312 – Earth’s Tree News

Today for you 33 new articles about earth’s trees! (312th edition)
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–British Columbia: 1) Will park’s act protect ecosystems? 2) Okanagan Indian Band loses in appeals court, 3) FSC certifies old growth cedar liquidation, 4) Six months in jail for indigenous people who dare to stand up for the land they own, 5) Destroying Cathedral grove to make it safe?
–Washington: 6) Nisqually Land Trust and DNR preserve forests
–Oregon: 7) Top 10 Similarities with WOPR and Iraq war, 8) Hard times at Warm Spring’s sawmill, 9) 32 species of snails and slugs, 10) Storm salvage on Umqua NF,
–California: 11) New management plan for Jackson State Forest, 12) Mendocino Redwood Co. set to buyout PL/Maxxam, 13) Random treesit at Berkeley, 14) 38 million tons of greenhouse gases from fires and decay, 15) End clearcut-plantation model, 16) Kleenex boycott hits schools, 17) Nature’s photosynthesis technology, 18) Oak Ranch Reserve, 19) Plumas NF get 85,000 tree from Enterprise rent-a-car, 20) Water plan update ignores corruption in forestry, 21) UCSC treesit insight,
–Montana: 22) Blankenship project to yield 4.7 million bd. ft.
–Idaho: 23) 50 environmental organizations say roadless plan is wrong
–Colorado: 24) Beetles to ‘decimate’ a predicted 1-1/2 million acres
–Michigan: 25) Clearcut at Mason Tract, 4,700-acres in southeast Crawford County
–Ilinois: 26) Fitchie Creek Forest Preserve restoration
–Indiana: 27) Eco-free planning on Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests
–New York: 28) Ancient tree hunter of long island
–Maryland: 29) Environmental play dealing with the subject of deforestation,
–Vermont: 30) Climate change shift tree diversity 350 feet upslope
–New Hampshire: 31) Wood pellet plant’s conservation easement
–North Carolina: 32) Losing their forests at a startling rate
–Tennessee: 33) Expanding the boundaries of the Warner Parks

British Columbia:

1) The needs of people and nature are interwoven and continue to be linked but society tends to try managing nature in order to tame it. Controlling nature may seem like a practical solution to societies fear of the wild but managing parks for people tends to compromise nature to the point that is destroyed. The BC Parks Act makes no bones about the fact that most parks, with the exception of certain components of a class “A” park, have been set aside for the public to use for recreational purposes. Carmanah Provincial park, directly across the Island from Oceanside due south on the west coast, was protected in 1989 and the lower Walbran Valley was added in 1991. The public demanded this protection to save some of the last ancient temperate rainforest as well as to establish a reserve for the Marbled Murrelet to nest. Logging has continued all around the Carmanah/Walbran park and today the clear-cuts run directly along the boundaries. All access to the park is on industrial logging roads and when the trees licensed for logging are gone from the companies that built these roads will have no reason to maintain them. In fact, 2 years ago TimberWest threatened to remove a key bridge so they could move it to another location. Already, the roads entering the park are in such bad shape that it discourages the public from visiting. With fewer and fewer visitors the government is already beginning to grumble that the primary purpose for a park is to provide the public with recreational opportunities. Industry has already built the roads in and would like to continue logging. Where is this leading? No people in the parks, unused timber just standing there rotting, roads in place, need for economic stability in a declining forest industry.” rcboyce@shaw.ca

2) In a split decision released Friday, the province’s highest bench rejected a plea from the Okanagan Indian Band to overturn a lower court ruling effectively removing aboriginal title from the table in a landmark action over forest resources. Justice Ian Donald’s passionate dissent highlighted the ruling’s consequences and the setback for aboriginal relations. “The big constitutional point, the extraordinary feature of the case that underlies the advance costs order, will not be heard,” he said. “Is this prudent case management or radical surgery? I think it is the latter.” This litigation has been in the national spotlight from the get-go because it stemmed from a series of 1999 protest actions by Interior native bands over logging rights. Described by judges as “special” and of “tremendous public importance” because it raised novel and significant issues, this case for almost a decade has been one of a handful marking the front line of the Canada-wide legal war over aboriginal rights and title. The facts are not in dispute, though the history of this action is lengthy and convoluted. The dispute between the Interior first nations and the government commenced with logging by members of the Westbank Band on Sept. 7, 1999. The province issued a stop work order the following day and the band fired off notice of constitutional infringement. Chief Dan Wilson and the Okanagan Band started harvesting timber Sept. 26. A stop work order was issued Sept. 28. Three other bands commenced logging on Sept. 29 and stop work orders were issued against them, too. In the end, the Okanagan Band action became the test case that went forward in the summer of 2000. The natives say the B.C. Forest Practices Code is unconstitutional because it may circumscribe their aboriginal rights and title to harvest timber. Given the scope and demands of mounting that argument, they asked the court for advance funding. The B.C. Supreme Court judge hearing the case refused — but the band appealed and, in November 2001, the Court of Appeal ordered funding because of the importance of the issues. The order was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada on Dec. 12, 2003 and proceedings resumed in B.C. Supreme Court in the summer of 2004. The natives argued that the province’s admission was a stratagem to avoid litigating the larger, more important bedrock issue of aboriginal title for which they were given advance costs. But the majority on the appeal panel disagreed. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=b243308e-3ab6-498e-ac1c-b9b
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3) Hello Friends, these pictures were taken yesterday, March 17th, 2008, of the ancient forests, primarily giant cedars, being taken out of Clayoquot Sound. Somehow this is FSC certified and logging companies such as Triumph out of Campbell River and Coulson out of Pt. Alberni along with Ecotrust are doing this under the name of Iisaak and Mamook. Few people are aware of what is taking place here, there are no processes that allow people an opportunity to address what is taking place and the destabilizing of these weather beaten coastal forests is devastating on the remaining wild salmon and wildlife. For All Our Relations, Susanne Hare http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w166/peacefromtrees/RankinCove.jpg http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w166/peacefromtrees/MilaMabelRankinCove052.jpg http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w166/peacefromtrees/MilaMabelRankinCove045.jpg http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w166/peacefromtrees/MilaMabelRankinCove044.jpg

4) An Ontario Superior Court judge has sent seven aboriginal protesters to jail for contempt of court after they ignored a court order to stay away from a disputed mining area in northwestern Ontario. On Monday, Judge Patrick Smith sentenced Chief Donny Morris of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation and six council members each to six months in jail. The First Nation community is located about 1,000 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. The dispute is over the company Platinex mining in an area the First Nation claims is their ancestral land. The councillors defied an Oct. 25 court order to stay away from the mining area near Big Trout Lake. The chief claims his community has gone bankrupt because of the $500,000 they say they have paid in legal fees defending a lawsuit launched by Platinex. “The province of Ontario needs to develop policies that support partnerships involving First Nations in harvesting natural resources,” said Deputy Grand Chief Hare in a release Monday. Ontario’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant said an offer from the McGuinty government is still on the table that would see the province pay $200,000 to the KI Nation for their legal fees and see concessions from Platinex. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=b6b4f8d4-5f41-45e1-83fa-0a1c57bdb5f1&k=8
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5) Using dynamite to blast the trunks of trees into smithereens may make falling a 600-year-old Douglas fir safer for the humans doing the work. That’s is the contention of the workers compensation board with regards to the contractors working for BC Parks and the Ministry of Environment in Cathedral Grove. According to media reports there are 9 danger trees that must be felled in order to make it safe for tourists to walk on the paths in the Provincial Park. Spring is here, birds are nesting, Elk are in the valley with calves, and small animals are giving birth to their young. A tour of the area, with parks manager Dave Foreman and several key participants in the falling, revealed that more like 40-50 old growth trees would be blasted along paths, the highway corridor, and anywhere BC Parks identified as a threat. There will be no straight cuts left by chainsaws so the counting will be difficult. Parks have always been designed by human beings for humans, and when their needs change so do the parameters of the parks. However there is a point where parks are altered by humans to the point that they no longer reflect the nature that they were designed to preserve. Strathcona Park, the first and oldest BC Provincial Park established in 1911, has been dissected and compromised over the last century. Logging, highways, and mining have been allowed to alter the integrity of this park. Portions of the initial parkland have been pulled out of the protected area by government and sold or traded to logging companies. Parks can also play a key role in rehabilitating a compromised ecosystem while providing recreational and educational opportunities for the public. The needs of people and nature are interwoven and continue to be linked but society tends to try managing nature in order to tame it. Controlling nature may seem like a practical solution to societies fear of the wild but managing parks for people tends to compromise nature to the point that is destroyed. The BC Parks Act makes no bones about the fact that most parks, with the exception of certain components of a class “A” park, have been set aside for the public to use for recreational purposes. Island Lens #96, Richard Boyce rcboyce@shaw.ca

Washington:

6) The Nisqually Land Trust has locked up a historic, 142-acre estate teeming with mature trees and wildlife habitat near the Paradise entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. The Land Trust purchased the property for $780,000 with a federal land-acquisition grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with the money passing through the state Department of Natural Resources. Doug Sutherland, public lands commissioner, said Natural Resources will place an additional 230 acres of Tahoma State Forest near the national park into permanent conservation status. Together, the two actions protect hundreds of acres of pristine forest land from developers’ bulldozers. It’s part of a long-range plan called the Mount Rainier Gateway Initiative to ward off logging and development on 4,500 acres around the park. Kane said the trust is close to completing the purchase of two smaller parcels near the Allen estate totalling 40 acres. And trust officials are in negotiations with owners of another 900 acres. The Allen estate’s towering old-growth Douglas fir trees line one-half mile of highway just outside the national park, providing a majestic gateway that is considered vital to the local tourism economy. “This is a keystone property for the Mount Rainier Gateway,” Kane said. This acquisition also complements owl conservation and protection of other species under the department’s Habitat Conservation Plan, which is a long-term management plan to conserve currently threatened and endangered species and help to avoid the future listing of additional species.” The Allen estate was homesteaded in the 1890s by Yale University botany professor Oscar Allen. The estate also was the home of Grenville Allen, Mount Rainier National Park’s first superintendent, and his brother, Edward, the first forest ranger in the Northwest. The land trust stepped in to protect the land when the estate’s California owners announced plans to log it in 2005. http://www.theolympian.com/editorials/story/391025.html

Oregon:

7) Top 10 Similarities Between the Iraq War and the WOPR: 1) Both are brutal and backward scrambles for a disappearing resource, 2) Both were initiated based on false information, 3) Both exploit terrible events that evidence suggests could’ve been avoided and that were possibly fabricated, 4) Each has its own propaganda mill running full tilt, 5) Both are being passed off under the guise of helping American citizens, 6) Each happens hidden far from the public eye, 7) Neither seek to address the underlying causes of the conflicts, 8) Each is equally the fault of “good cop” Democrats and “bad cop” Republicans, 9) Each doom future generations, 10) Both are opportunities for concerned citizens to band together to defeat and then to put proactive measures into place that will prevent similar things from ever happening again – For the Iraq war, we must learn to simplify our lifestyles and wean ourselves off our wasteful dependence on oil. The U.S. must also learn to cooperate with, instead of compete with, the rest of the world. -For the WOPR, we must learn to simplify our lifestyles and wean ourselves off our wasteful dependence on wood and wood fiber. We must also learn to cooperate with, instead of compete with, the planet that gives us life. http://www.forestcouncil.org/tims_picks/view.php?id=1298

8) The Warm Springs Forest Products mill hasn’t seen any work over the past few months, so even a small order of large logs cut for the housing industry brought excitement among mill employees March 10. But the lumber order is too small to bring much hope for the 58 employees who will be out of a job April 29, after being given two months’ notice at the end of February. A large pile of small and large logs sat uncut at the lumberyard, signs of the struggles with plummeting orders and money lost for the company that started as a tribal enterprise in 1966. The Warm Springs mill, which produced 43 million board feet of lumber last year, has seen the prices fall for its premium products to the point where the company operates at a loss, Jackson said. The mill employs 115 people today, 77 percent of whom are tribal members or married to tribal members, according to Mark Jackson, the CEO of the company, which is owned by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Its premium lumber is certified sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council for the way it’s harvested and manufactured into timber products, he said. ”We can’t afford to make the product we are making now because builders aren’t willing to pay for a certified [sustainable] product,” Jackson said. ”It’s a huge disappointment because I thought the green community [nationwide] was much more serious about sustainable building.” The drop-off in business also could hinder the Warm Springs company’s plans to expand its existing biomass facility, Jackson said. The $50 million biomass expansion project would rely upon an adequate supply of wood waste that ideally would come from the adjacent sawmill, he said. But the project, which would protect the forest’s health by removing wood waste, add jobs and create a potential revenue source, still could happen without an operating mill, Jackson said. ”We’re still very positive about biomass,” Jackson said. ”But it would be very difficult to make it work without a mill. The mill and the biomass plant would be synergistic together.” http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416858

9) Conservation groups want the federal government to protect 32 species of snails and slugs under the Endangered Species Act. Tierra Curry, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, says that since the Bush administration took steps to allow more logging in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests, the snails and slugs are in danger of going extinct. The petition says they perform a critical role in the food web, consuming forest litter and in turn being eaten by wildlife. While all 32 species are rare, seven are known to inhabit only one or two locations, making them particularly susceptible to extinction. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080313-1324-wst-endangeredsnails.html

10) “(There are) parts of the country that we can’t even get into at this time,” explained Cliff Dils, supervisor of the Umpqua National Forest, at a Douglas Timber Operators’ breakfast meeting Thursday morning. Dils, who’s held the top position on the forest for a year and a half now, said winter winds may have toppled up to 1 million board feet of trees top-heavy with snow in the Tiller Ranger District alone. Yet accessing the timber and prioritizing it for salvage sales will likely be delayed for the 2009 budget. “There is stuff down everywhere,” Dils said. Ray Jones, vice president of resources for Roseburg Forest Products, asked Dils if much of that timber recovery could be considered “categorical exclusions,” and if so, how many could be done in a single drainage. Categorical exclusions are often considered for actions on areas of public land no larger than 250 acres in size because they can get projects started quickly, without the requirement of an environmental impact statement. Their small-scale workload and minimal impacts to soils and watersheds are their main components. Dils said the amount of salvage timber that could be considered for a categorical exclusion depends on a number of variables. Every situation is different. As for the target of the UNF’s 2008 timber sale program, about 50 million board feet will be auctioned to the highest bidders. Last year the forest sold 46 million board feet of timber. Its original target was 43 million board feet. Dils, however, points out that those numbers do not reflect how much timber was removed from the forest last year — he’s not sure of those numbers. But at the peak of on-ground operations, about 200 truckloads of timber were rolling out of the forest on a daily basis. The D-Bug Hazard Reduction Timber Sale, designed to battle a beetle infestation around Diamond and Lemolo lakes and reduce wildfire hazards for remote houses and communities, is the biggest project on this year’s budget, Dils noted. An environmental impact statement for it should be drafted and ready by September. As logging on the forest is ramping up, expertise and experience is winding down. Retiring workers from early this year and previous years are leaving positions on the Umpqua forest vacant. Across the entire U.S. Forest Service, which employs more than 30,000, more than 1,000 employees retired at the beginning of this year, Dils said. So while logging sales slowly grow in increments, the UNF cautiously fills vacant positions with expectations of work remaining steady, Dils said. This June marks the Umpqua National Forest’s centennial celebration. http://www.newsreview.info/article/20080314/NEWS/190370197

California:

11) With the approval of a new management plan for Jackson State Forest in January, 2008, the state can now legally resume logging in Jackson State Forest. What does resumed logging mean for the forest and for you and me? You may have the same panic reaction that I had when I realized that the California Department of Forestry (CDF) could now go back to to cutting in our public forest. However, now is very much different than before, when the department could do as it wanted out of sight of the public, with no mandate other than to “get out the cut.” There is no need to panic! The new management plan puts research, restoration, ecological and watershed processes ahead of timber management. It provides for a 3-year Initial Period during which harvesting will be quite restricted and during which an independent advisory group will work to develop recommendations for future management of the forest. The new “Jackson Advisory Group,” is currently being appointed. It will have a balance of people with environmental, conservation, timber, and science concerns. I am very likely to be a member. Its charge is to work during the next three years to develop a consensus on a long-term landscape, recreation, research, and management plan. The advisory group will likely invite local people with knowledge and interests to join subcommittees focused on different aspects of forest management. Monthly meetings open to the public are likely. It also seems likely that the staff of Jackson Forest will welcome formation of a Friends of Jackson Forest to allow volunteers to assist in restoration and recreation projects. During the time the public is working with the advisory group to develop a consensus management plan, until 2011, all harvests in Jackson Forest will take place under strong protections to assure that long-term planning options, particularly in sensitive areas, will not be precluded. Protections include avoiding harvests in areas that have not been entered since 1920 or that have a significant density of large trees (with some possible initial exceptions), review of all harvest plans by the advisory group (which will provide a forum for public input), harvesting only by selection methods (no clearcuts), and retaining at least 70 percent of tree canopy (or the equivalent) and not reducing the average tree diameter in the harvested stands. http://www.jacksonforest.org/

12) Top brass from the Mendocino Redwood Co. received a warm welcome Saturday in Fortuna. The company’s chairman, Sandy Dean, walked a crowd of about 150 through the company’s proposal to reorganize the bankrupt Pacific Lumber Co. Dean explained that, in partnership with Marathon Structured Finance Fund, Palco’s main creditor, Mendocino Redwood Co.’s proposal includes investing $7.5 million into the Scotia sawmill and continuing timber operations on Palco’s 210,000 acres in Humboldt County. Dean also repeated Mendocino Redwood’s pledge to seek certification through the Forest Stewardship Council, eliminate traditional clearcutting practices and reduce logging overall. ”We’re looking to set a level of harvest here in a manner that can be sustained, and ultimately increase a little bit,” Dean said. Most in the crowd seemed supportive, and gave the company’s representatives a hearty round of applause after they spent more than an hour answering questions from the audience. Palco employee Gary Ogden said he’d read about Mendocino Redwood’s plan, but wanted to hear the company’s executives explain it in person. ”Sometimes when you hear them and see them, you get a feel for their management style,” Ogden said, adding that he liked what he heard and saw. Just as the crowd learned a bit about the newest player in the Palco bankruptcy hearings, Mendocino Redwood’s top officials learned something about Humboldt County — after their flight into town was severely delayed by fog. ”I apologize for being late,” Managing Director Gary Lembo told the crowd after arriving well into Dean’s presentation, “but, as you know, flying in here there are no guarantees.” A cornerstone of Mendocino Redwood’s presentation Saturday was to court the votes Palco’s unsecured creditors (ex-employees and businesses still awaiting payments from the bankrupt company) who have a vote in the reorganization process. Dean said Mendocino Redwood’s proposal includes $10.6 million in cash to be used for payouts to those unsecured creditors, and estimated that they would receive 75 to 90 percent of the money currently owed to them by Palco. Steve Will, who sits on the Committee of Unsecured Creditors, said Mendocino Redwood’s proposal had won the endorsement of the committee. http://www.willitsnews.com/ci_8592082?source=most_viewed

13) BERKELEY – He called himself Fresh, but a group called Students Against Hippies in Trees said his routine for protesting various university policies was getting stale. Schuck climbed into the tree near Sproul Plaza on Feb. 25, protesting the university’s deals with BP and Dow Chemical, the housing of 13,000 Native American remains on campus and UC’s involvement with nuclear weapons. Schuck, who is not a student, was also calling for the democratization of the UC Board of Regents. No one opposed Schuck’s right to his opinion or his protest of campus policies. But for some, living in a tree didn’t seem like the sensible way to make a point. “He has the right to protest but climbing a random tree on campus seems like the wrong way of going about it,” said sophomore Scott Nightingale, who was at the rally Friday. Calum Wright is one of the students who launched Students Against Hippies in Trees on the social networking site Facebook.com. “It’s not a normal thing to do, to go up a tree and live there in aid of so many causes,” said Wright, a freshman. “He doesn’t have one specific thing he’s trying to change. It’s a joke. It started off as the trees then it moved to bones then nuclear weapons then anti-BP and now it’s anti-regents. I mean, make up your mind.” A few days after Schuck went into the tree, campus police put up a metal barricade around the tree and stationed officers there. On Friday morning campus police used a cherry picker to try and remove Schuck from the tree. They confiscated some of his belongings but he defied them by moving higher in the oak. Student Tyler Brandt said all the police presence was a waste of university money. “We are here to illustrate that (Schuck) does not have the support of the student body and I think it’s ridiculous that (the university) is wasting all this money on this.” But Schuck said his two weeks living in a tree with little more than a blue sleeping bag, water, and a small amount of food that was covertly lifted to him, was well worth it. “(Today) started with some heated argument but then went to a dialogue circle and that is exactly what I hoped to achieve,” he said. The rally at the tree started about noon Friday when Students Against Hippies in Trees squared off with Friends of Fresh. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8579250?nclick_check=1

14) When a wildfire strikes California, the state’s efforts to stop global warming go up in smoke. A study released today of four large California wildfires shows they collectively will put an estimated 38 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through fire and subsequent decay of dead trees. Together emissions from fire and decay undo much of the progress California is making to fight global warming. Consider that the estimated 38 million tons of greenhouse gases is the equivalent of emissions from 7 million cars – for one year. Nearly 10 million tons of harmful greenhouse gases were emitted from the fires themselves, with an estimated 28 million additional tons of carbon dioxide emitted from decay, mostly in the next 50 years. “Reducing the number and severity of wildfires may be the single most important action we can take in the short-term to lower greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming,” said the study’s author, Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen, a professor emeritus of forestry at Texas A&M University and author of America’s Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery (John Wiley, 2000). Dr. Bonnicksen, who holds a Ph.D. in forestry from the University of California, Berkeley, has studied California forests for more than 30 years. The study was conducted for the Forest Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes education about the state’s forests. The study is based on a ground-breaking analytical tool developed for the Forest Foundation that allows scientists to estimate greenhouse gases emitted by wildfire and subsequent forest decay. The tool, called the Forest Carbon and Emissions Model, analyzes the impact of wildfires on global warming by considering a number of factors, including vegetation density, tree species, mortality caused by a fire, and the removal of dead trees and replanting new trees. http://www.pr-inside.com/forest-foundation-study-finds-four-wildfires-r487266.htm

15) I am a biologist in the Placerville area, working with a loose coalition of like-minded people trying to figure out what in the world we can do to stop the insane amount of clear-cutting that is being approved by state agencies (CDF/Calfire and CDF&G) by SPI (Sierra Pacific Industries) in California … basically converting our native forests into pine tree farms, with little value for wildlife of any kind. Deer are starving to death in the winter in the Sierra Nevada, and SPI’s policies (and the Forest Service isn’t much better) are the biggest contributor to this. I thought that because you published that letter from Judd Hanna, and that you are friends with Eric Mills (Action for Animals), that you might have some ideas about who to talk to and how we can get more visibility for this issue among your colleagues, networks, and circle of friends. I would appreciate any ideas you have. Clear-cutting is approved through Timber Harvest Plans (THPs) on a daily basis, and also after wildfire. When there is a wildfire, the timber industry and the federal managers jump in immediately to cut the scorched trees — most of which have been shown to be alive still — and cut them in so-called “salvage” timber sales. Most of the regulatory rules for timber harvest in California, under the “Forest Practice Rules” are suspended during this process. Then the industry proceeds to plant dense rows of mostly single species, commercial ponderosa pine at levels that create huge fire hazards (the pine plantations have been scientifically shown to be more of a fire hazard than native forest, brush, or grassland). Then they douse the ground for several years with chemical herbicides which kill the native re-growth of shrubs and herbs, and oaks … the very species which deer need to survive on. And the early successional forest is the very foundation of the native forest food web. Absent wildfire, the state approves thousands of acres of clear-cuts in California which then undergo the same chemical and planting regime. The upshot of all of this is that deer and many other species of birds and mammals (not to mention the frogs, turtles, butterflies and everything else which no longer have habitat for food, nesting and reproduction) are declining throughout our forests in California. http://www.ibabuzz.com/garybogue/2008/03/18/is-clear-cutting-of-california-forests-causing-los
s-of-wildlife-habitat-wildlife/

16) Greenpeace urged Santa Monica teachers and school officials to remove Kleenex products from their classrooms during a “Forest Friendly Family Fair” Saturday afternoon. The group told the more than 50 Santa Monicans who showed up that Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex tissues and the world’s largest tissue manufacturer, is clear-cutting the North American Boreal forest to make tissues from 100 percent virgin fiber. “Today, dozens of parents and teachers pledged to make their classrooms Kleenex-free,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Nikitas Mentiodes. “By removing Kleenex from the classroom, parents and teachers are setting a strong example to our children that we will not tolerate the destruction of ancient forests.” One of the largest intact ancient forests the North American Boreal forest is home to indigenous communities, as well as caribou, lynx, songbirds and wolves, Greenpeace officials said. “The boreal forests that Kimberly-Clark gets its pulp from have been evolving since the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago, and have never been logged before,” Greenpeace officials said. “Greenpeace is calling on Kimberly-Clark to drastically increase their use of post-consumer recycled content in their disposable products, to only use Forest Stewardship Council certified wood for their remaining virgin fiber needs and to stop clear-cutting in endangered forests in the Boreal and elsewhere in the world,” the group said in a statement. http://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2008/March-2008/03_17_08_Greenpea
ce_Calls_for_Kleenex_Ban.htm

17) The 17 million acres of timberland in California are becoming part of the solution. Across the state, nature’s photosynthesis technology is being enlisted as California gradually reshapes forest management into an ally in the campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent severe climatic disruptions. “Can you think of anything more appealing to the public than planting redwoods to fight global warming?” said Mike Wells, a parks superintendent overseeing a revegetation project at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in East County. Along Cuyamaca and Middle peaks, where the 2003 Cedar fire charred hillsides so intensely that natural rejuvenation of 17,000 acres of mixed conifers is virtually impossible, workers are planting swaths of fast-growing native Jeffrey pine, a species picked for its fire resistance – and superior ability to store carbon dioxide. Near Mount Lassen in northeastern California, Gary Hendrix is helping researchers learn more about how his family’s forest land can be better managed for fire protection and to soak up tons of carbon dioxide when he is not milling his Ponderosa pine into unique gift boxes for books. Along California’s north coast, conservation-minded organizations manage forests for storing carbon even while allowing some logging to keep the local economy churning. There is also an intense behind-the-scenes struggle over whether the state should require landowners to sign binding promises not to develop the land as a condition of receiving benefits or participating in carbon markets. Questions over how to fairly and accurately credit landowners for the amount of carbon saved through innovative new forestry management in comparison to what would be stored by the trees anyway are still not completely answered. That’s a complicated, yet important, distinction given the potential value of carbon credits. Timber interests, already believing there is too much regulation, remain leery of more government intervention. About half of the 17 million acres of timber land in the state is public property and half is in private hands. Industrial forests of more than 50,000 acres each make up at least 4.2 million acres, according to state figures. In broad terms, an acre of 40-year-old trees can absorb nearly the same amount of greenhouse gases emitted every year by a car. Foresters say as much as half of a tree’s weight can be stored carbon. Just as importantly, carbon does not escape when a tree is logged and processed into desks or bookcases. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080317-9999-1n17forests.html

18) At a time when California’s cherished oak woodlands are in danger of lapsing into senility, a new University of California reserve will support research to discover why these trees are failing to thrive or regenerate. Such research at the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, a 3,260-acre property seven miles east of San Jose in Santa Clara County, will ultimately help to preserve one of the state’s diverse ecosystems while also saving the woodlands for the benefit of nearby city dwellers. Managed by UC Berkeley, the reserve is home to mature, gnarled blue oaks, valley oaks and two species of live oak, not to mention endangered California tiger salamanders, Foothill yellow-legged frogs, native trout and river otters. It is the newest of 36 California reserves overseen by the 10-campus UC system’s Natural Reserve System for research and education. Donated anonymously to the University of California in December 2007 and valued at about $5 million, the land borders Joseph D. Grant County Park on the south. The reserve’s rolling, tree-studded hills and valleys are only an hour’s drive from UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, making it the only UC reserve accessible for day trips by Bay Area K-12 schools as well as by college students. “Blue Oak Ranch Reserve is an important addition to the UC family of reserves, providing something not found in many places,” said the reserve’s faculty director, Todd Dawson, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “Both an oak woodland and an urban-wildland interface, this reserve will be able to draw in UC faculty, UC students and the broader community, who will come to appreciate what a wonderful place it is for research and education.” Embedded within 180,000 acres of permanently protected wild lands and open space in the Mount Hamilton Range, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve is protected by a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy. The site, with only a barn and no electricity, is now being improved to provide facilities for researchers and college students and, eventually, school groups and the general public. “This is completely raw land that has been essentially undeveloped for its entire history,” said reserve director Michael Hamilton. http://yubanet.com/california/New-oak-woodland-reserve-near-San-Jose.php

19) This spring, Plumas National Forest in northeast California will receive 85,000 new trees to help replace those lost to fires caused by lightning strikes in 2007. The new trees also will help protect watersheds and restore wildlife habitat in the forest. The project is part of the 50 Million Tree Pledge, a private/public/nonprofit partnership of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the Arbor Day Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service. For the third consecutive year in 2008, the partnership will plant 1 million trees in national forests in the United States, Canada and Europe. Wildfires burned 9.3 million acres of U.S. forestland in 2007, making it the second worst year on record. In California, more than 500,000 total acres were burned by wildfire, causing the Forest Service to close several national forests in the state in the fall of 2007. Nationwide, the Forest Service has a backlog of nearly 1 million acres identified as in need of replanting. http://www.pr-inside.com/correcting-and-replacing-50-million-tree-r486161.htm

20) The State of California is in the midst of a massive effort to update its water plan to deal with global warming impacts. But here too forest management is not a topic of discussion. Instead there is a push to create more surface storage. Can California’s myopia have something to do with the fact that most of California’s upland forests are owned by Sierra Pacific Industries and other large timber corporations? Executives from these corporations populate all relevant California boards and commissions and they contribute generously to California politicians. Changing logging rules to protect and restore the capacity of forest soil to store and release water would be prudent in the face of climate change. But California politics make such a move unlikely. Amid this wasteland of denial there are a few voices crying in the wilderness about the connection between forest management and water supply. One of those voices is that of Andy Lipkis, founder and CEO of Tree People based in Los Angeles. While the Forest Service proposes cutting more trees in response to global warming, Tree People promotes tree planting to capture more wet season water for use during the dry season. You can check out Tree People’s programs at http://www.treepeople.org/. Another voice in the wilderness is that of Forest Service researcher Gordon Grant. Grant – one the West’s most respected hydrologists – predicts that “in terms of what comes off federal lands, the value of the water, in my view, will eclipse the value of wood products.” Grant’s assertion might equally be applied to the West’s private forests. Will westerners wake up to the connection between forests and their water supply? Will the capacity of forest soils to protect stream baseflow become a forest management imperative? And will the West’s giant timber corporations become the heroes of the West’s response to climate change impacts on water supply? http://blog.hcn.org/goat/2008/03/14/forests-the-wests-most-ignored-reservoirs/

21) Okay, UCSC is being really sketchy and incompetent about expanding campus. They created something called the Long Range Development Plan which is poorly conceived and probably illegal. Part of it involves cutting funding to liberal arts, increasing class sizes and increasing funding for the sciences. Many students are justifiably unhappy about this and decided to set up a tree sit in a grove of gigantic redwoods that is going to become a biomedical center. It was successful (to some extent) the trees haven’t been cut down and campus is in a general uproar about the stupidity of the plans. It’s created a flood of student activism. http://blog.titaniumdreads.com/?p=678

Montana:

22) “This whole area on my eastern border is virtually denuded of all trees,” Alexander said. “It’s not following the original prescription.” Alexander, a Sierra Club member, opposed the thinning projects from the start. But another nearby property owner, who asked that his name not be used, said he was originally onboard with the logging projects and granted crews usage of roads on his land, but now wishes he hadn’t, after seeing how heavily logged the area turned out. Landowner Dan Diamond, however, praised the Forest Service and Tough Go Logging for doing “an absolutely phenomenal job” on the Blankenship project. “There isn’t anything they’ve done that has surprised me based on what they said they were going to do,” Diamond said, and he was impressed by the effort made by forest officials to get the input of property owners in the area. “They did it like a candidate seeking voter support,” Diamond said. “They went door to door and talked to everybody.” The Blankenship project is expected to yield 4.7 million board feet from 830 acres. A large part of Alexander’s objection to the logging stems from the fact that this project – and eight others in the Flathead – were approved under the U.S. Forest Service’s “categorical exclusion” rule, which has since been overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth established the categorical exclusion rule, part of President Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative, as a way to bypass expensive and time-consuming environmental analyses on small projects: logging under 1,000 acres and prescribed burns under 4,500 acres. The rule was intended as a way to expedite projects that would reduce fire danger on public land close to private land, the so-called wildland-urban interface. But the Sierra Club charged that the Forest Service was abusing the categorical exclusion rule by logging in California’s Eldorado Forest, where several projects just under a thousand acres, alongside one another and far from private land, were approved. In December, the Court sided with the Sierra Club, saying the Forest Service “failed to assess properly the significance of the hazardous fuels reduction categorical exclusion.” The 9th Circuit Court ordered a District Court to issue an injunction halting projects approved under the categorical exclusion rule, but that hasn’t happened yet. http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/forest_thinning_projects_continue_under_controve
rsial_rule/2633/

Idaho:

23) More than 50 environmental organizations have attacked Idaho’s proposed roadless plan, saying that if it is adopted by the Bush administration it could set a bad precedent for roadless areas in other states. In a report released Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups looked at how management of Idaho’s roadless areas would change if the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule developed by the Clinton administration was replaced by the new plan. … The 2001 rule banned road building and logging on 58 million acres of remote national forests, mostly in the West. Idaho’s total of 9.3 million acres of roadless areas is second to Alaska, where 14.8 million acres are designated as roadless. The Bush administration in 2005 allowed states to opt out of the 2001 rule. States were told they could petition the federal government with their own plans. Idaho submitted its plan in 2006. At a January public hearing in Washington, D.C., Lt. Gov. Jim Risch said the Idaho plan would protect remote forests while allowing some activities in areas that should never have been designated as road-free in the first place. A federal plan for Idaho closely follows the state’s proposal. It could be adopted this fall, said David Hensley, counsel to Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. http://westinstenv.org/news/2008/03/17/environmental-groups-blast-idaho-roadless-plan/ – http://americanlands.org/documents/1205514030_WildAtHeartRoadlessReportWeb3-7-08.pdf

Colorado:

24) After beetles decimate a predicted 1 1/2 million acres of trees, they could leave behind 45 million to 60 million tons of dead trees in Colorado forests, drastically elevating fire danger, say sources from the Colorado State Forest Service and Colorado State University. When pine beetles attack a tree, they release pheromones that attract other beetles to swarm the tree to overcome natural arboreal defenses. The beetles carry blue-stain fungus, and when enough beetles attack a tree, the fungus infects it and inhibits its ability to transport water. The tree dies, and the needles turn reddish-brown. As long as the needles remain on the tree — up to three years — it poses a serious fire danger. Forestry officials across the state are looking at how to encourage businesses to use the massive amounts of wood and decrease the potential for disastrous wildfires. Companies use pine beetle-killed trees to make firewood, wood pellets, fence posts and poles, railings, mulch and house logs. The fungus the beetles carry stains the wood blue, but structurally, the wood remains sturdy. Some woodworkers take advantage of the wood’s color to make intriguing blue-tinted cabinets and hardwood floors. Craig Jones, who works for the Colorado State Forest Service and Colorado State Parks, has spent several years finding buyers for trees felled by pine beetles, and the task has proved problematic. http://www.timescall.com/News_Story.asp?id=7266

Michigan:

25) Stately oaks and pines — some 100 years old — are being clear cut at the Mason Tract, a 4,700-acre swath in southeast Crawford County that has roots as a conservation gift to the state. “This is a pretty sensitive area. Why did they have to do this here?” said Doug Maidment of Crawford County, who lives near the Mason Tract. The land was given to the state as a game preserve in 1954 by conservationist George Mason, an automotive executive and legendary local outdoorsman. It encompasses nearly 10 miles of the south branch of the Au Sable River and is a well-known spot for hunting, fly-fishing, canoeing, hiking and cross-country skiing. An ongoing 79-acre timber cut there will bring $41,895 to state coffers and provide 173,000-board-feet to the lumber industry. But some say the Mason Tract is priceless and the timbering shouldn’t have occurred. “It’s a pristine area they’re messing with. Is the state hurting so badly they have to cut in these areas? I don’t think so,” said Larry Helvie of Crawford County, a frequent skier at the Mason Tract Trail. State officials defend their decision to allow clear-cutting of 49 acres of oak and 30 acres of jack pine as the most effective way to regenerate the forest and prevent large-scale insect and disease infestations in older trees. “A lot of people view the Mason Tract as a preserve, but it’s not. It’s a special management area,” said Susan Thiel, Grayling unit manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. She contends state forest management goals outweigh aesthetics, though. “We’re not getting natural acorn regeneration in that area, so we’re going to depend on stump-sprouting,” she said. http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_074095630.html

Illinois:

26) A two-week woodland restoration project began March 7 at Fitchie Creek Forest Preserve, near Bowes and Nesler roads in Elgin. Invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle will be cleared, along with some dense stands of aggressive, native trees such as black cherry “Controlling non-native species is vital, since oak and hickory seedlings cannot thrive under the deep shade typically created by thickets of buckthorn and honeysuckle,” said Drew Ullberg, director of natural resources for the forest preserve district. The cut-up trees and brush will be ground into mulch and left behind to decompose, thereby returning nutrients to the soil. “The restoration work will promote a healthy, open woodland that supports more tree, flower, and wildlife types than one left overrun by non-native plants,” Ullberg said. Woodland restoration projects are part of the forest preserve district’s mission of preserving natural resources and habitats within Kane County, as well as a goal of developing high-quality, diversified preserves that enhance significant environmental resources and features. http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=153159&src=5

Indiana:

27) If a rationale for logging in pristine woods is presented in a room without demonstrators, will it make a sound? That twist on the old philosophical puzzler about the empty forest applies tortuously to the latest round of a three-year battle over public lands ignited by the Daniels administration. With due trepidation about the strategic risk involved, a host of groups opposed to the state’s proposal to open “back country” areas of Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests to timber sales boycotted a sort of United Nations meeting on forest use. The session Wednesday in Indianapolis was a semi-annual convention of the Indiana State Forest Stewardship Committee, a broad-based panel of about 50 interested parties that advises the government on woods matters. Many state agencies are represented, along with the timber industry, the Indiana Farm Bureau and Purdue University, among others. Those members sounded each other out without their peers from the Indiana Forest Alliance, Heartwood, Protect Our Woods, the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. Having negotiated for three years over the administration’s stunning initiative to quintuple logging on state land, his people had to draw the line on Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood, says Andy Mahler of Heartwood. A mere 150,000 acres of forest, 1 percent of Indiana’s total, is state-owned. “This is the last and best of what remains of the state forests,” the Southern Indiana activist pleads. “We are not convinced that logging the back country is the way to balance the state’s budgetary shortfall.” State Forester John Seifert says he’s sorry the group missed the meeting and values their input, but disagrees with their science. “We’ve been doing this for over 100 years,” he declares. “These forests would not be here without management.” That position gets an argument, particularly when it comes to old-growth areas such as Morgan-Monroe. David Haberman, the Indiana University religion professor who has been the most ardent foe of state forest logging, notes that the Southern Indiana back country that’s at issue was set aside with rather poetic instructions from the state. To quote from the documentation: “Users of the area should enter with the philosophy that they will disturb as little as possible the natural woodland ecosystem, and that it will offer an experience of visiting a forested area looking the same as it may have appeared a century and a half ago.” http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080316/OPINION05/803160352/1301/OPINION

New York:

28) He passed a small opening in a slope and without breaking stride, commented, “That’s a fox hole.” Mr. Karpen does not hunt foxes. He hunts old trees, and he says he has found and documented several dozen old-growth forests on Long Island — groupings of trees at least 200 years old that, unlike most of the Island’s woods, have managed to avoid being felled by loggers or developers or nature. They remain basically unknown to the public, hidden in plain sight behind supermarkets, along bike paths and on property of unknowing homeowners, he said. But mostly, they are in parks and preserves, and the oldest trees on the Island are a group of 700-year-old black tupelos in a swampy section of this county park, said Mr. Karpen, an engineer, inventor and environmentalist who studied forestry in college. “Now, if I can just remember where they are,” he said, squinting into the woods and breezing along in his funky footwear. Since discovering the black tupelos in 2005, he has brought many tree experts here, Mr. Karpen said. But now he seemed lost, with the sun low in the sky and the cold coming on. I looked at his shoes and wondered whether we should have been leaving a bread crumb trail. Then he stopped and peered at a group of a half-dozen trees a stone’s throw away, with gnarled and crooked trunks. When I reached Mr. Karpen, he was standing among the trees, which were five or six stories tall but looked twisted and stooped with age. “I believe these are among the oldest trees in southeastern New York State,” he said, stepping up to a tree with thick, crusty, rough-ridged bark. He wrapped a tape measure around its trunk and computed its diameter at 18 inches. “This is one of the oldest black tupelos in the U.S.,” he said. “I believe this tree really is in the 700-year range. It could be older than 700 years, but I couldn’t say that for sure.” While there are tree experts who say Mr. Karpen overestimates the age of these trees, others, like Fred Breglia, call them fair assessments. Mr. Breglia, president of the New York Old Growth Forest Association, said that although most of the oldest trees in the state are in the Adirondacks, there are many on Long Island, and that trees in swamps and rocky areas often have long life spans because of slower rates of nutrient absorption. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16colli.html?_r=1&ref=nyregionspec
ial2&oref=slogin

Maryland:

29) Original Intent Theater will present the world-premiere of Janeen Stevens’ Barcinda Forest
– a new environmental play dealing with the subject of deforestation and its effects on the forest-dwellers – with previews beginning April 16 prior at the Where Eagles Dare Theater (347 West 36th Street – btw. 8th and 9th Avenues) in Manhattan. Barcinda Forest is a new environmental play which deals with the subject of deforestation and the cataclysmic effects it has on an assortment of forest creatures when they realize that the forest they call home is being destroyed by a land developer. In doing their “pixel part” to raise environmental awareness, Original Intent Theater will donate the Barcinda Forest admission price to the audience member’s favorite environmental group. If an audience member doesn’t have a favorite environmental group, some suggestions will be offered (The Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Riverkeeper, World Wildlife Fund, to name a few). http://baltimore.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=26084

Vermont:

30) After about a mile of snowshoeing up Camels Hump mountain, University of Vermont ecologist Brian Beckage paused to take in the trees around him – not just for their beauty, but for the dramatic change they appear to be undergoing because of climate change. Forty years ago, this part of the mountain would have been blanketed with cold-loving red spruce and balsam fir trees. But today, warmer-loving northern hardwoods such as sugar maples and American beech are taking over. Scientists have long thought it would take generations if not centuries for tree populations to shift in response to a warming world. But Beckage and his colleagues’ work on Camels Hump and two other nearby mountains suggests that climate change might affect New England forests far sooner than scientists thought. “The fact that we found shifts here may be indicative that forests are changing throughout the region,” he said. Beckage led a study published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found that the boundary between northern hardwoods and colder-loving trees shifted about 350 feet uphill in the last 40 years in response to warming temperatures. Climate change is likely only one factor in the forest transformation, he said, and he is studying other potential influences. New England has warmed 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 40 years and it’s the consensus of scientists that part of the warming is due to the release of heat-trapping gases from power plants, factories, and vehicles. In this zone, about 2,600 feet up, Beckage and his students found that cold-loving trees had declined from 43 percent to 18 percent. Northern hardwoods increased from 57 percent to 82 percent. Overall, the entire zone shifted upward several hundred feet. http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/03/17/a_forest_of_change/

New Hampshire:

31) Greenova LLC’s plan for a wood-pellet plant in the Berlin Industrial Park is getting a boost from the state Department of Resources and Economic Development, which will hold an off-site, 24-acre conservation easement to offset wetlands affected by the plant “We’re delighted to be able to work with the community to be the holder of that easement,” DRED Commissioner George M. Bald said in an interview last week. DRED’s Land Management Bureau already oversees more than 200,000 acres, so adding another 24 isn’t a big deal. But Land Management Administrator Bill Carpenter said accepting the easement from the city of Berlin, which owns the land, will require approval from the Governor and Executive Council. The parcel is near Berlin High School and includes snowmobile trails. Carpenter said DRED will make sure the boundaries of the easement are well marked. Under state management, the protected land will be open to snowmobile and foot traffic. “All our easements are open to the public for recreation,” Carpenter said. “In Berlin, we look to protect the working forest access,” he said.” We want this piece of ground to produce forest products.” The easement is a small piece of a big puzzle for developer Greenova, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hingham, Mass.-based Woodstone USA LLC, which currently operates a pellet plant in Holland, Mich., and has another under way in Moreau, N.Y. The Berlin Planning Board gave conditional site plan approval to Greenova LLC’s application on March 4. The company hopes to complete the permitting process this month and break ground on the facility in May. It isn’t expected to be operational until next year. http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=State+steps+up+with+assist+for+wood-pellet+pl
ant&articleId=45b0de09-3878-471c-acca-49c009709034

North Carolina:

32) Western North Carolina’s legacy is its rich canopy of trees: hardwoods forests, hickory, evergreen, hemlocks, oak and more. Although it may not seem so, the Southern Appalachians are losing their forests at a startling rate. A recent USDA Forest Service Assessment forecasts that the South could lose about 12 million forest acres (about 8 percent of forest land) to urbanization through 2020. The American chestnut was a vital part of southern Appalachian biodiversity and it was the single most important food source for a wide variety of wildlife from bears to birds. The loss of the chestnut to the Asian borne chestnut blight was a major blow to rural communities who depended upon the annual nut harvest as a cash crop to feed livestock, to produce high quality lumber and more. According to the Southern Research Center of the USDA Forest Service, the eastern hemlock, a keystone species in the streamside forests in the southern Appalachian region, is experiencing widespread decline and mortality and may be decimated by the hemlock woolly adelgid (a tiny nonnative insect) within the next 10 years. As a native evergreen capable of maintaining year-round transpiration rates, eastern hemlock plays an important role in the ecology and hydrology of mountain ecosystems. Hemlocks provide critical habitat for birds and other animals. Their shade helps maintain the cool water temperatures required by trout and other aquatic organisms in mountain streams. “No other native evergreen in the southern Appalachians will likely fill the ecohydrological role of eastern hemlock if widespread mortality occurs,” according to Chelcy Ford, ecologist with the Otto, N.C., unit. If the hemlock is lost, there is probably no other native tree species that can fill these roles. Currently neither Henderson County nor the city of Hendersonville have tree ordinances that provide much or any protection to our area’s canopy. Hendersonville requires tree surveys for large development, but no protection once the survey is completed. The county’s Land Development Code requires some tree planting for large development and stream buffer zones but little protection against clear-cutting the indigenous plants and trees on the land. Even when landowners mean to protect trees during development, construction activities can significantly injure or kill trees unless protective measures are taken. http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080317/NEWS/435630128/1018/SERVICES03/NEWS/Not_losing_ou
r_forests_or_our_tree_canopies

Tennessee:

33) Preservationists are in discussions to acquire a 322-acre tract that would expand the boundaries of the Warner Parks and create a forest experience that could mirror parts of the Smoky Mountains. Friends of Warner Parks, a group dedicated to preserving and protecting Percy and Edwin Warner Parks, hopes to buy the parcel from H.G. Hill Realty Co. and give it to the city parks department. The parcel is between Highway 100 and U.S. 70S near Bellevue. Of the tract’s 322 acres, more than 200 consist of old growth forest, said Lawson Allen, president of Friends of Warner Parks. Research shows there are only two other old-growth forests in urban areas in the country, and those are in the Pacific Northwest, Lawson said. An old-growth forest typically refers to a natural forest undisturbed by logging, windstorms, fire or significant human activity. “There’s nothing in the country of this size where you could actually have schoolchildren go out and walk trails in a growth forest that’s never been cut and feel the full effect of what you might experience in the heart of Smoky Mountains, but be able to do it right here in a major city,” Lawson said. James Granbery, chief executive of H.G. Hill Realty, declined to comment about any negotiations with Friends of Warner Parks. Lawson said the forest must have escaped being logged because H.G. Hill acquired the property in the 1800s — before major loggers came through the area. Friends of Warner Parks has previously purchased 150 acres along the north side of Highway 100. If the group is able to buy the H.G. Hill land, it would combine both tracts and give them to the city at one time, organization officials said. Roy Wilson, director of Metro Parks and Recreation Department, said the city would “land-bank” the park as part of the Warner Parks system and eventually develop a walking trail. He said a cave was also on the property. No city money would be involved in the purchase, he said. However the group is applying for state and federal grants and soliciting donations. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080316/NEWS0202/803160396/1009/NEWS01