Timber harvest at Yellowwood State Forest

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has transformed nearly 160,000 acres of once neglected and abandoned farm and forest land into the healthy and diverse forests that exist in Indiana today, including the Yellowwood State Forest’s backcountry.

Forest practice and research shows that periodic timber removal assists in maintaining the overall health of the forest, including managing for endangered species, soil and water protection, sustainable timber and recreational activities. Learn more about timber harvesting in Indiana State Forests.

The periodic strategic removal of trees in managed harvests opens the forest floor to sunlight, allowing new trees to develop. Logging by single-tree selection, which targets mostly stressed, diseased and declining trees, is part of managing for these conditions in the backcountry area.

DNR’s Division of Forestry is currently leading an effort to harvest select trees from the 299 acres of the Yellowwood State Forest’s backcountry. Single-tree selection will be used, as it has been used in the previous 13 harvests of the now Morgan-Monroe/Yellowwood State Forest backcountry area.

Five to seven trees per acre may be removed during this thinning. The DNR’s forestry division determines the trees to be removed dependent on each tree’s health and impact to the overall forest area.

Studies conducted by independent researchers working on State Forests show that species of conservation concern, such as the timber rattlesnake, hooded warbler, worm-eating warbler and Indiana bat can benefit from conditions created by periodic thinning of the areas like the backcountry’s current closed canopy.

Much inaccurate information has been distributed about the timber harvest in the Morgan-Monroe/Yellowwood State Forest’s backcountry area. View maps of the area from 1939 and present.