The Lyme Timber Company of Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) received a Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Conservation Leadership Award for Biodiversity Research today for leading a project that is improving forest habitat for the American woodcock in northern New York State.

The Lyme Timber Company, a private timberland investment company, and the Wildlife Management Institute, a nonprofit scientific and educational conservation organization, are collaborating to implement the Northern Young Forest Initiative, a landscape-scale habitat-restoration project in the Adirondack region. Other project partners include the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

"This project demonstrates the power of partnerships in achieving conservation goals," said SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow, who presented the award on September 14 at the SFI annual conference in Burlington, Vermont. SFI Inc. is an independent, nonprofit, charitable organization. It is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the internationally recognized Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program. Across North America, more than 190 million acres/78 million hectares are certified to the SFI forest management standard, making it the largest single forest standard in the world.

About half of the forest land in the Adirondack region is publicly owned and designated as a forest reserve, and there are stringent harvest regulations on privately owned forests. Over time, this has led to a reduction in young forests, and a decline in a large number of species, including the American woodcock, which thrive in young forest (early successional) habitat. The woodcock is identified by the New York Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plan as a species of greatest conservation need in northern New York State.

The American woodcock, also called the timberdoodle, lives in young forest and shrubby areas often near streams, rivers, and wetlands. In the past, woodcock were abundant because plenty of young forest habitat in their range. But many brushy areas have grown into mature forest. As a result, the species' population has fallen by about 1 percent each year since the 1960s.

The Young Forest Initiatives bring together partners to create healthy, productive tracts of young forest through logging, planting native shrubs and trees, controlled burning, and other habitat-management techniques?efforts that help woodcock and many other wildlife, including golden-winged warblers, brown thrashers, and whip-poor-wills, bobcats, cottontail rabbits' bog turtles and wood turtles.

"Working with project partners, we modified our harvesting techniques on more than 50 sites, creating forest conditions where woodcock can mate, rear their broods, feed and roost," said Sean Ross, Director of Forestry Operations for Lyme Timber. ?"When we acquired the Adirondack property in 2006, just 76 acres were in a young forest condition. We have created nearly 11,000 additional acres of suitable habitat and, in 10 years, we aim to have more than 15,000 acres?about 5 percent of our forest?in brushy early successional woodland, as important habitat for American woodcock and other species."

As part of the project, survey routes were established in 2006 in the harvested stands. Annual monitoring of woodcock in these areas shows the average number of birds observed per route has increased from three in 2006 to nine in 2010.

"We have believed for a long time that responsibly managed forestland,like those certified to the SFI standard, provide significant benefits to wildlife," said Scot Williamson, WMI Vice President. "This project illustrates how we can work successfully with landowners to integrate improved habitat and wildlife management along with the production of forest products."

The partnership also has involved outreach through events and meetings to inform the public, government officials, local conservation groups and the forestry community about the importance of supporting harvesting techniques that help create and maintain early successional forests.