11/30/2013 Shutesbury, MA - Kate Marquis sprays paint on a tree, marking it for loggers. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
This picture story was the final project for my photojournalism class: a profile of a forester, Kate Marquis. Marquis is a licensed forester at W.D. Cowls, Inc, the largest private landowner in Massachusetts, where she manages over 100 woodlots in 30 towns by selecting unhealthy trees or trees in decline to sell to sawmills for firewood, pulp and construction timber. “People think that cutting trees is bad but they don’t think about where their furniture comes from,” said Marquis. By cutting down trees in decline, resources like space and sunlight become available to trees that could grow for a much longer time.
The revenue enables the landowners to keep their land, and therefore the forests. Cowls’ forests are open to the public for recreation like hiking, cross-country skiing and hunting, although many do not realize that they are trekking on private land. And sometimes, people leave their trash in the woods. “Once we had a car on fire left in a stream,” said Marquis, citing an incident that happened before she joined Cowls.
*Update (2014): Marquis is no longer a forester at Cowls and is currently with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
11/30/2013 Shutesbury, MA – Kate Marquis sprays paint on a tree, marking it for loggers. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/2/2013 Belchertown, MA – Kate Marquis takes notes after marking a tree with blue paint for loggers to cut it down. “Forestry isn’t about cutting trees; it’s about growing trees,” said Marquis. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/30/2013 Shutesbury, MA – Kate Marquis removes dirt and leaves that clog up a water bar, a channel that runs across roads in forests for water to drain. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/30/2013 Amherst, MA – Kate Marquis’ keys are stained blue after three years of using blue tree-marking paint from Nelson Paint Company which also produces paint for paintball. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/2/2013 Belchertown, MA – Kate Marquis laughs at a joke from Peter Brown, not pictured, a logger. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/2/2013 Belchertown, MA – Kate Marquis, bottom, and Peter Brown, top, laugh after posing for a photograph in which Brown pretends to cut Marquis up with his chainsaw. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/30/2013 Shutesbury, MA – Kate Marquis pulls out an abandoned computer monitor estimated to weigh around thirty to thirty-five pounds in the woods. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/30/2013 Amherst, MA – Kate Marquis cuts her own Christmas tree with a handsaw at W.D. Cowls, Inc’s old Christmas tree farm. “I wish I had a chainsaw,” said Marquis. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/30/2013 Amherst, MA – Kate Marquis, left, ties her Christmas tree to the top of her car with Bob Huske, left, her boyfriend. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
11/16/2013 Chicopee, MA – Kate Marquis, right, and her boyfriend Bob Huske, left, enjoy a game with friends during a Thanksgiving party at their house. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim
W.D. Cowls, Inc is a 9th-generation family business that harvests trees from forests continuously in a sustainable way. Visit their website here.
