Forestry: Right Here, Right Now

lauren on November 3, 2025

We are at a very unique place and point in time in western NC post-Helene. 800,000 acres of forest were damaged by the hurricane, and we are just now beginning the long recovery process for our natural areas. Since the storm, EcoForesters staff has been working with landowners to assess and address restoration challenges–both new and old. Our forests were already facing ongoing challenges like development, unsustainable logging, fire suppression, lack of oak regeneration, and climate change. Now, with the forest damage wreaked by Helene, all of these obstacles are harder to surmount. At the same time, the government agencies tasked with funding and overseeing the programs to support this restoration are dealing with major restructuring as well as reductions in staff and/or funding.

We must value and properly resource these agencies managing this essential work, not just further burden them–especially here and now. Final assessments are still being done on the impact Helene had on our forests, not to mention our waterways. We have large areas of bare soil needing stabilization and revegetation before they erode further or are overtaken by non-native invasive plants that rapidly infest disturbed areas. Similarly, in the middle of woods where trees were felled or uprooted, invasives will quickly capture the new growing space, outcompeting and even killing native trees trying to regenerate.  

Yet there will also be opportunities as forests regrow. Early successional (i.e., young) forests were an underrepresented habitat type that many animals needed. Due to Helene, we now have plenty of regrowing forests, and we can make them better for wildlife and humans. We can have a hand in shaping our new young forests by selecting the most desirable trees to favor (like oaks, which are the keystone species for wildlife, well-adapted to climate change, fire-tolerant, and a very valuable timber tree) to create a more diverse and resilient future forest to withstand more severe weather and potential wildfires.

However, with all the forest damage, we need to first re-establish access to our woods so we can do the necessary work to restore them. Without re-opening blocked forest roads and clearing some of the downed wood, we can’t stop wildfires from spreading, control invasive plants, tend the young forest, or plant where needed. 

The Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) is the main funding mechanism to allow us to regain access to do the forest restoration work. Government agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the NC Forest Service bear the responsibility of funding and leading most of the above work, which will likely go on for at least a decade. Agencies and programs like the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Landscape Scale Restoration Program have always provided funding to help farmers and forestland owners improve their lands for the public benefits they provide: from clean air and water, to carbon storage, to wildlife habitat, to products and simple beauty. As short-term emergency response programs like FEMA and EFRP go away, ongoing support for and from the agencies and programs that have always provided the ability to fund this expensive and time-sensitive work will be even more essential. Therefore, it is essential right now that in areas impacted by Helene these federal and state funds and agency staff are not cut, but sustained and bolstered to see the recovery through.

Continued public support for government funding to at least maintain these agencies locally and help from regional forestry and environmental organizations will be needed to offset the extensive costs of regaining access to and restoring our natural areas. Local foundations and donors like the Community Foundation for Western NC have stepped up funding to help meet this ongoing need. There is also a need for more companies that can do the needed wood removal (i.e., loggers) and markets to sell this valuable commodity to–both of which have been in steady decline. Furthermore, we need more people trained in invasive plant control and other forest improvement work.  

With a concerted, sustained collaborative effort of government, private funders, non-profits, forest workers, and forest landowners, Helene-impacted forests can come back even healthier, stronger, and more diverse. But it will take an investment of significant resources here, now, and for the next decade into the public, non-profit, and private forestry sectors.

CHALLENGES FACING FUNDING FORESTRY

Funding has always been one of the biggest hurdles facing forest restoration, with barriers to funding increasing in the last few years. The loss of federal support to agencies such as the USDA limits available programs for forest landowners, thinning their ability to pay for planning and stewardship. The NC Forest Service is currently dealing with position vacancies, adding to the work of their current staff and reducing work capacity. Local forest product markets have also diminished, particularly with the closure of the Canton paper mill in 2023. Though other markets are emerging (such as carbon and biochar), the need for funding is much more immediate. 

The unforeseen damage and associated costs from Helene have exacerbated this need. Downed trees have created a great loss of future timber revenue for many forest owners, and the window to salvage timber is quickly closing (with few professionals available to conduct a salvage harvest). These downed trees have also created the perfect opportunity for non-native invasive species to spread. Proper treatment of these infestations, along with forest stand improvement work to encourage regeneration of desirable tree species, will be essential in promoting forest health and resilience. It is crucial that we continue to find ways to fund this necessary work and reduce the financial burden placed on rural forest owners. 

A Landowner’s Devotion

lauren on April 19, 2024

Sometimes, landowners are putting in the work before we even engage them. These “model” landowners know what they want to do and are actively making their forests healthier. This is sometimes as simple as developing a plan and putting it into action. However, Russ Oates will tell you that nothing in the mountains is simple.

Russ won our EcoForester of the Year Award in 2023 for many good reasons. He is one of the most devoted and directly involved forestland owners in stewarding and restoring his forest for biodiversity, forest health, and wildlife especially. After all, he is a retired wildlife biologist who worked for 28 years for the US Fish & Wildlife Service. He and his wife bought 192 mountainous acres in Yancey County in 1996 and “retired” to return to NC from Alaska in 2013. They bought an additional adjoining 22 acres in 2016. 

Over the past 28 years he has planted and tended over 1,200 trees that most benefit wildlife but need help getting established (oaks, hickories, chestnuts, cherries, spruce and fir) in small wildlife openings he created scattered across his property. The vast majority of these trees survived Helene and will be his legacy on the land. He visits every tree up to 3 times a year to control the more aggressive plants (with our crew’s help and some of our grant funding) that can outcompete the slower growing oaks to ensure there will be an even more diverse, resilient, and healthy future forest.

However, Helene took down roughly 15 acres of his mature forest: some with wind, but mostly by the large debris flows that tore through the 3 upper drainages on his property, which merged and continued down his formerly beautiful creek to create a bare ditch now up to 8 feet deeper and a devegetated area 30-160 feet wider than the creek was.

Fortunately, he had thoroughly controlled any non-native invasive plants on his original property long before Helene, so his forests will regrow well on their own with native plants, except maybe where it is now bare mineral (clay) soil – which is infertile, steep, and getting baked by the sun now that the trees are gone. However, despite this devastation, he has kept tending his planted trees – fixing up the damaged deer exclosures he built and installed on every planted seedling (once he realized he needed to do that about 5 years ago). He is also taking this as an opportunity to plant more in these newly disturbed areas.

His first priority is to get some vegetation established on these now bare, steep stream banks for immediate erosion control to stop more soil from washing into the creek and further impacting the previously very high-quality water. The simplest and quickest way to do this initially is to spread annual ryegrass (which is cheap, easily available and germinates in 3 days), some fertilizer, and straw mulch on these slopes: then, ideally on steep slopes, cover it with biodegradable coconut fiber matting to hold the seed in place. Once some vegetation is established, erosion will be greatly reduced. And then, he can overseed with more desirable and perennial native grasses and wildflowers. Next, as the annual ryegrass dies back over the summer, the naturally existing and additionally spread native seeds can grow and establish a nice native grass and wildflower stream bank this growing season. This work is still in the early stages, but will proceed further as more assistance is secured.

To truly stabilize these stream banks he is planning on getting perennial woody plants established with year round roots to really hold the soil in place. Fortunately, many floodplain species will grow roots by just putting a freshly cut branch at least half way (preferably 2/3rds) into the ground with at least 2 buds above the ground – called “livestaking”. Branches that are at least 1’ long and at least ½” in diameter work well for species such as willows (silky or black), dogwood (silky or red osier), elderberry, nine-bark, buttonbush, alder, spicebush, and even larger tree species such as sycamore, cottonwood, and river birch. (For more info see NCSU Extension Service’s publication: https://bae.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/07/Small-scale-Solutions-to-Eroding-Streambanks.pdf).

Finally, he plans to plant a row of white oaks (the most desirable tree for wildlife), and possibly some shagbark hickories along the top of the stream bank. Russ has applied for Emergency Forest Restoration Program funding from the Farm Service Agency which will help offset the costs of his work. He is still waiting patiently to learn if he was accepted, but landowners that have a management plan and are mitigating wildfire risks should be well suited to be reimbursed for some of their expenses.

This is what one dedicated man (and a very understanding wife!) can do when he devotes his time and invests his money in improving his forest. It is likely that this forest will come back more diverse, resilient and healthy in the future – even after the destruction of Helene.