The forest cutting was sought by DCR to restore the globally rare sandplain grassland habitat that has been overtaken by the pines, which were initially planted decades ago as part of an ill-fated lumber industry on the Island. 

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation is proposing a slower rollout of its plans to cut 175 acres of white pines in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest after pushback from Islanders. 

A plan to cut 175 acres of white pine in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest drew significant opposition — along with some support — from the Island community during a recent public comment period, according to a review of more than 100 comments obtained by the Gazette.

Islanders will have a chance to air their concerns about the management of the Manuel F. Correllus state forest next week when state officials hold a public meeting on the Vineyard. 

On Monday crews from R.J. Cobb Land Clearing moved into the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest to begin clearing some 90 acres of dead red pine trees that have been blighted in recent decades by the fungus diplodia pinea. The work is part of a larger three-year effort to remove 237 acres of timber that was originally planted as early as 1925 in the forest.

The red pine plantations of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest have been described as recently as 1998 by this paper as a “pine cathedral,” with evenly spaced rows of the northern evergreen towering above a forest floor nearly barren except for a carpet of needles. Now that cathedral has been all but sacked by fungal barbarians known as diplodia pinea which infect the trees from the shoots and rot them to the core.