Post by cambygsp on Sept 17, 2005 5:20:48 GMT -5
www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050917/NEWS01/509170502
Plan will target sick trees; environmentalists question approach.
By Theodore Kim
theodore.kim@indystar.com
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. -- Gov. Mitch Daniels on Friday announced a plan to fell up to five times as many trees in the state's public forests as in previous years, a move he said would rejuvenate aging groves and stimulate Indiana's timber industry.
The Republican administration's efforts bring the state into a a growing and impassioned debate about how best to nurture Indiana's 150,000 acres of state forest: through selective clearing or by exercising a more hands-off approach.
Daniels and top state forestry officials -- most of whom the governor appointed -- said the strategy would target older and stricken trees near death, as well as denser groves that could become havens for insects and disease.
State natural resources officials then would use the additional timbering revenue, perhaps as much $4.5 million, for conservation efforts. Those include planting more trees, buying more acres of forest and offering cash incentives to owners of private forest who do not develop their land.
At a news conference before a swaying backdrop of black walnut and Chinese chestnut trees at Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Daniels sought to downplay the scope of the timbering effort. The chief goal, he said, is not to cut down more trees but to "make the forests more robust."
The vast majority of the timber cut in Indiana each year grows on private lands. Historically, the state has opened up for harvest about 3.4 million board-feet of forest each year.
Under the governor's directive, that figure would rise to 10 million to 17 million board-feet. A single board-foot is equivalent to a 1-inch-thick, 12-inch-long, 12-inch-wide plank of wood -- a standard of measurement in the logging industry.
Even with the increased timbering, Daniels said the state's public forests would continue to witness turnover and growth.
"There will be new growth and lots of it," the governor said after the news conference, during which he stood alongside members of the timber industry, forestry groups and other organizations. "The goal is to target those trees that nature was going to take out anyway."
But the plan drew scolding criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who said they were puzzled by the plan's logic.
"I don't understand cutting down trees to save them," said state Rep. Matt Pierce, who lives about 15 miles from the 25,000-acre Morgan-Monroe State Forest. "Somehow, these forests grew on their own for years without needing to be cut down."
Environmentalists differed about the merits of Daniels' plan, a reflection of the larger debate about forest management.
Dan Shaver, a project director for the Indiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said clearing older groves of trees prevents the spread of harmful insects like gypsy moths. It also curtails broader epidemic tree diseases such as looper, which in recent years has afflicted more than 100,000 acres of Southern Indiana forest.
Shaver, who attended Daniels' news conference, said timbering creates groves of both old and new forest, broadening the palette of ecosystems for local wildlife.
Kyle J. Hupfer, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources and a Daniels appointee, said the timbering effort was based upon sound science.
However, Tim Maloney, executive director of Hoosier Environmental Council, said such selective clearing is a debatable approach saddled with uncertainties.
"Goals like increasing public land and enhancing private land management are good things," Maloney said. "But this is not the way to pay for it. It's just not a balanced approach."
As an alternative, Maloney said the administration should advocate more stringent land-use policies to curtail sprawl while seeking to preserve as much private forested land as possible through acquisition and other means.
The timber industry was a supporter of Daniels' 2004 campaign. In the December 2004 issue of Hard News, a publication of the Indiana Hardwood Lumbermen's Association, the group's lobbyist, Ray Moistner, penned a celebratory column about the GOP's statewide election victory.
"We have before us an opportunity to move forward, and make hay while the sun shines," Moistner wrote in the newsletter, which is available on the association's Web site (www.ihla.org). "I think it's safe to say the elections were very good for IHLA."
Daniels, asked about the timber industry's involvement in the plan, said its foremost objective is forest conservation. As for economic development, Daniels said the hope is not to aid larger firms but smaller, rural sawmills across the state that have struggled to make ends meet.
Jim Steen, a vice president for the lumbermen's association, stressed that the focus of loggers would be on older, dying trees.
"It would be like if people drove past a cornfield in (the winter) that hadn't been harvested," Steen said. "They would say: 'That crop is going to waste.' "
But Maloney of the Hoosier Environmental Council questioned the value of the plan to sawmills. Most timbering in Indiana is done on private land, not in state forests, he said.
"I don't think this plan takes into account that forests are more than just tree farms."
Plan will target sick trees; environmentalists question approach.
By Theodore Kim
theodore.kim@indystar.com
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. -- Gov. Mitch Daniels on Friday announced a plan to fell up to five times as many trees in the state's public forests as in previous years, a move he said would rejuvenate aging groves and stimulate Indiana's timber industry.
The Republican administration's efforts bring the state into a a growing and impassioned debate about how best to nurture Indiana's 150,000 acres of state forest: through selective clearing or by exercising a more hands-off approach.
Daniels and top state forestry officials -- most of whom the governor appointed -- said the strategy would target older and stricken trees near death, as well as denser groves that could become havens for insects and disease.
State natural resources officials then would use the additional timbering revenue, perhaps as much $4.5 million, for conservation efforts. Those include planting more trees, buying more acres of forest and offering cash incentives to owners of private forest who do not develop their land.
At a news conference before a swaying backdrop of black walnut and Chinese chestnut trees at Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Daniels sought to downplay the scope of the timbering effort. The chief goal, he said, is not to cut down more trees but to "make the forests more robust."
The vast majority of the timber cut in Indiana each year grows on private lands. Historically, the state has opened up for harvest about 3.4 million board-feet of forest each year.
Under the governor's directive, that figure would rise to 10 million to 17 million board-feet. A single board-foot is equivalent to a 1-inch-thick, 12-inch-long, 12-inch-wide plank of wood -- a standard of measurement in the logging industry.
Even with the increased timbering, Daniels said the state's public forests would continue to witness turnover and growth.
"There will be new growth and lots of it," the governor said after the news conference, during which he stood alongside members of the timber industry, forestry groups and other organizations. "The goal is to target those trees that nature was going to take out anyway."
But the plan drew scolding criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who said they were puzzled by the plan's logic.
"I don't understand cutting down trees to save them," said state Rep. Matt Pierce, who lives about 15 miles from the 25,000-acre Morgan-Monroe State Forest. "Somehow, these forests grew on their own for years without needing to be cut down."
Environmentalists differed about the merits of Daniels' plan, a reflection of the larger debate about forest management.
Dan Shaver, a project director for the Indiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said clearing older groves of trees prevents the spread of harmful insects like gypsy moths. It also curtails broader epidemic tree diseases such as looper, which in recent years has afflicted more than 100,000 acres of Southern Indiana forest.
Shaver, who attended Daniels' news conference, said timbering creates groves of both old and new forest, broadening the palette of ecosystems for local wildlife.
Kyle J. Hupfer, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources and a Daniels appointee, said the timbering effort was based upon sound science.
However, Tim Maloney, executive director of Hoosier Environmental Council, said such selective clearing is a debatable approach saddled with uncertainties.
"Goals like increasing public land and enhancing private land management are good things," Maloney said. "But this is not the way to pay for it. It's just not a balanced approach."
As an alternative, Maloney said the administration should advocate more stringent land-use policies to curtail sprawl while seeking to preserve as much private forested land as possible through acquisition and other means.
The timber industry was a supporter of Daniels' 2004 campaign. In the December 2004 issue of Hard News, a publication of the Indiana Hardwood Lumbermen's Association, the group's lobbyist, Ray Moistner, penned a celebratory column about the GOP's statewide election victory.
"We have before us an opportunity to move forward, and make hay while the sun shines," Moistner wrote in the newsletter, which is available on the association's Web site (www.ihla.org). "I think it's safe to say the elections were very good for IHLA."
Daniels, asked about the timber industry's involvement in the plan, said its foremost objective is forest conservation. As for economic development, Daniels said the hope is not to aid larger firms but smaller, rural sawmills across the state that have struggled to make ends meet.
Jim Steen, a vice president for the lumbermen's association, stressed that the focus of loggers would be on older, dying trees.
"It would be like if people drove past a cornfield in (the winter) that hadn't been harvested," Steen said. "They would say: 'That crop is going to waste.' "
But Maloney of the Hoosier Environmental Council questioned the value of the plan to sawmills. Most timbering in Indiana is done on private land, not in state forests, he said.
"I don't think this plan takes into account that forests are more than just tree farms."
