***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Vermont,
USA Logging Victory
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
December
29, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Following
is an item from the ESA Action listserver in the United
States
which details the campaigning efforts of a Vermont
activist,
and his efforts to derail logging of a large roadless
area. The 1,900 acre proposed logging area in Vermont's
Green
Mountains,
over 300 acres to be clearcut, was stopped on the basis
of
environmental impact of the road into the area and effects on
the
bear population. Once again the power
of the individual and
small
coalitions to positively impact forest usage and their
community
is demonstrated. Organize for the
Earth!
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Date:
29 Dec 1995 02:35:56 -0400
From:
"eicinfo" <eicinfo@acpa.com>
Subject:
ESA BACKGROUND Local hero
To:
"ESA ACTION" <esa-action@node23.acpa.com>
ESA
BACKGROUND Fri., Dec. 29, 1995
from
the Endangered Species Coalition
"It
was a three-mile logging road and its impact on bear and
bird
habitat that stopped the plan" to clearcut 300 acres and log
an
additional 1,600 in Vermont's Green Mountains. This feature
story
from the Rutland, Vt., Herald tells how:
ECO-WARRIOR
Brattleboro
Man Fights
to
Protect National Forest
By
SUSAN SMALLHEER
BRATTLEBORO--He's
either a genius or an eco-terrorist, depending
on who
you talk to.
But on
one thing people agree: Mathew Jacobson has single handedly
stopped
logging in the 350,000-acre Green Mountain National
Forest.
Jacobson
is the executive director of Green Mountain Forest Watch,
a small
grass-roots environmental group based in Brattleboro. For
five
years, he has been fighting the U.S. Forest Service over its
logging
plans, most fiercely over its plan to clear-cut in the
Lamb
Brook roadless area near Wilmington.
Last
week, U.S. District Judge Garvan Murtha handed Jacobson,
Green
Mountain Forest Watch and a coalition of big-name national
environmental
groups their biggest victory and instant
credibility.
Murtha
ruled that the U.S. Forest Service was "arbitrary and
capricious"
in its decision not to do a full-fledged environmental
impact
statement about its controversial plans to log the 5,500-
acre
Lamb Brook area. The region is considered an important
nursery
for the state's black bears, as well as prime habitat for
migratory
tropical songbirds. The plan would have clear-cut 300
acres
and logged an additional 1,600.
The
Forest Service has 60 days to decide whether to challenge
Murtha's
decision, which both sides say has wide ramifications for
federal
lands, both inside and outside Vermont.
For
Jacobson, 30, the victory was sweet beyond belief.
He
makes no apologies about his goal: to stop logging permanently
in the
Green Mountain National Forest and let it go as wild as it
can.
"Whenever
I speak to people about the Forest Service's assault on
our
public forests, I am invariably asked why I don't go to
Washington
to lobby for new laws. The fact is we already have
great
environmental laws in this country. The problem is they are
continuously
violated by the agencies sworn to uphold them," he
said.
Jacobson
argues that Vermont's private and state forests, as
opposed
to national forests, should be the source of logs for
Vermont
sawmills. And he protests the export of Vermont resources-
unprocessed
logs-out of state.
The two
recent trade treaties, GATT and NAFTA, are putting more
economic
pressure on Vermonters to log their land, he said.
"He's
a genius," said Stephen Saltonstall, the Harvard-educate
Bennington
lawyer who volunteered his time to represent the
National
Audubon Society, the Vermont Audubon Council, RESTORE:
the
North Woods, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and
Preserve
Appalachian Wilderness, as well as Green Mountain Forest
Watch,
in the recent lawsuit. It was Jacobson, Saltonstall said,
who put
the coalition together. "Without the coalition, we
wouldn't
have had sufficient clout," he said.
Saltonstall
has his own environmental credentials, as the former
board
chairman of the Vermont Nature Conservancy. But he lavishes
praise
on Jacobson, saying he has the leadership and vision to be
"the
next David Brower," referring to the founder of The Sierra
Club.
The
Forest Service is publicly neutral about Jacobson. Forest
Supervisor
James Barthelme will only say that the public has a
right
to comment and appeal Forest Service plans. "We tend to
welcome
those kinds of challenges," he said. Barthelme replaced
former
supervisor Terry Hoffman, whose decisions were challenged
regularly
by Jacobson. Barthelme said the environmental assessment
the
Forest Service did on the Lamb Brook timber sale was 60 pages
long
and addressed the impacts. But Kathleen Diehl, the spokes
woman
for the Forest Service, said forest service employees feel
unfairly
attacked by Green Mountain Forest Watch and victimized by
its
tactics. Roberta Borland, the executive director of the
Vermont
Forest Products Association, said Jacobson is a
"terrorist"
with a Macintosh computer who has stopped the U.S.
Forest
Service dead in its logging tracks.
In the
Lamb Brook case; it was a three-mile logging road and its
impact
on bear and bird habitat that stopped the plan, according
to
Murtha's decision. "He's basically shut the National Forest
down,"
said Borland, "at a significant loss to the forest products
industry."
Borland cited Jacobson's past ties with Earth First!, a
national
radical environmental group, as proof that Jacobson's
group
means harm. Borland has gone so far as to distribute a
leaflet
to Vermont legislators complete with a picture of Jacobson
dressed
as Pan, the Greek god of the forest, when he was leading
demonstrations
down south in the late 1980s against U.S. Forest
Service
timber sales. The photo appeared on the front page of
the
Atlanta Constitution.
Jacobson
said he left Earth First! because of rumors of violence,
such as
spiking trees, something he doesn't support. Jacobson, a
Long
Island, NY, native who grew up skiing at Stratton Mountain,
has
always loved Vermont. He moved here permanently in 1990,
working
alternately as a waiter and chef in Brattleboro
restaurants
and as an activist. Jacobson has raised $75,000 in the
past
two years to fund Green Mountain Forest Watch, receiving a
$25,000
grant from the Merck Foundation, $10,000 from Patagonia,
Inc.
and another $10,000 from Human-i-Tees. The group has 600 to
700
members spread throughout Vermont.
Jacobson
traces his devotion to the forest to a camping trip to
the
White Mountains his senior year of college. An encounter with
a
moose, in all its primordial stature, led him to hike the
Appalachian
Trail. Attorneys Andrew Goldberg, Stephen Saltonstall,
and
Lewis Milford said Jacobson has succeeded in building a
citizen
network to protest the U.S. Forest plans, and that is
his
greatest accomplishment and strength. They all pointed to his
phenomenal
energy.
"He
works for peanuts and he doesn't get paid for long periods of
time.
He's given the environmental movement in Vermont a real kick
in the
pants," said Saltonstall. "And he's driven the Forest
Service
crazy, which they deserve."
CONTACT:
Mathew Jacobson
Green
Mountain Forest Watch
48
Elliot St., Brattleboro, VT 05301
FAX
257-8529
grnmt@sover.net
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TEXT ENDS###
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