farm in Leicester, where they harvest and sell maple syrup from 64 wooded acres; in 2024, it was recognized as an Outstanding Tree Farm by the Vermont Woodlands Association.
As County Forester, he spends a lot of his time working with participants in the state’s Current Use Program, which offers tax breaks for actively managed forests of 25 acres or more. He noted that roughly 80 percent of Vermont is forested and 80 percent of that forest is privately owned by about 80,000 landowners. Sixteen thousand of them are in the Current Use Program, accounting for about three quarters of eligible land, he said.
“It’s a land protection program that’s paid for by taxes and supported by voting, so it’s important to recognize its role in keeping Vermont looking like it does and functioning like it does,” he said.
One challenge moving forward is demographic change. When a participant in Tuesday’s event asked Raishart how many of the landowners he works with are older than him, he estimated that around 90 percent are (he is middle-aged). The group at Wolf Tree Forest reflected that statistic.
“In the next twenty years there’s going to be a significant transition,” Raishart said. “That could be a big deal, depending on who gets the land.”
Forest owners without children interested in taking over are often faced with a tough choice, he said: sell the land for a deep discount to someone who’s willing and able to manage it sustainably, or risk selling at a higher price to someone who’s not.
Vermont Coverts Executive Director Lisa Sausville (left) chats at the event with Catie Raishart, Education and Communications Coordinator at Vermont Woodlands Association and wife of Mark Raishart.
“We need owners who want to steward, not subdivide into ten parcels,” he said, noting the importance of careful planning when development does need to happen.
The divide isn’t so much between lifelong Vermonters and newcomers as between those who are present versus absent in their forests.
“I’m from ‘away’ and I deeply value the land,” he reminded the group.
Local forest owners are facing other challenges, too. The weather in the past several years has been difficult for logging, and then there’s the “endless onslaught” of diseases and insects — a perennial problem compounded by climate extremes. Add in the handful of lumber mills that have recently shut down in the area for economic reasons, and the obstacles to stewardship begin to stack up.
The group gathered at Wolf Tree Farm appeared enthusiastic to tackle them, however. Several had been out removing invasive species like buckthorn and honeysuckle that very day, and many spoke of their abiding love for Vermont’s woods.
“I grew up in the woods and I need the woods and I can’t live without them,” said participant Barbara Richardson of Brandon.
Dave Potter, a former state representative in Clarendon whose land has been in the family for over 200 years and who also attended the event, expressed the sentiment even more strongly.
“I’m not only a steward of the land but sort of a slave to it,” he said.
Mark Raishart can be reached at [email protected]. To learn more about the trainings and other resources offered by Vermont Coverts, visit vtcoverts.org or email [email protected].
Photos: Winifred Bird
