Northcentral Forests of Pennsylvania
Kane Hardwood Celebrates 150 Years of Responsible
Land and Resource Stewardship

Kane Hardwood, a Collins family-owned forest products company, with roots in the Allegheny Forests of McKean County, recently marked its 150-year anniversary. Kane Hardwood owns 126,000 acres of this environmental hardwood forest, which spans seven counties in northwest Pennsylvania. Their property is in the heart of the world’s finest black cherry hardwood, along with oaks, maples, ashes, beech, poplars and basswood.

The Collins family attributes the long-term success of this thriving hardwood forest to their commitment to sustainable forestry, ecosystem management and natural biodiversity. Their philosophy is “Let the land dictate the practices, not the mill’s need for logs. Be patient, be prudent, be good stewards of the whole forest...the watersheds, the birds, the plants, the animals.” This approach embraces a land management and conservation stewardship vision that is larger than their business interests.

The Allegheny River runs through the FSC-certified hardwoods of the Collins Pennsylvania forest in Kane Pa.

Kane Hardwood Forest Manager Blaine Puller explains, “We carefully select the sites to be harvested so that we can increase the quantity and quality of further yields by concentrating on the regeneration which will become the next stand.”
Beyond sustained yield, the company’s forest management plan mandates environmental sensitivity. This includes locating logging roads so that they don’t impactwater quality, preserving potential nesting trees in timber harvest areas, leaving plenty of woody debris to enrich the soil and provide wildlife habitat, and protecting rivers, streams and wetlands.

Working together, Kane Hardwood and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy have achieved outstanding results for conservation in northern Pennsylvania. Kane Hardwood properties have been included in county ecological assessments conducted by WPC. This has provided Kane Hardwood information on the rare and endangered species on its land. In addition, Kane Hardwood and WPC collaborated in the protection of the Clarion River as a wilderness-like corridor.

Kane Hardwood’s lands are open to the public. All of its land is enrolled in the Forest-Game Cooperative of the Pennsylvania Game Commission and is available for hunting, fishing and trapping as well as hiking, skiing, camping and pure aesthetic enjoyment of the forest.

Go to the next article, The Allegheny National Forest.