In February 2023, construction of a beautiful brand-new horse barn was completed near the Berea College Forest. It houses the College draft horses that work diligently alongside staff foresters to manage more than 9,000 acres of College-owned woodlands.
Instead of the repurposed and dilapidated former tobacco barn the horses once called home, Berea’s four magnificent (and endangered) Suffolk Punch draft horses—Willow, Holly, Lucy, and Theo—now rest their hooves in a modern stable with 10 white oak stalls and climate-controlled tack rooms. There’s also plenty of space for their human friends, as well.
“I love how wide we made the center lane and how high and grand the ceiling is,” says chief horse logging technician and recent Berea graduate, John Hite ’19. “This is a working barn, but it’s also an experiential classroom, so we wanted to have lots of room for students and visitors.”
In addition to practicing fundamental animal care and horsemanship, the students who fulfill their Labor Program hours at the horse barn also learn highly specialized skills, such as sustainable forestry, agribusiness, and land management by working in the College’s innovative horse logging program.
Together, the horses and foresters can access remote areas of the forest and then drag sustainably felled timber to access roads, minimizing the disturbance to the forest habitat along the way. This relatively light hoofprint is more sustainable than typical logging methods that require clear-cutting wide paths of otherwise-healthy trees to accommodate heavy mechanized equipment.
Horse logging has deep historical roots in the forests of Appalachia, and it, together with “worst-first” tree harvest selection, enhances the health of the forest so that its recreational and ecological value increases over time.
This sustainable method of logging also ensures consistent economic productivity for the College Forest over the years, largely by earning funds through participation in the California Carbon Credit market. Allowing the College Forest’s trees and plant life to thrive through sustainable land management practices like horse logging will earn the College annual income from the carbon market, providing steady funding rather than the one-off payouts gleaned from selling felled timber.
These funds are invested right back into the environmental sustainability efforts of the College Forest, including the all-new horse barn, Forestry Outreach Center, and other educational opportunities for students and the nature-loving public. Just as horse logging sustains the College Forest, support from friends like you sustains Berea College’s mission.
“The real winners here are the students,” says Hite, who also supervises a team of Berea student foresters. “You can’t go wrong investing in people like them and programs that help them.”
