In this presentation, Zack Porter, Executive Director of Standing Trees, calls for the protection of Vermont’s Worcester Range, which is threatened by a backwards-looking draft management plan that would put half of this 19,000-acre de-facto wilderness area into active timber management.
The majestic Worcester Range, centering on the CC Putnam State Forest and Elmore State Park, is the dramatic backdrop to Vermont’s State House, and beloved by many for its enchanting forests, dramatic vistas, and opportunities for quiet recreation. It’s the home of rare, threatened, and endangered species, a wellspring of cold, clean water that feeds into Lake Champlain, and a carbon storage warehouse.
Al righty um it’s wonderful to uh see be here with you all I wish I could see you all uh tonight we’re going to uh get rolling here and just so you know the format of our event tonight our gathering um we’re going to just for the
Sake of of keeping things simple for the webinar and and the recording we’re going to keep videos um and audio uh or microphones I should say muted during this presentation which we’ll we’ll we’ll jump into here in just a second um and then we’ll we’ll we’ll follow uh the
Presentation with a a conversation for as long as there are questions um I’ll I’ll be sticking around tonight and uh we’ll turn on videos and and uh microphones and and and we can have at it so um I appreciate your your patience you know while we get through the the
Information and the background um and and then we’ll we’ll we’ll free everybody up uh for a great uh you know discussion later on um it’s really an honor to have a chance to to visit with you tonight about uh the Worcester range and and let me back up a second my name
Is Zach Porter I’m the executive director of standing trees uh based in montar at standing trees I’ll say a little bit more about in a second but we are uh a an organization working across New England to protect public lands and uh you know this is this is personal for
Me uh with the Wier range right in my my uh backyard uh and I’m sure it’s very personal for uh many of you who are here uh today too so um let’s jump in so standing trees was founded about three years ago uh by concerned citizens
Just like you living here in Vermont um and across New England um who you know were wondering where is the voice for the wild where is the organization representing um you know the many New England ERS um many vermonters who care deeply about um recovering old forests
Across our region um and we answered that that question by creating a new organization um we are uh two years into our current form with a single staff person and a budget um and you know I feel just incredibly grateful to uh be in in this position of of of helping to
To to lead this organization forward and would not be possible without the incredible Grassroots community that is the heart of standing trees including the amazing Dan bden who is uh working the back end of this event tonight and and making this uh Zoom webinar possible um it’s the people who make standing
Trees what it is and I hope that you will leave this meeting tonight wanting to get involved yourself um our community is as strong as the people who are engaged with it and there are many ways of of of getting engaged um you know whether that’s boots on the ground
Engagement um you know going with us to public meetings or marches like the one going on this Saturday in M peer uh in in partnership with 350 Vermont and so many other organizations around the state for a giant climate rally this weekend on on Saturday I’ll say more
About later um or whether it’s sending in a comment letter U for something like the Worcester range management plan um membership starts at just $1 so we made it as low a bar as possible um but you don’t even need to contribute anything to be a part of our community and so I
Hope that you will uh get in touch and and and follow along and um you know taking take action where uh you’re you’re excited to uh to lean in the I would say kind of The Guiding vision of sanding trees is this quote I I can’t find anything else that better
Encapsulates for me what the vision is of standing tree so I’ll take a second to to read it we are between two forested worlds the natural Forest of pre-european settlement North America and the recovered Forest of the future the earlier forested World Is Not Dead we are studying and struggling to preserve
Its living remnants and we do not believe that the future Forest is powerless to be born these remnants with our help will become the seeds from which A Renewed Forest spreads so this is from a a wonderful book by Mary Bird Davis called Eastern old growth forest prospects for uh
Recovery and rediscovery and I highly recommend finding a copy of it I don’t know if it’s still in print but you can find it at used bookstores um or or online if you if you poke around and as I mentioned you know uh this conversation tonight this issue of
The future of the Worster range um is is deeply personal to me I commune with the Worster range on a regular basis um this is the view from uh North Street in Mount peer anybody who has taken a walk here or driven up North Street knows just how
Spectacular uh this you know Vista is and it is the way it is because of the Worcester range and because of the public lands uh that Crown the Worcester range and it really is a crown jewel of Vermont’s public lands but before I want to go before I
Go any further I want to uh pause and uh share a a land acknowledgement that we developed in partnership with an adviser to standing trees somebody I feel lucky to call a friend um Rich holu who is also the chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and the
Director of the AI project I’m an indigenous light organization here in Vermont um and so I’ll read on this before we go on with the the evening’s discussion about the wiering we want to begin this Gathering by acknowledging and affirming the ancestral and ongoing presence of the
Abanaki and mohikan peoples in the land we now commonly refer to as Vermont the word indigenous literally means originating or occurring naturally in a particular place place is so important to our work at standing trees the rich cultures of the abanaki and Mikan peoples are of this place they grew and they continue
To grow from this ground over millennial their cultures were and continue to be shaped by the particularities of the soil the rocks trees air water and creatures large and small that share this Green Mountain Home equally important these indigenous cultures shaped storied and animated this landscape this reciprocal relationship
Goes back countless Generations but because of injustices perpetrated over the last 400 years to the present day the relationship is strained tattered hanging on by threads but it is not broken what does it mean for indigenous cultures and their home Landscapes when the two are disconnected from one
Another how can these cultures in the land and water from which they arose overcome centuries of violence what does it mean when we erase a deeply storied landscape where teachings on conduct morality ethics and respect were woven into the geography in braing sweet grass Robin walim writes just as old growth forests
Are richly complex so too were the old growth cultures that arose at their feet how much richer would our modern-day culture become if we had the wisdom and humility to allow our forest to grow old once more how much richer would we become if we didn’t just restore this
Landscape but we restored this landscape if the indigenous cultures of this place and the land and from which they grew are inextricably linked then we must be committed to recovering both and that is our commitment um here at standing tree so thank you for letting me read that and and um we’ll
We’ll jump into the the heart of the matter um so standing trees our work is kind of encompassed by by three three buckets uh one is education and organizing that’s what we’re doing here tonight um one is is policy advocacy for example standing trees has worked very closely with uh
Leaders in Vermont’s state house on for example the uh Community resilience and biodiversity protection act act 59 um our 30×30 and 50 by 50 uh bill that we we helped to write and move through the legislature last year and and beginning even a couple years ago um and you know
We we take full advantage of the law um you know we are making sure that uh our public Land Management agencies at the state and federal level are adhering to the laws um that we have to make sure that public Land Management is transparent and accountable so these are
Kind of the the three main areas of our work and we’re doing this work of course ele you know really elementally because I think for everybody who’s a part of the standing trees Community we you know just identify with uh with with wild nature and you know on a really visceral
Level this is of great personal importance to all of us we all have a deep personal connection to either a specific place or to wild forest and Old Forest in general um and to the wildlife that inhabit these places but we’re also doing it because we know that our
Forests here in New England are essential pieces of the solution to the climate water quality and Extinction crises and whether that’s Pine Martin pictured here an endangered species in ver in the state of Vermont whether that’s our you know crisis facing our our rivers and lakes um or whether that’s increasingly
You know the the ravages of climate change in the form of uh floods and droughts um so those are the the reasons that we are doing this work and you know in Vermont we have a wealth now of plans and uh you know bills that have passed that all point to
The importance of natural solutions to The Climate water quality and Extinction crises and this is The Sweet Spot um at the center of all of these crises where we are focused with our work protecting public plans so here are just a few examples from uh the you know uh Vermont
Conservation design blueprint for biodiversity protection uh and Restoration in Vermont to our 30×30 50 x50 legis ation to our climate action plan our state Hazard mitigation plan to overcome our you know flood flood crisis um and our plan to to restore Lake Shan PL these are all examples of where
Natural solutions are are really um centered and we are making sure that as we plan for the future that we aren’t just kind of blaming climate change for the problems that we’re dealing with here on the ground and and again I live in moner and there is no way around the
Fact that moner was built in about the worst possible location when it comes to flooding and there are choices that we are making every single day in our society regardless of what’s going on in the atmosphere that are either making things better or worse um as we try to
Adapt to this climate change future um and so how can we looking at the Worster range how can we make choices today that our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will benefit from as they’re dealing with climate change that’s the question that we should be asking ourselves today is what we’re
Proposing to do going to make things better or worse I think as we all know uh our landscape here in in Northern New England has gone through some incredible Transformations over the last 400 years these are pictures from the White Mountains but they could be from Vermont
Uh this these photos here are from uh the Museum of the White Mountains showing you know the the almost total devastation that was rought on our forests over uh you know 150 years or so through the 1800s and early 1900s um and you know to the point where today less
Than one tenth of 1% I’ll say that again less than one tenth of 1% of our forests here in Vermont are estimated to be uh old growth so forests that have not been logged since uh European colonization um and we have just 3% 3% of our forests are 150 years of
Age or older today so we are so far from the you know 80 to 90% coverage of old growth forest that dominated our New England landscape not that long ago just the blink of an eye we’ve seen this radical transformation in um what we have here so in 150 years trees have returned
To our landscape but we are a long way from forests we see trees up the window in New England and I think we take it for granted that we have you know Greenery and and we think we have functioning ecosystems but you know what’s really important is to think in deep time about
Um the health of our ecosystems and from that perspective we have forests that are in a very early stage of recovery right now um this is a common site in in you know Vermont and across New England relatively young Forest regrowing out of what might have been a pasture not that
Long ago um trees might be renewable to some degree but uh forests are not in any meaningful sense and um that’s something that we are uh you know trying to bring into every conversation that we have with State lawmakers and state agency staff this is what we’re missing from so
Many of our forests is the you know complexity and diversity of an older Forest Forest uh this is the type of of of uh you know Forest maturation that happens when we have these big winter wind storms like we’ve been having lately as a forest reaches the century
Mark as much of the Worcester range management unit uh is today in that kind of century age range you start to see the uh you know uh R you know rapid accumulation of these characteristics of old growth forests so trees you know larger mature trees falling over
Creating gaps in the canopy uh standing dead dead snags uh you know large you know Woody debris on the ground all of that contributes to the biodiversity that you know uh we want to see out in the landscape and it contributes to the pockmarked topography that is essential
For slowing and sinking water into the ground which is beneficial for not just you know reducing the impacts of flooding but also for for storing water through drought periods this is what makes our forest into a sponge and so it takes time for those characteristics to accumulate in in the
Forest public lands are our Focus across New England public lands are 10% of the landscape um here in Vermont we’re lucky 20% of the state of Vermont more or less is in public Land Management and that split roughly equally between uh State and and federal lands
About 25% of New England is uh conserved from development meaning you can’t build a house there you can’t put a box store or a strip mall there but that doesn’t indicate how the land is managed and only 3% or so of Vermont and New England as a whole is protected from logging and
This is a number that uh we want to see change in in this state and across the region for years now there has been a a regional vision for 10% of New England to be in wildlands and and that’s the wildlands and Woodlands vision from Harvard Forest uh and they have put out
This wonderful study in just the last year here led by David Foster uh ecologist long with Harvard Forest um that calculates and then puts on the map all of the wildlands in in New England and there are not very many of them and the Worcester would be a perfect
Addition to this wildlands map at a at a much larger scale than it is today so looking at this map of uh public lands in in in you know Central and Northern Vermont the Worcester range really stands out I’m hoping you can see my cursor here this is the Worcester
Range management unit and the 15,600 acre contiguous block of forest land in the CC putam State Forest is the single largest Forest functioning as a Wildland today that there is in this part of Vermont north of i89 15,600 Acres there is no larger single block of what could be today designated a wild
Forest and and is a healthy functioning Forest by and large right this moment and so this is what’s at stake with the Worcester range management plan the Worcester range is in a key location linking the spine of the Green Mountains with the Northeast and points to the
East off to New Hampshire and Maine um so pivotal for wildlife connectivity and this has been noted in study after study and here I’m just circling again um the location of the of the Worcester range and and uh you know it’s it’s its unique qualities as this immense
Wildland this area just to the right uh to the east here this is the Woodbury Mountain Preserve recently protected by Northeast Wilderness Trust on private land amazing Amazing Project that was just completed um what you see here is the natural area at the summit of the Worcester range basically all of those
Areas over 2500 feet in elevation are in the 4,000 acre Worcester range Natural Area and then to the West here you’re seeing two uh units of the Mansfield Natural Area split by The Smuggler Notch Road down down the middle and with two very large ski resorts of course um stow
And Smuggler’s Notch kind of uh pinching that that Natural Area what’s amazing about the Worcester range is it is the single largest mountain range in Vermont that doesn’t have any major Resort development um is it’s remarkable in so many ways and and it’d be hard to capture all of those superlatives um
Tonight so how are State lands managed in Vermont what is the purpose of State Land Management and this is something that we’ve been taking a really close look at because we want to make sure that state lands are are being managed to overcome the climate crisis that’s
That’s staring us down right now and I’m less and less sure that our state land laws on the books are doing an adequate job of that um Vermont state lands are managed much like Federal lands in this country according to a multiple use framework it’s called um multiple use
Means you know that from Recreation to Timber Harvest to Wildlife uh you know there are many many benefits that we derive from uh our our public Forest here in Vermont but something that I think people don’t maybe don’t understand about multiple use management including I would say some people in
Charge of our public Land Management agencies here in Vermont is that a multiple use uh framework does not mean that we need to be doing everything everywhere in fact it’s it’s far from that we should be thinking really strategically about what the best uses are of Any Given portion of our public
Lands and instead what we’re being told and including in some articles that have just come out recently on the wer range like the one in the SE in seven days today uh is we’re being told that we have to cut trees in the Wester range management unit and this couldn’t be
Farther from the truth we have in our commissioners of of forest Parks and Recreation and Fish and Wildlife have the discretion to make a decision about where a particular use is appropriate there is nothing mandating cutting in any particular place in our public lands so there is no Timber Harvest mandate
There is no requirement to reach a certain Target of of of Timber harvest in the state of Vermont on public lands it’s something that they may do that the agency of Natural Resources May conduct a Timber Harvest but it is not a shall there is no you must do this in this
Place so that’s a really important distinction uh as we’re thinking about the future of the Worster range now why do we need Worcester range management plan this is a good question and it’s one that was asked at the uh Worcester Vermont public meeting that uh Forest parks and recreation and Fish and
Wildlife held just before the holidays and uh the person asking uh was you know bringing it up because the wor Ranch has been doing pretty darn well without a management plan for a very long time it’s been several decades that these lands have been in the uh you know we
That we have owned them as the as the people of they’ve been in the state’s care and we have not developed a management plan in that time for the Worcester range that’s very different from almost every other major block of State lands in Vermont nobody I’ve
Talked to has a good explanation for why it has taken this long to develop a management plan for the wer range but it has benefited from that benign neglect for a very long time so the question of why do we need a plan is a valid question but we require management plans
For public land and that’s a good thing and it’s good because if you’ll remember we had this big debate just recently about putting a ski lift from Stow resort to Smuggler Notch Resort and that would have passed through the Mount Mansfield Natural Area and it’s because of the Mount Mansfield State Forest
Management plan in the Mount Mansfield Natural Area that the District 3 stewardship team for the Vermont agency of Natural Resources the same team that is drafting this plan for the Worcester range that they made a really good decision they said you know what we cannot do this here we cannot put the
Ski lift between these two ski resorts we’re not going to you know put this right through Bickel’s thrush habitat right past Sterling Pond right through the Long Trail it doesn’t go here and so a good plan can do wonders for long-term public Land Management the problem is
When we get a bad plan and it opens up you know as in the case of the Worcester range a huge area to potential Timber Harvest that has not been open for a long time so um that’s what we’re we’re worried about here but a plan is required by
Law the state also is required to promulgate rules which are kind of binding sideboards uh and and binding processes uh to make sure that public Land Management is transparent and accountable the state has uh never issued rules for public land management and it’s required to do this in statute
And we were in court with the state of Vermont up until recently um taking this issue to a judge uh arguing that the state must have these rules in place before it develops management plans we never even got to argue the merits of that case sadly we were kept out of of
Of court on uh standing issues and we could talk about that in the Q&A later but the good news is that because of our petitioning and our litigation the state of Vermont is actually coming out with rules at long last for State Land Management and we expect those to be
Released sometime this winter and I hope that you will comment on those rules when they come out to make sure that our public lands are really you know public meaning that we put the people back in that your comment matters when you send one in that when there’s a Timber sale
Plan you get to comment on that 10 years from now when there’s a Timber sale plan instead of commenting now on this Worster range plan and then never having a chance to comment again on what the state is going to do later on which is
The case today so there are a lot of changes that can come from A good rule um that we’re hoping to get from the state and and that could help to shape the way these plans uh look going forward we’ll talk more about that in a
Second so the state of Vermont knows how special the Worcester range is they co-produced Department of Fish and Wildlife co-produced a wonderful booklet called an enduring Place uh wildlife and people in the Worcester range through the northeastern Highlands and I recommend looking it up you can Google search this um beautiful pamphlet
Uh easy to download the PDF and here’s a quote from a Vermont fish and wildlife uh staff person the Worcester range is the only place that’s left in central Vermont that is large in scale and completely unfragmented and here’s another quote the Worcester range is unique because it remains almost completely wild and
Undeveloped you know from the enduring Place document to the management plan itself the exceptional qualities are are you know called out over and over again um that you know this is of exceptional ecological importance at local Statewide and Regional scales that the dominant Forest cover of the Worcester range is
You know relatively old and large trees um given the expansiveness of the major Forest types comprising the Worcester range management unit the property supports the range of bird and mammal species that depend and even thrive on the interior Forest that can’t be easily found elsewhere in the state so on the
One hand the state has done a pretty fantastic job documenting um the unique qualities of the Worcester range I think I’ve heard many compliments about uh the state’s work uh identifying and and inventorying the really remarkable qualities of the wor range where there is a some disconnect it seems is in how
That information either has or hasn’t informed um the proposals for action on the ground over the next 20 years so in the uh Worcester range management plan uh we have essentially a zoning process going on and that is the way that state and federal longrange management plans function that’s the
Almost the biggest function of these management plans is to put uh portions of these lands into different categories of uses and on this map um you’ll see uh four primary categories which are common to essentially all Vermont state lands these are the these are the categories that are used highly sensitive
Management areas which are the strictest protection and it’s great to see that the state has proposed uh 9,650 Acres of this landscape to be in highly sensitive Management areas that will largely be off limits to Timber Harvest um it’s it’s you know a great thing to see that
Because right now as I mentioned before there’s a 4,000 acre Natural Area um functionally that would be expanded you know by twice two times over um with the uh proposal that the state is putting forward but the tragedy that you know we see in this is that the Worcester range
Again is this complete unit of wild lands today it’s again the main piece of of of public land here is 15,600 acres and elore State Park a favorite you know uh State Park among many vermonters um is going to be dived up into lands that are going to be open to Timber harvest
In this management plan and we don’t really see the reason why we would take especially these lower elevation lands again I hope you can see my cursor lower elevation lands on the uh periphery of this highly sensitive management area that the state has acknowledged our A ranked meaning some
Of the best examples of Northern Hardwoods across the state of Vermont again averaging 90 to 120 years of age if there was anywhere where we should be managing for older forest in the long run to meet the Vermont conservation design goal of achieving about 10% of our landscape in an Old Forest
Conditions someday off in the future and BCD stresses that our Old Forest management should happen at Scales of 4,000 Acres or larger and that what we’re missing most in protected areas today are lower elevation lands all of that says to me and to many people who
Live around the wer range and know this landscape that these lower elevation lands are exactly the ones that should be going into highly sensitive Management Area management and which should contribute to maybe Vermont’s very first Ecological Reserve which is the designation that uh is established in act 59 the community resilience and
Biodiversity protection act for kind of strict protected areas like um what we’re talking about here with the highly sensitive areas so that’s what’s missing from this plan is this vision for not just protecting the steep slopes and the you know wet areas that would already be probably off limits to logging that is
What I’m really worried about is that the blue on this map as important as that is is not land that was likely vulnerable to logging in the first place and it’s these lower elevation lands that are so critical for the future of Vermont’s biodiversity for the recovery
Of older forests um that’s where the action is here and we’re treating those lands the same way we have always treated them in this manag plan instead of taking this chance to do something really different so from those lands the state has taken uh Land Management classification uh 2.0 and 3.0 which are
The the the light green and the red areas on the map on the left here and combine those to essentially say these are the areas that are uh open to potential vegetation management meaning potential Timber Harvest and that’s the map on the right so those green areas total about
8,641 acres is almost half of the management unit and those are the lands that more or less are open to uh potential Timber Harvest going forward the state of Vermont has has stressed to me in email communication that you know they’re only approving 1935 acres for Timber harvest in this plan which is
About uh 10% of the whole management unit um and 20% of the land it’s 20% % of the lands that are deemed potentially you know available for Timber Harvest but what I want to stress to all of you and I have not heard a kind of adequate
Response to is this this plan if it’s anything like most management plans it will not change much from this version of this plan to the next version of this plan 20 years from now so the state may be proposing 1900 Acres of harvest over the next 20 years with this plan but by
Allocating you know about half of the acreage to potential Timber management what they’re saying in essence is we will on rotation be logging the other lands on this map in the future at some point and we want to retain the right the discretion to go in and do more
Timber harvest in other areas in the future so we’re looking longterm here right I want permanent protection for this landscape as a whole and what I’m worried about is that the state is telling us 1900 Acres that’s still significant but what I think is being hidden and I’m really worried about this
Is that there isn’t the transparency there should be about future harvests that will take place in subsequent versions of this plan which will be revised every 20 years that is how Timber Harvest works it’s on rotation so that way there’s always something more to cut on the next next next plan so
That’s what we need to watch out for here is not just the 1900 Acres but that this is going to become the way that all of these lands in green here are managed and this is dialing in on the specifics of the Timber Harvest that are planned
In uh this uh uh 20-year planning Horizon so what you can see here are Harvest proposed within Elmore State Park and in the Hunger Mountain Headwaters project area which was conserved in 2020 um the stol land trust and Trust republ land uh added these lands to State ownership State
Management um in the southern w range right beneath Mount hunger very popular hiking trails if you’ve ever been up there you know it’s one of the best hiking trails around um and you know I think a lot of people thought that that land was going to be literally protected
And it was a surprise to many that these lands that were acquired using public dollars including clean water uh restoration dollars um are going to be loged in this project it’s a surprise to me and I’m really disappointed to see uh this included in the proposal um so this
Is in the plan you can find a table of all of the harvests that are scheduled over the next 20 years and you can see the year that they are proposed to take place in this column um the acreage they’ll they share a little bit about the the characteristics of the stand um
But a lot of the details for what will be proposed are not in this document and those will come out at a later date after the plan after the state theoretically does additional analysis and comes up with a more specific Timber Harvest proposal for those sales the
Trouble as I said is that the state does not ask for the Public’s input ever again after this typically so for example right now in Campell HP state park there was a plan prop uh released two years ago for campel HP State Park there’s a Timber sale that just got
Started in camel hump State Park the state merely sent a postcard to local residents letting them know that this Timber sale was about to get started there was no request for input there was no notification that you could go go to the there there is no website where you
Can learn more about the timber sale there’s just this giant plan document that doesn’t even include the specifics of the Timber Harvest what they found in terms of endangered species on in that location um no no transparency really in the analysis that went into that Harvest
So um again you know I don’t think this the state really should be uh telling the public this is your last chance to weigh in for 20 years that that just doesn’t seem right to me and that’s something that could be corrected through a rule a rule that instructs the
State to increase the transparency and accountability give the public a say throughout the plan’s uh lifespan so I’ve touched on this earlier that uh there’s this weird discrepancy in the plan between this celebration of the attributes of the Worcester range and then a proposal that kind of takes
Things in the other direction so here’s one example Maybe I think the best example of that is uh they talk about here how the vast Northern hardwood natural community of the Worcester range is of Statewide significance and in the document that notes the progress of Vermont towards our Vermont conservation
Design goals talks about we’re missing those Northern hardwood forests from what’s managed to become Old Forest and uh we’re strongly biasing our protections towards the higher elevations well here’s a chance to do something really different in a wild landscape that is already much healthier than many forested Landscapes across New
England much less Vermont and yet if you go down to the timber section of the management plan there’s a here’s a direct quote these areas are not defined by their ecologically sensitive features or important wildlife habitat this is the exact same land that we are talking about here is it of Statewide
Significance or is it defined by its you know uh lack of important wildlife habitat and lack of ecologically sensitive features it seems to be of two minds on this very important question what else is missing from this plan um I’m not sure how Vermont Beni Community was involved in this plan and
That really matters to me and I want to make sure that in whatever Ru making that the state does that we are spelling out how Vermont’s indigenous Community is going to be involved in in state Land Management going forward it’s also putting the cart before the horse to put
A plan like this forward while the ACT 59 process is playing out so right now the state is charged with inventorying all conserved lands in the state and crafting a vision a plan to get to 30% protection by 2030 50% by 2050 and reaching the goals in Vermont
Conservation design like putting 10% of our landscape into management that’s going to get us to Old Forest someday in the future that has not happened yet so this plan is really kind of uh getting ahead of uh where the people of Vermont art which is following this act 59
Process and contributing to a really successful conservation plan that’s not okay this wer range plan you know has been waiting for decades to come out there is no rush to get this plan out this year we also have a global warming Solutions act that passed a couple years
Ago and which requires the state to do an emissions analysis for any major State action and there is zero emissions analysis from the Worcester proposed uh harvest in the Worcester range management plan so that too is a big question mark for us why isn’t the state including uh that emissions analysis in
This plan there is not even a mention of the Lake Champlain tmdl which is our our restoration plan for Lake Champlain and which requires reductions in phosphorus loading from logging activities in the Lake Champlain Basin here’s a chance to do things differently to reduce prod the phosphorus inputs from our uh forests
And to make sure that we’ve got cold clean water recharging our our streams and our Rivers keeping fish habitat healthy we’ve got some of the best brook trout habitat in the state of Vermont and the Worcester range again why isn’t that restoration plan even mentioned in the long range management plan for the
Worcester range and then we’ve got you know still some amazing endangered species hanging on uh in in in the Worcester range the northern longard bat was found not that long ago within the last uh eight years or so in the wer range uh species that was listed on the
Federal endangered species list just last year and has already been on the Vermont endangered species list um there are other you know rare threatened endangered species present and we’d like to see the Worcester range actually used to help recover these species instead of the current situation which is the state
Of Vermont saying you you know look we’re going to uh do some surveys to make sure that those species aren’t present before we do any of these harvests well you know that puts a lot in Jeopardy potentially and why not designate critical habitat uh in the entirety of the public land portion of
The Worcester range to facilitate the recovery of these imperal species um you know that to me should be the priority of our public lands like the Worcester range and here’s a real uh interesting uh omission from the uh Worcester range management plan in the aftermath of tropical storm
Irene the state of Vermont commissioned a report by longtime fpr uh County Forester David Bren now the director of Vermont family forest and Kristen Underwood um and it they wanted a report on how to make State lands in Vermont more resilient to climate change and and to flooding and the report was produced
Um it was shared with the uh state of Vermont and the reaction was to bury it this report has never seen the light of day it was published in 2015 it has never been cited as far as we know in any management plan that has come out since
2015 and what’s remarkable is when you start to read we did a public records request to find out what happened to this report and I’m not saying offering these quotes here to throw any under the bus but I think it’s really important to uh understand what I think are kind of
The some of the systemic issues within the uh Vermont agency of natural resources that are preventing progress preventing doing things differently in the Worster range to match the value of this landscape for flood risk reduction for water quality protection for biodiversity um so here’s a comment from
The District 3 stewardship team on the report report as they were deciding what to do with this report if flood resiliency was the highest or only priority for management the concepts and practices contained in the report could be effective at increasing flood resiliency on state lands provided there was
Massive amounts of funding associated with its implementation to carry out the suggested improvements to existing infrastructure fully adopting the recommendations in this report as written will completely gut Forest parks and recreations long-standing State lands silver culture Timber Management program by taking tens of thousands of Acres out of active
Management and the report goes on this is hardly the only place uh excuse me the uh the the email communication that we obtain goes on about how uh you know yes this report might do uh good things for um our flood resiliency but what about all these other things that we’re
Supposed to do as uh as Foresters you know Timber Harvest isn’t that a part of what we’re mandated to do uh in in statute and so there’s this tension around you know it’s these Timber Harvest that are paying for uh some of the work that fpnr wants to do so it’s
Kind of this self-perpetuating cycle um and it points to the importance of considering right now as a state how can we change the fundamental purposes of stateand management so that we are not putting Timber Harvest on kind of co-equal grounds as flood risk reduction when we know that here in monar we were
Literally inches away from flood waters pouring over the dam uh in Ritzville over the spillway and making flooding in our community that much worse if these forests were older uh how much more flood waters could have been stored you know without the road infrastructure that the state is going to use to access
Some of this Timber how much better off would we be in a future flood event which is almost inevitable in our in our area so um if there are problems about uh you know how to fund some of these changes to Land Management let’s talk
About it but let’s not let a you know kind of conflicting mandate to cut trees on public land for almost no reason almost no economic reason get in the way of doing what’s right for our communities and not to mention for biodiversity for the climate it’s it’s
Really problematic and uh we could talk the rest of the night just about this one report and and just how interesting um it was digging up some of these uh uh some of this communication within fpr about it so just real quick I’m going to touch on some of the just really amazing
Values of letting our forest grow older I think many of you probably already know these things but um I want to put some fine fine details on it for you to have in your back pocket as you’re writing a comment letter about the Worcester range public lands in New
England store on average 30% more carbon than private land above ground and that’s because by and large Timber Harvest has been less frequent and less intense on public lands Timber Harvest is the driving factor in how much carbon is stored in our forests in New England and so uh you
Know looking at the Worcester range um the chances are it’s actually uh even more than average uh carbon storage compared to most public lands in in New England since this is a century plus old Forest by and large across this landscape so this is a place that we
Should really be protecting um going forward for those carbon storage reasons and I see the handup uh trevian and uh if you don’t mind save save that thought we’ll get to the end of this in just a second and then we’ll we’ll break into conversation and questions so as I mentioned Timber
Harvest is what’s driving those carbon changes in our forests and Harvard forest wildlands and Woodlands have done great reports on and mapping of of forest carbon across the region showing that it really is driven by Timber Harvest and when you leave our forest alone carbon accumulation you know uh is
Is incredible we can store two to four times more Carbon on average than we currently have in our forest simply by letting them grow older two to four times more carbon than is currently there and even in their degraded state currently New England’s forests are a carbon Bread Basket Nationwide and I
Mean compared to most other regions of the country we are blessed with uh these carbon vacuums of a of a forest here in in New England it’s really second only to the forests of the Pacific Northwest um and maybe some of the you know uh Southern Appalachians this is this is
Where it’s at for natural carbon accumulation in in the US and when you let forests grow old you have incredible carbon storage so in just 5% of the landscape of the Northeast United States those areas represented in in red on this map just 5% of the landscape stores 30% of the
Above ground carbon and these are areas that are protected from Timber Harvest that is where the carbon is and so we can again do the same thing in the Worcester range and we know that old forests are what’s missing most from our landscape today and all of the biodiversity that’s
Connected to Old Forest you know therefore have been has been struggling um and and Vermont knows this well it’s it’s it’s laid out clearly in Vermont conservation design and I want to end by saying you know or almost end one more one more slide after this um by saying
That it’s not a question of whether or not we’re going to have wood products as a state as a region the timber industry has framed this up as a you know uh Wood Products economy versus you know land protection uh debate and it couldn’t be farther from the
Truth New England uh as a whole the country as a whole um gets just 4% of its uh wood supply from public lands in Vermont it’s the same percentage just about 2% from state land 2% from federal land 96% of our wood supply in Vermont comes from private land and so you know
Not logging in the Worcester range is not going to have a significant impact on the the sustainability of the wood products economy that is not what is making or breaking our wood products economy this is not about ending you know the ability of of of you know the timber industry to
Access um you know trees in the state of Vermont or across the region and and that’s you know really important to keep in mind because we hear over and over again that we we have to you know uh cut these forests for economic reasons that
We have to um you know cut these for Force to save them to to add economic value so that we don’t turn them into something else well these are public lands they’re not at risk of development they do not have to be cut to be maintained what we should be doing in
These places where economics are not Paramount is to protect them for the future and I would argue that even if you do count the economics appropriately for all the water quality biodiversity carbon value Etc that we really do have something worth far more than the wood
That might be taken off of this land so really important facts to keep in mind okay so for your comment letters as you’re writing um remember that you know the state is required by law to have rul making done before doing Land Management planning like this that were in the
Middle of the ACT 59 planning process and that should really be done first there’s no reason this wor range plan should happen before that’s completed and ask the state let’s set an example with the wor range let’s make the wor range the first Ecological Reserve under act 59 and and Vermont one
Of Vermont’s largest ecological reserves um that’s our opportunity with the wor range so submit a comment by the February 2nd deadline um take action by you know going to your town planning and conservation commissions uh ask a nonprofit that you’re the a member of if if if you know they will submit a
Comment or perhaps there’s a church or place of worship that you belong to that you could get to submit a comment about this send in a letter to the editor keep that blurry of of news about the Worcester range going and then get ready to weigh in again because we’re going to
Have rules coming out for public comment very soon about State Land Management so thank you for your time and attention and we will open it up now to a a conversation in questions and I hope you saved those questions for those who had a hand up or or put something in the
Chat thank you again so please feel free to and ask questions I think Michelle had her hand up go for it oh thanks so much um I just want to say that this is all really overwhelming the information it’s a lot to take in and um I’ve seen the state plan but any
Follow-up information you have so I can process this would be great um I owned a track of 55 Acres that was at the base of Worcester Mountain for quite a few years and I was in um like a Land Management plan for wildlife so I think that not
All I think that not all of cutting is really about the timber industry at all I mean when I cut my land it cost me I mean to be in the management Plan cost me actually a substantial amount of money and I didn’t really profit any
Money off of it because I had my land and current use for wildlife management and I had a low impact logger who you could never even tell was there and um they cut the land to promote new growth and to um assist in you know feeding
Wildlife which I loved and I and I literally made no money off of when I was able to log the land after like 20 years um so I I think like you raised so many good points and like I would love for the process to slow down because there’s some of the
Points you raised that I think need to be addressed like public input and public input along the way but I I also want to believe in biologists and science as someone who’s in a profession where the general public often has input and and don’t tend to listen to the
Science in the issue um so I just wonder um about has there been any Proposal with the current state plan um if it goes forward the way it is and doing it in a low impact logging sort of way and anyway thank you so much for your presentation
I hope you have more information to share so that I can like take some time to absorb it thanks so much yeah thank you Michelle those are great thoughts and questions so um we absolutely first off we will be following up with everybody who you know signed up for
This event with information about you know how to comment uh more background and links to a lot of the information that we shared tonight in this presentation um so and this will be record is being recorded and will be available for viewing again too so um and I I’m personally available to visit
With anybody you know about this plan so don’t don’t hesitate to reach out and and to the state’s credit their staff has been very available too via email and phone um and so I hope that you’ll also you know reach out to the state directly um anybody here with questions
That you have um but you know to get to some of your other questions uh you know the science is is increasingly clear that um we don’t need to be doing in for wildlife habitat uh Management in New England um it is uh kind of a a a
Mindset that uh pervaded uh you know New England and and really pervades us wide forestry that we have to create what are kind of often called you know a young forests um you know early successional habitats for the benefit of species that like those kinds of open habitat
Conditions and uh the science shows pretty clearly that we are you know either really close or perhaps even significantly over um the amount of early successional habitat um that you know is appropriate to much of our Northern New England landscape um that doesn’t mean that uh you know our job is
Done there in fact the older forests get the more early successional habitat is created naturally that is the confusing part of you know this discussion is that old forests are kind of a misnomer and I I you know often want to help people understand that you know what what an
Old growth forest is is is not just old trees it’s a it’s a it’s an ecosystem that encompasses every stage of forest development which is not what you have when you have a young Forest you have a a kind of uh single AG you know group of
Of of trees growing up out of a out of a clearcut or you know other even AED management and you don’t have that diversity of habitats and the patches that are created naturally in an older Forest those are the the kind of openings that our early successional species evolved with over you know
Millennia um and you know where we had larger patches of early successional habitat was around Beaver Wetlands for example um which we can still do a lot more as a state to encourage U more of so you know uh I think it’s really critical and to note too that in the
Worcester range management plan uh the state of Vermont acknowledges that um creating early successional habitat should not be a priority in the Worcester range that that’s not something that’s driving their logging decisions in the Worcester range um they’re really basing most of their Harvest on a desire to cut timber to
Contribute to the Wood Products economy and uh you know that is just you know like I said before um I think a really misguided uh you know way to manage these incredibly valuable public lands that uh you know are not essential for maintaining our our our wood products
Economy here in Vermont we get so many other better values at so much lower lower risk and lower cost to the taxpaying public by allowing these forests to grow old so I I think you know private land owners absolutely it’s up to any private land owner to decide
How to manage their land and if they want to manage those lands for particular habitat benefits whether that’s for species that prefer early successional habitats or any other you know habitat goals that’s for private land owners to decide and as standing trees we do not in get involved in those
Kinds of personal decisions that people want to make um but what the science shows really clearly is that as a whole we’re doing okay um really where we’re really missing the Mark is on older Forest um and we have so far to go to get to healthy functioning you know
Natural Forest uh you know uh conditions across most of the region so that’s the focus of our work and that’s again you know why we focus on on public lands but great great questions thanks thanks so much Zach I appreciate that thank you I know there were some other questions uh floating
Around let’s see should check the chat here um so uh trevan asks here what about the type of logging um habitat friendly logging that purports to establish more diverse habitats for Birds um how would standing trees respond to plans that promise to to deliver that well great
Question and that ties in really well with what we were just talking about um and you know what uh again you know what what the state of Vermont is acknowledging right up front in this uh plan is that that is not a major goal of their of their management um and in fact
The Worcester range is noted in the report in the in the plan to be exceptionally valuable for interior Forest species so think birds like you know Scarlet Tanager um think about mammals like the pine mark which might the plan acknowledges might live in the Worster range um species of that sort
Are the ones that are really benefiting from these large blocks of interior mature forest and there’s been some really important studies recently uh bets uh is a researcher who uh came out with a study just uh this last year so looking at uh Forest degradation meaning
You know uh the the impacts of logging uh not necessarily eliminating for Forest but degrading Forest cover um and Forest quality across uh New Brunswick and um other other areas and looked at how it was Old Forest species and interior Forest species that were really the ones most imperal across our region
Um you see right now with the Green Mountain National Forest uh and with a lot of our state fish and game agencies a lot of uh desire to manage for species like uh rough grous um which are common species that you know are not imperiled
And yet uh they are have these kind of political designations as a species of greatest conservation need when they are in fact in no need of of kind of uh decisive action of any kind um and then instead what we’re doing is we’re clear cutting our public forests uh that’s
What’s going on right now in the Green Mountain National Forest across many thousands of acres for the purpose of you know rough grous habitat um and really benefiting the hunting Community there where um you know there’s much higher value to those in some cases 150 160 year old uh forests some of the
Oldest uh recovering forests in in in the region those are not places we should be uh putting in you know early you know large blocks of of you know unnatural artificial early successional habitat at a scale that would never actually occur um under natural disturbance so that’s fortunately not
What the state of Vermont is is kind of using as justification for the logging um in the Worcester range at least not that we’ve seen um but that doesn’t mean that you know what’s proposed is is is is good to see from a habitat perspective given what the plan
Acknowledges is so unique about the Worcester range um so uh there’s a a question here about um student activism which is a great question to see uh and you know I highly encourage students to to get involved not just submitting a comment um but there are so many other ways that
Students can raise their voice whether that’s you know through an oped um or a letter to the editor getting your school administration um to take action of some sort or your student government to you know uh come out with a resolution calling for the protection of public lands or the Wier range specifically
Um there are many things like that that students could do and I would love to chat more with students about uh organizing opportunities and I know that there are you know other volunteers at standing trees that would uh love to work with Burlington area students on uh
You know whether it’s uh getting at you know the the McNeal power plant and and and trying to get us off of biomass electricity or uh working on uh issues like public land protection so great question about that too and there’s a question about sharing the video we will absolutely share the
Video and don’t forget you can raise your hand I think and and speak up to if you’d rather ask your question verbally um any other questions making sure I haven’t missed anything here I’ll wait a second for any additional questions to filter in yeah David please yeah will will there be a
Succinct location of talking points that we can use in the comments that we provide U that you’ve asked us to provide yeah great question so um right now I would point you towards our uh blog that we just published in the last week on our website standing trees.org
Blog I think it is and um that lays out essentially what we’ve gone through this evening in written form and has some of the bullet points about uh you know what’s missing from this plan and what we should be asking for um and I’m going
To add a little bit more to that in in the next day or so um I would say that’s the best resource it also has all the links to go to the state’s website and I encourage everybody go look through the arcgis story map that the state put
Together um you’ll learn a lot from um what the state uh produced and uh and all of the contact information for the state employees who have contributed to this plan is listed there so if you have a question about the timber management if you have a question about the uh the
The unique ecology or fishing wildlife of the Worcester range their contact info is right there send them a note and they’ll get back to you um so I I really recommend taking advantage of of these staff who who work for the people of Vermont um and and who you know want to
Hear from you so um you use that contact info on their website Zack if I can follow up I I would say I did read the blog I and um I am not in a position to uh become a standing trees staff member adjunct but I don’t mind putting my shoulder to the
Wheel of trying to reinforce the comments to the the public agency so if there was a document that I could uh lift uh these things from I’m happy I’m a college graduate I can synthesize my yeah yeah but uh it would be I I only
Have a I I have a limited amount of bandwidth to dedicate to this I’m grateful to you for leading the charge and for those that stand by your side and are working uh to do this on our behalf but I I only have a limited amount of time and effort and and
Attention to be able to focus on so if you could provide that I yeah I have I have done this but I’m I’m not going to get my my master’s degree in this I I just need to uh be able to provide those comments thank you for sharing that and
You know something that we’ve done in the past that we haven’t done for uh this plan is to um this this comment opportuni to have a like a petition option um or you know pre-written sort of comment but that’s something that we can post on our website very quickly so
We’ll we’ll do that one of the reasons that we’ve taken that path is that um just so everybody knows um the state and especially the federal government um tend to treat unique comments with a little more attension um so I also I I want everybody to know that you do not
Need a master’s degree you you know and I’m not saying I’m not sending in I’ve I’ve sent in so many kind of identical comments when people ask me to take action on one action alert or another so I’m I I I think it’s a perfectly valid
Way to comment but I want people to know that your comment is valuable even if all you’re saying is I care about the Worcester range I care about public lands I think that they have a role to play in addressing the climate crisis please protect these lands from logging
Or whatnot that is a valuable comment too right now so don’t feel like it needs to be more than you know few sentences um that has value and it’s heartfelt it’s personal it’s Unique um so don’t don’t sweat it if you don’t have all the legal you know
Technicalities in place or or you know it’s really important for the state just to get a sense of what’s the public concern and you can express that in in in just a really you know uh simple comment letter and that’s has a lot of value thank you for the great
Question um yeah J go ahead yeah so I’m just wondering like how much do you know the state’s going to weigh these comments in making this their decisions and um moving forward with this plan are will are they willing to revise the plan based on public
Comment that is a great question and in fact I think the best way for me to answer that is to read from Kevin mccallum’s story that came out today um because uh he actually has commissioner uh Danielle fitzco responding to a question just like that and um what uh
Danielle fitzco says um here is that uh this is not a direct quote this is Kevin mcallum reporter for seven days his writing um the uh staff will closely review the feedback before finalizing the plan later this year fitsco said um but it’s hard to say how much the
Feedback might change the plan she said even if public comments are overwhelmingly against logging that doesn’t mean Harvest would be scaled back so um you know does that you know mean we shouldn’t weigh in of course not um but you know the state is putting this plan forward because it’s pretty confident in
What it wants to do um right now most Draft plans look very similar to the final version you know that’s that’s what the signs point to is that this is what the state wants to do for the Worcester range um but I absolutely think that we have a chance to upend
This process and this proposed plan because there are so many holes in the document it’s missing so many pieces they have clearly tried to get ahead of the ACT 59 uh planning process they’ve clearly tried to ignore um you know the rul making that they know they need to
Do right now um and I think the connect between all of these you know superlative qualities of the Worcester range and what they’re actually proposing to do on the ground is increasingly inescapable for the state and they’re I think you know seeing that uh they’re going to have to make some
Changes here um and and state legislators I haven’t mentioned this yet but um what’s I think also equally critical right now don’t just send in your comment to the state an anr get in touch with your local rep get in touch with uh representative Amy Sheldon in
Particular who is a real champion in the house energy and environment committee um you know legislators have the power to change the way public lands are managed and if the state of Vermont is not going to get with the times if we can’t learn from you know what we just
All went through in 2023 and change the way we’re doing things on public lands then the the legislature needs to step in and uh so this is our chance to to you know say we’re not we’re not getting what we expect from um our public employees on state land management time
To change uh the way we do things it’s a really important time to let our legislators know that we’re unhappy so don’t just send off your comment to uh an anr make sure you’re letting you know Amy Sheldon and other representative Sheldon and others know that um you are
You are very concerned about what’s being proposed thank you for that question yeah Andrea go ahead hi um am I can you hear me yes yeah oh good okay um I feel like I’m talking to myself I live over in websterville I used to live in Worcester um for many
Years um and in websterville we’re right on the edge of the millstone Hill wreck area and um of Ages and uh there were a bunch of sections of the woods around us where all of the bicycle trails are that they had um the Foresters had gone through and marked they were taking out
Like a lot of Ash and um what they considered junk trees you know things growing multiple um tops from you know one you know bottom and that kind of stuff and uh and creating Open Spaces um for that whole uh regeneration uh you know New Forest kind
Of stuff because it is a it is about a hundred years old I call it a post-industrial paradise um and so many people in the town got together and they had Foresters come in and we went walking through to like some of the places that they had already logged and
You know there was lots of Slash everything is sort of copass and just growing up as you know whips and that kind of thing and they were like it it just it was kind of devastating to see where they had um logged and uh and there was another section where
Some of my favorite trails are and we were just like oh my God you can’t can’t go forward with this you know and we actually were able to shut that down I mean you know the town has a plan they have a group that you know takes input
And uh everyone was like you know well you know manage it for like Recreation because people use this all the time it brings you know income into the town it you know like um the Frisbee Golf Course is fine you know some of it gets a little stomped down but it’s really
Worth making comments yeah thank you Andrea um you know I I hope I didn’t and I know you’re not saying this that you were saying this but you know to Gil’s previous comment the last thing I want you know but in Reading what what commissioner fitzco
Just said I hope that makes you more determined than ever to submit a comment because for I was pretty disappointed reading that um if if our Commissioner of forest Parks and Recreation who’s relatively new in the position is telling people that their comment you know kind of doesn’t matter at this
Point because the state might just go ahead and do what it’s going to do um I mean that’s just not what you know we should be accepting as kind of reasonable response to uh you know public comment um we need to be you know really carefully considering
What comes in and if the state is uh you know not going to follow the laws of the land um then they need to be held accountable to that um and the fact that the state has evaded rulemaking for this long um I think is a sign of just you
Know how uh hard the state’s been trying not to be held accountable um without rules it’s really hard to um make sure that things are done the right way every time and instead you know we have these planning processes that are kind of uh different from each plan to the next um
So you know your comment is so important right now I couldn’t agree with you more and it is not impossible in fact I think I think you know the momentum is on our side people are realizing how important not just the Worcester range is but public lands in general U and
Appreciating their value for the climate um for biodiversity more than ever before and I think it’s not far off that we are going to change the way public lands are managed in the state of Vermont and across New England um so let’s start with the Worcester range um
You know we’ve gotten in on the ground floor and we can make this happen U I think there’s going to be outrage if this plan doesn’t look different from the way it does right now um I I guarantee there’s going to be um you know some really uh difficult hearings
At the state house for you know the agency of Natural Resources um so you know let’s let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that and let’s let’s all submit our comments and and we can make sure that you know we’re we’re putting our best foot forward now and and setting
Ourselves up to to defend the wor range going forward so great great questions any other questions here’s a question in the chat about um in jail I just saw your hango up um hold on one second I just saw question in the chat about uh how to
Deal with the the wish to support you know the timber industry and and the economics here you know uh as I mentioned towards the end of the presentation public lands across the US um and Vermont is no exception provide very a very very very small uh piece of
The the wood supply again just 2% of all of the wood harvested annually in Vermont you know it comes from state land so uh these land that’s why State lands have on average so much more above ground carbon than private Forest lands it’s why we have the incredible biodiversity
That we do in the Worcester range today and uh we aren’t there there’s a false Choice here between having a wood products economy having wood to burn in your stove having wood to build houses out of um and having forests right um I you know we’re in the
Business of of recovering natural Forest which means you need time and you need space those are the two key ingredients to Forest Health in the northeastern United States and you only need to look across the lake at the Forever Wild public lands of the Adera to know that
Those are the key ingredients that’s all it takes is a commitment to time and space for Forest to grow and develop and the larger that space the better and so uh you know that should be our priority with the Worster range and um you know I
I think the the there’s we need to push back every time it gets painted as a choice between um you know wood products and and jobs you know in the wood products economy and restoring old forests if we do everything everywhere which is what we’re doing right now if
We Source wood products from every corner of our forest then you end up with the lowest common denominator Forest everywhere if you don’t make sure that some forests are allowed to grow old you’re never going to get old forests it’s as simple as that and we have to make decisions
That are durable they have to outlast us these forests are going to grow old in our children’s and our grandchildren’s lifetime this is much more than the age of any individual tree right we’re talking about whole ecosystems that will develop hopefully over hundreds of years and so we’ve got to make something a
Gift to Future Generations you know far beyond what we’re giving ourselves today and and that’s the choice that people have made in other parts of the country and New England is way behind um you know in California 15% of California is in wildlands management um in New York
10% of New York is in wildlands management in Vermont 3% of the state is managed that way so we have a lot of catching up to do um yeah JL go ahead um hey so I’m a little confused about the timeline um when is the logging supposed to start happening in
The first section yeah great question I believe the first timber Harvest is scheduled for 2025 but this is a draft plan and it took longer than I think anybody probably expected for them to get from the scoping the initial Outreach that they did three years ago to this current
Plan and uh the pandemic probably played a role on that but I fully expect it’s going to take months you know for them to get to a final plan and I do think there will be changes you know and and I and I I think there might be major
Changes um so you know this is a different landscape the Worcester range is so exceptional and the fact that it you know we’re not building off of an existing management plan most public lands across the country have a management plan on the books that when when it comes time to
Revive the plan you’re kind of basing that new plan off of something that already existed there is no plan for the Worcester range the Worster range is a blank canvas so I think again that just adds to the weight the you know the gravity of the situation here we’ve got
This 15,600 acre wild core you know much larger you know almost 19,000 Acres of of of really wild public Forest that um can be you know left intact if we make a simple decision today to to put it on a path to Old Forest recovery
And so uh the 2020 don’t let the 2025 you know Harvest um worry you you know this is our our chance to weigh in now and we can delay this project a lot um and there are legal options if it comes down to it if if the plan continues to
Violate the law the way that we believe it is right now um so there’s a question in the chat here and maybe we’ll just do try not to go past 7:30 so that we ar aren’t keeping people too late but um two questions that I see here is it better
To email the public comment or to submit using their form um I would say it really doesn’t matter use whatever format is uh you know more comfortable to you uh if you would like to submit a you know email or a document you know via email go ahead and do that if you
Want to fill out their form that’s great too I don’t think that any comment is going to be Tre any differently than any other comment um so just just do what what feels right to you good good question um and and then is there truly a choice between logging versus no
Logging or is there a style or form of of more controlled logging that can enhance um or at least not interfere with the development of older mature Forest that’s a great question too there are absolutely gradients of of intensity of logging um no question about it and there’s good research going
Into how to make uh logging um uh so that it more closely mimics uh natural disturbances and and there have been various names for this over the years natural disturbance silver culture um you’ll hear a term these days that I think is misused and and abused somewhat called Silver culture for old growth
Characteristics these can be uh improvements on what I kind of think of as traditional logging practices um what the science shows though is that if your primary goals um are climate biodiversity uh you know uh resiliency in terms of you know flood risk reduction drought mitigation um the best
Thing to do is in in the Northeast is to leave that forest alone so I want to be really really clear there was a fantastic paper that came out last year by Edward by Susan MSO and Bill Muma all incredible researchers um here based here in New England um looking at Forest
Management practices and the best ways to adapt to climate change and uh to help our native biodiversity recover in New England um to help make sure that we’re you know putting packing carbon away and in our you know natural ecosystems and what they found is that unless economics are motivating factor
In your decision-making that Timber Harvest should not be a part of your Land Management strategy the best thing you can do is let that Forest mature and develop on its own in in in most cases now if there’s a plantation of uh you know Red Pine or uh you know a kind of
Unnatural you know condition out there that um you know you could do some work in to uh increase structural complexity and and species you know improves the species composition of that stand that may make a lot of sense um but by and large what they’re saying and what a lot
Of others have echoed um including you know longtime uh Forest Service uh climate expert carbon expert Richard birdy in a paper that also came out just last year the best thing we can do in these forests is to pretty much leave them alone and so again only when
Economics are a driving Factor in terms of Timber Harvest that’s when maybe it makes sense to harvest trees but we shouldn’t excuse or Justify Timber Harvest on climate grounds on uh biodiversity grounds it’s just not justified by the science and that includes Salvage logging so whether
That’s ash trees that have uh you know died from emerald ash bore whether that is going in and cutting ash trees before they’re uh infested with uh ashb those are not ecologically justified management actions and there’s been a lot of science coming out about both uh post and preemptive Salvage logging as
You know just a really Reckless activity that typically harms forests far more than it helps them um and there’s good resources out there this is becoming more and more mainstream um this understanding that Salvage logging is just detrimental to Forest there’s no excuse to typically to go in and uh do
That kind of work but it’s something that the state and federal agencies across the country are talking about doing more of in the face of climate change as we get these novel stressors the hemlock willly ad delid coming into Vermont is that GNA you know trigger a
Lot more Harvest of hemlocks um I sure hope not um and it would it it’s absolutely again unjustified by the science to do that kind of of of management so um something that we should really be steering public land agencies away from doing uh good good good questions see let’s see here
Um yes so the papers I just mentioned we’ll send I’ll send those out um along with you know a link to the recording um details for how to comment uh you know information that we covered tonight um and if you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to to reach out to
Me directly I’d be happy to visit with you by email by phone by Zoom um so you know use us as a resource we want to be you know available as much as we can be to help you uh take back your public lands that’s the that’s the whole
Purpose of our organization um so thank you for coming out tonight and unless there are any other urgent questions um I think we can wrap up great thanks everybody have a great evening and thank you for commenting by the February 2nd deadline take Care