What is a Community Forest?
A place to be, and a place to work and learn.
A community forest is locally owned by a community based organization in service to that community with long-term management goals that provide for diversity and respectful use of the land. Specific prescriptions are applied for different parcels, depending on the current health of the forest land.
For example on OCCFA-owned Forest Hill, we are using a method we call "windfall harvest". We can use a mindful gleaning approach because our costs associated with this land allow for minimal impact activities. Forest Hill will not only sustain itself but enable the OCCFA to support a growing landscape that is moving toward old-growth like conditions.
Forest land that is allowed to return to a natural state of diversity offers our community many gifts: trails, wildlife habitat and wood materials available for both lumber and artisan products.
Whenever possible these forest lands will be available to artists, photographers, travelers, birders and hikers and more.
A community forest can be a vibrant and healthy forest and, at the same time, a productive working forest.
Imagine a forest ...
Imagine what would happen if a small group of people had the foresight to envision a future ... a future in which forests are understood in the context of their own natural time frames ... our own life span can trick us into thinking we must add "old" to any entity that has the audacity to outlive us.
So, we call it "old-growth".
Imagine children generations from now discovering that the natural time frame of a healthy forest is an endless cycle of the ancient being renewed ... new trails in old places.
Over time the chaos of diversity is welcomed and we reconnect our collective selves with the voices of the wild.
