Bidwell House Forestry Plans – Public Zoom Meeting

The Bidwell House Museum (BHM) would like to invite friends and neighbors from the Monterey community to a discussion of a proposed timber harvest in a portion of the BHM forest. This harvest will have a significant impact on the look and feel of BHM’s trails; however, this “sanitation cut” (see below) is necessary to responsibly manage our woodland resources. We encourage you to join our discussion by Zoom meeting on March 31 at 7 pm and an in-person pre-harvest tour on April 9 at 10 am.

BHM initiated public engagement regarding our forest stewardship objectives in January 2021 by hosting a Zoom meeting for the community. At that meeting, BHM unveiled a comprehensive forest stewardship plan prepared in 2019. The current proposed Forest Cutting Plan is part of the overall forest stewardship plan, but is limited to a “Sanitation Harvest.” The proposed harvesting will be primarily the White Ash trees that unfortunately are being infested with a non-native invasive bug, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). This invader was detected on the property in the fall of 2020. Once an ash tree is infested by EAB it will die within approximately 2 years.

BHM’s proposed harvest is intended to utilize these resources before most of the ash trees die. Once an ash tree dies, its market value is reduced to nearly zero. With this harvest, the Museum hopes to capture the existing revenue from the sale of these trees while still possible and reduce the hazards of a high number of standing dead trees along our hiking trails.

The Forest Cutting Plan is designed to utilize low-impact forest techniques to minimize the impacts of the work. However, we recognize that the cutting will be highly visible and the aftermath will be messy for a few years. Fortunately, the other trees in BHM’s forest will be retained.

We hope you will join us via Zoom and/or on a pre-harvest tour to learn more about the plans.

The Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the day before the meeting.