Maine Woodland Owners Welcomes Harold Burnett as Staff Forester!

Harold Burnett has joined Maine Woodland Owners as its staff forester, a part-time role. Executive Director Tom Doak said, “Harold is a very experienced forester and well-known in the forest community. He will be a great help in managing our growing Land Trust.” Burnett took up his work recently and hit the ground running. Harold said, “I’ve laid out timber sales in Lamoine and Sullivan, begun familiarizing myself with the Penobscot and Winn woodlots, flagged boundaries in Standish, in advance of a blazing project, checked in on a harvest operation in New Gloucester, and conferred with several new, potential woodland donors to our Land Trust.” Harold is already familiar with many Maine Woodland Owners Land Trust properties, having managed harvested on the organization’s lands in Rome, Readfied/Winthrop, Poland and Vienna. Some tracts owned by previous clients have since been brought into the Land Trust fold, including woodlots in Sidney and Jackson. “While I’m pleased to continue on-the-ground operations on those and other properties, I am also excited to begin standardizing Maine Woodland Owners’ ownership records, including protocols for mapping, timber inventory, and silvicultural prescriptions, while helping expand the organization’s land base and honor donor wishes to protect their land in perpetuity,” Burnett said. Veteran Consulting Forester Joins Staff He also sees an educational component in his new role, saying, “I look forward to providing greater opportunities to demonstrate long-term forest management, and explaining, in ways that hopefully others can learn and benefit from, how and why we so love woodlands.” Burnett said his more than 30 years as a consulting forester attracted him to the challenge of managing the Maine Woodland Owners Land Trust, “a unique ownership, while also encouraging him “to reconfigure my business ahead of eventual retirement.” Separate from his work as a part-time employee of Maine Woodland Owners, Harold will continue to serve as a private consulting forester on a part-time basis.