Post by hatchetjack on Feb 24, 2016 11:41:51 GMT -5
Earlier in this legislative session 2 identical bills were introduced...Senate Bill 365 and House Bill 1155. Both bills were requested by that small segment of tree huggers living in Bloomington directly aimed at stopping DNR from managing state forests in a responsible manner. Neither of these 2 bills could get a hearing.
This being the same DNR that received National and International awards recently for proper logging in those same forests. The state forests are not state parks. The purposes of these 2 areas is often misunderstood. Frankly the biologists and foresters have told us for years that without proper forest management we would lose the grouse populations and various songbirds and game and non-game species reliant on early successional forests. They were right.
The forests age at about 3% a year. We are currently logging at about 1%-2% a year and yes this a huge increase from the Democrat years. The state forests comprise about 150,000 acres and they are not keeping up with even the aging of the forests. They are becoming parks. Parts of the new forest plan I disagree with. I don't like the idea of building cabins and RV areas in the forests. But I do want professionals managing my forests so I support the current forestry plan.
I hope those few grouse hunters out there and perhaps birders and others interested in healthy forest initiatives will take the time to contact your senator and ask that any attempt to add SB365 language or HB1155 language to bills that actually passed the first half of the session be defeated. It also removes public input from the legislative process. This is a ploy politicians often use to insert bills they cannot get passed by regular means so they add it as part of another bill that likely will pass in hopes of getting re-elected by the folks back home. This is not in the best interest of Hoosiers and further tightens the legislative grip on scientists and managers of DNR.
Find your Senator here:
