A successful year for GMF’s executive director

By David Beers

It has been almost a year since Mike Zarfos started his new position as executive director of Great Mountain Forest (GMF). He is now back working full time after recently taking some time off to care for his newborn daughter, Eila (meaning oak in Hebrew). Norfolk Now stopped by his office to find out how things are going.

Zarfos immediately shared some exciting news for GMF. -Great Mountain Forest was one of eight recipients of a climate-smart land stewardship grant to fund a climate-smart forestry demonstration project to enhance the resilience and productivity of its forest. This grant is supplemented by another New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) grant. These two grants will reimburse many of the costs of treatments on 70 acres to help foster a diverse and structurally complex forest that is proactively enhanced for climate change. These treatments include improvement thinnings, eradication of invasive species and planting trees at the northern edge of their range in anticipation of a warming climate – trees such as white oak and tulip poplar.

This project will be a focus of future forest research for GMF and will also showcase to other landowners and managers what is possible on their land. This project was part of a recent training for land managers on NEFF’s GROH program. GROH stands for Grow Resilient Oak-Hickory Forests. GROH training at GMF will give land managers and landowners the tools to implement and acquire funding for climate-smart forestry practices on their land. GMF is this new program’s flagship education, demonstration and research site.

Zarfos plans to include the GROH training in the GMF Woodland Academy, which started last year. Woodland Academy offerings are being expanded from the three-day summer training offered last year to many educational opportunities throughout 2025. Training topics include exotic invasive vegetation, forest health, wildlife habitat and interpreting the history of the forest landscape. 

A third grant that GMF anticipates being awarded in the coming months is a five-year federal annual payment. This grant is administered through the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) as part of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). This program is designed to build on GMF’s conservation efforts with a conservation plan to strengthen GMF’s current forest stewardship projects. This includes enhancing bat habitat, among other ongoing forestry activities.

Besides pursuing funding and outreach opportunities, the forest was busy in 2024. A commercial timber harvest was completed on the Number Four Road. Excavating contractor Dusty Blass spread 1,000 tons of gravel on the Number Four Road as part of repairs following catastrophic washouts in July of 2023. Twenty-six hunters, who serve as wildlife and property monitors, reported on their wildlife observations throughout the entire forest following 660 hours of effort. Three summer interns were occupied with research, property/boundary maintenance, and forest inventory. And there is a brand-new weather station. A story is planned about that for next month.

Zarfos hopes to increase overnight use of the forest’s Yale Camp. He would also like to see more use of GMF by nature education, school students and scout groups. This year’s three summer forestry internships have received a whopping 70 applicants. GMF is also currently hiring a full-time property maintenance assistant. The monthly GMF newsletter is receiving a makeover. Please visit the GMF website to subscribe to this free informative newsletter.

Finally, Zarfos is excited to report that he saw his first moose at GMF’s Wampee Pond. Do not hesitate to stop by the GMF office at 10 Station Place and ask him about it.