New Hampshire: So, ya think your gonna clearcut White Mountains National Forest?
Environmental groups have appealed a U.S. Forest Service decision to
allow logging on 1,000 acres in the White Mountain National Forest,
but forest service officials say the project will help the
environment, not hurt it. The Center for Biological Diversity and the
Vermont and New Hampshire chapters of the Sierra Club filed an appeal
Friday to halt the proposed Mill Brook project in Stark, just north of
Mount Washington.
The groups contend that building new roads and
logging will disrupt some of the area’s unique wildlife
characteristics. The appeal is now being reviewed by a team of forest
ranger officers at the Eastern Region office and will be decided by
Feb. 16. The groups specifically object to proposed logging on 313
acres within the Kilkenny Inventoried Roadless Area. The federal
government protected this land in 2005 as part of the national
Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Forest Service officials say the
proposed logging doesn’t violate federal restrictions, but
environmentalists say the roadless rule is clear – and has
overwhelming public support.
“We need to make folks aware of the clear
cutting proposals in our White Mountains, that we need to be
protecting our forest and that there are more sustainable ways and
more agreeable ways to log in the forest,” said Catherine Corkery,
spokeswoman for the New Hampshire chapter of the Sierra Club. She said
there are other proposed projects to which the Sierra Club does not
object, but because logging is taking place on protected land, the
group wanted to take a stand. “It is just these areas that should be
protected that we’re standing up for.”
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090106/NEWS02/301069950/-1/XML15
— Posted to http://forestpolicyresearch.com via gmail to posterous and
also to forestpolicyresearch@yahoogroups.com
The Mill Brook Project is the 3rd in the line of a number of timber harvests proposed in Inventoried Roadless Areas on the WMNF.
A fourth, Kanc7, has been decided and is open for appeal until Jan 19th (it will almost certainly be appealed)
If anyone would like to see a couple other ongoing logging projects in the White Mountain National Forest they are welcome to go to my Picasa site to view them. Look for either Than Brook or Chandler Round in the name.
I appealed this decision mostly based on what I’ve seen the Forest Service allow the loggers to get away with at these timber harvests.
http://picasaweb.google.com/frobey69
Regards,
Frank