Written by Dave Lefever on 7 April 2025 for Lancaster Farming Information
Troy Firth, entrance, leads a bunch on a forest stroll. Photograph credit score: Basis for Sustainable Forests
The higher a part of a lifetime spent working within the woods has given Troy Firth quite a lot of perception into forest administration. In case you’re a woodlot or forest proprietor, his first recommendation could be to coach your self on it. Firth would additionally take pleasure in taking you out on a forest stroll, his favourite instructing technique. Although he’d moderately present what he is aware of than simply inform it, the 77-year-old forester and 2024 Pennsylvania Leopold Conservation Award winner took a while to speak on the cellphone as his maple tapping actions wound down over the last week of March. Firth has been working in forestry for greater than 50 years since rising up within the farming group of Spartansburg, Crawford County, the place he nonetheless lives.
He owns and manages Firth Maple Merchandise, one of many largest producers of maple syrup within the state in addition to a purveyor of hardwood lumber, together with black cherry and white arduous maple. Nevertheless, Firth’s involvement in forestry goes a lot additional as he seeks to make sure the long run viability of woodlands within the area by his nonprofit land belief, Basis for Sustainable Forests, launched in 2004 along with his now-deceased spouse, Lynn.
Troy Firth in an earlier picture with now-deceased spouse Lynn, who helped him set up the Basis for Sustainable Forests within the early 2000s. Photograph credit score: Basis for Sustainable Forests
“The mission is to maintain forested land forested,” Firth stated. “That’s why the muse exists.”
He has held to that mission by important challenges, together with China’s takeover within the early 2000s of a lot of the market share within the U.S. furnishings business. Furnishings makers had relied on home lumber since World Battle II. Because of the takeover, lumber costs have stayed under inflation stage since 2005, Firth stated. Previous to that that they had outpaced inflation for many years. Moreover, up to now 25 years land costs in northwestern Pennsylvania have gone from about $300 to $3,000 per acre, he stated. The mix of decrease timber costs and better land values leaves woodlands weak to changing into one thing apart from forest — and that considerations Firth. Regardless of a lifetime working to preserve them, he isn’t assured the forests he loves can be preserved in perpetuity. “I actually have sort of a cynical angle,” he stated. His basis acts as a land belief that doesn’t maintain easements however moderately purchases woodlands outright. It displays Firth’s need to supply the forests most safety towards altering attitudes and financial circumstances that would put them in danger.
“You possibly can’t assure (preservation in perpetuity),” he stated. “You possibly can train folks all you may train them, however they’re going to die. What is going to the following era do?”
Regardless of being lower than optimistic, Firth is doing all he can to verify forests will exist for future generations. Thus far his basis has bought about 3,500 acres of land, along with the 5,000 acres he owns that can at some point change into a part of the muse. He additionally consults with some native woodland homeowners and shares his data throughout forest walks and the annual “Loving the Land By way of Working Forests” convention hosted by the muse.
Troy Firth – Photograph credit score: Annie Maloney, Basis for Sustainable Forests
He acknowledged the challenges landowners face studying to handle their woods, saying that even skilled recommendation ought to be weighed fastidiously.
“Every part ought to be taken with a grain of salt,” he stated. “The landowner must get multiple opinion. And he must be taught himself.”
That features individuals who have already got some familiarity with the land, in addition to those that transfer from cities and suburbs and have little to no data of forests.
“In the present day we are inclined to have leisure landowners,” Firth stated. “They wish to get out of the town however know nothing. They could not know a cardinal from a blue jay.”
The rise in stress from invasive species has change into a serious menace to forest regeneration throughout Firth’s lifetime. Firth stated a few of the deserted farmland in his space fails to transform again to forest by itself due to invasive vegetation and deer stress. He has been experimenting with completely different strategies of regenerating forests, preferring the extra economical technique of scattering tree seeds moderately than planting saplings. He has additionally noticed species shift in response to warming temperatures. Tulip poplars have gotten extra frequent on what was previously the northern fringe of the tree’s distribution.
First Rules
Delving into the specifics of Firth’s “worst first” and “uneven aged” strategy to forest administration is past the scope of this text, however his rules are evident in an Aldo Leopold quote he recited from reminiscence:
“A factor is correct when it tends to protect the integrity, stability and fantastic thing about the biotic group. It’s flawed when it tends in any other case.”
Firth defines forestry because the artwork and science of tree choice. His philosophy will be summed up in a single sentence: “Love the land.” For him, defending the land contains utilizing groups of horses for logging. Horses are in a position to take away logs whereas inflicting much less injury to the forest than machines do, he stated, particularly when the bottom isn’t frozen and snow-covered.
One in all Troy Firth’s horse logging groups. Photograph credit score: Basis for Sustainable Forests
He recommends folks learn Leopold and different conservationists equivalent to Gifford Pinchot and Wendell Berry. Firth stated he and Berry have been pals for about 25 years, bonding over their mutual dedication to conservation. The writer and farmer from Kentucky wrote a letter nominating Firth for a Leopold Award in 2018.
Within the letter, Berry quoted Firth himself saying, “A foul logger goes into the woods excited about what he can take. A superb logger goes into the woods excited about what he can go away.”
Berry wrote that Firth’s “love for the forest implies the necessity to realize it, the necessity to observe it knowledgeably and intelligently for years after which a long time, and the necessity to use it with the utmost kindness and care.”
Additionally writing in help of Firth was now-deceased Jim Finley, the founding father of the James C. Finley Middle for Non-public Forests at Penn State.
“(Troy and Lynn’s) dedication to sustainable forestry is setting new requirements for the administration of personal forests in northwestern Pennsylvania, and their efforts are gaining recognition as a related working mannequin that may restore and defend the well being of Pennsylvania’s forests by energetic forest administration,” Finley wrote.
Annie Maloney, the muse’s govt director, stated Firth’s longevity within the timber business has strengthened his conservation efforts.
“His success by the ups and downs of the timber markets and basic financial system is a testomony to his tenacity and dedication to the problem of prioritizing forest well being over short-term positive factors,” she stated.
The Leopold Conservation Award Program acknowledges achievement in voluntary conservation by agricultural and forest landowners.
The $10,000 awards are introduced by the Sand County Basis, which was impressed by Aldo Leopold’s rules. The American Farmland Belief and conservation teams sponsor the honors.
Troy Firth, proper, promoting his maple merchandise in an earlier period. Photograph credit score: Troy Firth
