The US Forest Service’s Experimental Forests and Ranges provide a history and detail on the growth, structure, and functions of forests that are unmatched. Maine’s two experimental forests (the Penobscot and Massabesic) have spent decades building irreplaceable long-term datasets on how northern conifer and oak-pine forests respond to management and environmental stress.

Uncertainty around US Forest Service facility closures and funding cuts put that research legacy at risk, threatening the foundational data that foresters, remote sensing researchers, and AI-driven forest tools all depend on. This month, Matt Russell drafted an op-ed published in the Portland Press Herald that discusses why investing in this “blue collar research” is essential for Maine’s forests.

Visit the Portland Press Herald website to read the op-ed.

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