Forest Service Bombards Vermont
6/06/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Topic: Forest Service Bombards Vermont
Written 6:07 AM Jun 6, 1996 by nfnena in cdp:nfn.tempforest
From: Native Forest Network-ENA
Subject: Forest Service Bombards Vermonters With Timber Sales
Service Bombards Vermonters With Timber Sales
Write or Call the Forest Service and ask them to extend the comment
period for the five timber sales by sixty days:
Mr. James Barthelme Forest Supervisor
Green Mountain National Forest
231 North Main St
Rutland, VT 05701-2417
(802) 747 6700
In a series of five timber sale proposals all issued in the past
three weeks, the Forest Service has announced plans to log over 800
acres of the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. Two hundred
and sixty four acres will be logged through Clearcutting and its
variants, which include "shelterwood" logging, a two-stage form of
clearcutting where most of the trees are removed immediately, and the
rest in 20 years. A total of over four and a half million board feet
of timber will be removed from the National Forest with these five
sales.
The Chandler Ridge and South Lincoln Timber Sales, which call for
two-stage clearcutting (shelterwood) of 86 acres of rare oak stands,
have drawn particular public opposition.
The four Environmental Assessments for the five timber sales total
over 191 pages of text, charts and maps. Forest Service regulations
require comments from the public no later than thirty days after an
Environmental Assessment is issued.
The Forest Service gives lip service by saying they want public
input, but in practice they are making it impossible for the public
to be involved in the management of their forests. There's just no
way that the public can meaningfully participate in the management of
their forests when the agency supposedly managing these lands for
them dumps all of this in their laps at the same time.
The timber sales follow a restructuring of the Forest Service in
Vermont in the wake of a recent court decision which declared Forest
Service plans to log in the Lamb Brook roadless area of the Green
Mountain National Forest to be illegal. A new forest supervisor,
planner, and a new district ranger have been appointed.
If the Forest Service really wished to uphold their motto of 'Caring
for the land and serving people,' they would give the public ample
time to get involved in the management of public lands. Swamping the
public with nearly two hundred pages of documentation for five
separate logging operations and telling them that they have only 30
days to comment demonstrates that the Forest Service is more
interested in steam-rolling the public with the Forest Service's
logging agenda than meaningfully considering public input.
Unlike the west, where there are vast public holdings of forestland,
the Green Mountain National Forest makes up only 5 percent of the
state of Vermont. According to the Forest Plan for the Green Mountain
National Forest:
We believe that public land in New England is scarce and precious.
Our management philosophy reflects that belief. The Green Mountain
National Forest should be managed to provide benefits that private
land does not. With its large blocks of land in remote areas, the
GMNF is particularly well suited to providing opportunities for
backcountry recreation and Wilderness.
The Plan further states that while "Private lands should easily be
able to meet (societies demand for wood products) private lands are
less well suited to meet demands for recreation and wildlife
benefits.
The Green Mountain National Forest makes up only 5% of the state, but
it contains some of the most important remote forestlands for
wildlife and recreation. They are worth far more to Vermonters
standing in the forest, producing clean air and water, habitat for
wildlife, and providing open spaces to visit with our friends, our
families, or alone, than on the back of a logging truck. These
priceless public assets should not sold off to private industry to
advance a timber agenda set by special interests Washington. Public
servants should not silence public involvement in the management of
public lands.
The five timber sales are the Mad Tom Timber Sale, located on the
Green Mountain National Forest in Peru, VT; the Lookout III Timber
Sale, located on the Green Mountain National Forest in Rochester, VT;
the Chandler Ridge Timber Sale, located on the Green Mountain
National Forest in Leicester, VT; the South Lincoln Timber Sale
located in the town of Lincoln, VT; and the Otter Creek Timber Sale,
located on the Green Mountain National Forest in Mount Tabor, VT.
Asking the Forest Service to extend the public comment period by
sixty days to allow the public time to consider these proposals and
provide meaningful input.
Excerpts from Public comments on the Chandler Ridge and South Lincoln
Timber Sales
These two timber sales call for the two-stage clearcutting (shelter
wood cuts) of 86 acres of rare oak forests. The following are
comments from the public recorded in the Chandler Ridge & South
Lincoln Environmental Assessment. The commentor's names are not
listed in the Environmental Assessment.
* "I have seen clearcutting operating in the west and I fear the
same ecological devastation in Vermont"
* "...Clearcutting has become pass=E9 due to its many serious
environmental consequences, never mind the aesthetic losses that scar
the land for decades. It is time the U.S. stopped looking at its
resources as commodities and managed them and the creatures they
sustain and protect in a truly responsible manner."
* "The long term value of the intact forest is enormously greater
than the value of the limber"
* "The assertion that the clearcut will actually increase the oak
trees in the area is positively ludicrous.
* "There is an abundance of evidence from past experiences with
forest management that clearcutting this type of forest causes
tremendous damage to the complex balance, and replanting the site
with seedlings is not enough to assure a regeneration even remotely
resembling the existing forest habitat."
* "The practice of clearcutting has been shown over and over again
to be destructive and harmful to the land."
* "I am discouraged beyond being able to speak"
* "Don't we have laws in Vermont against clearcutting? I'm shocked
the Forest Service would even consider such a project."
* "The clearcutting would render homeless or more likely dead, the
animals who call these places home."
* "It makes me sick to think of the cutting of these irreplaceable
oaks"
* "Believe me, the taxpayers do not want this"
* "logging of such unique oak forest is not tolerable. As an
educator, who guides children and adults, these areas serve an
important function to create global awareness."
* "The forest may be worth far more as a source of clean air and
water and as a retreat from our uncontrolled growth and development."
* "It now appears that timber sales have become of paramount
importance in the Green Mountain National Forest and that the
original model featuring scientific habitat management and the public
interest have been casually discarded."
* "This activity would not only harm wildlife, destroy the
aesthetics of the region and clearcut while losing money, it would
use a prime recreation trail for skidders."
* "Can't we preserve a few areas of Vermont from the intrusive
hands of humans?"
* "To destroy a rare stand of oak in disregard of our environmental
laws! No, that must not be done."
Mathew Jacobson
Green Mountain Forest Watch
48 Elliot St *Brattleboro, VT 05301 * (802) 257-4878 * (FAX) 257-8529
VISIT THE Green Mountain Forest Watch HOMEPAGE
http://www.sover.net/~grnmt/