Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

GratitudeMountain t1_iysxl78 wrote

There’s a lot of information they are leaving out. The forest service isn’t going to clearcut 11,000 acres, rather they want permission to survey the area to see if it is suitable for the prescription. It is against state law to clearcut over 15 continuous acres, so the reality will likely be a sort of patch-work layout similar to what’s happening in the NEK’s wildlife refuge.

Also worth to note that the said wildlife refuge, while also being public land, had no reaction like this to it’s clearcuts. I don’t think the idea of preserving public land is a terrible idea, though there seems to be a lot of bias to what areas are being targeted for preservation and what information this organization is presenting.

47

vtddy t1_iyu4cuh wrote

It's not 15 acres is 39

6

GratitudeMountain t1_iyu8utw wrote

Ah my bad. I was told by one of my professors that clearcuts generally don’t exceed 15 acres, but I guess that’s more of a practice than an enforcement.

3

RoyalIndependence500 t1_iyv5nzl wrote

I worked for the US Forest Service for over 20 years (not as a forester, although I learned a LOT from foresters). The federal rule at the time ( and this would address the GMNF), was no clearcut over 20 acres. And so people know, this claim that thousands of acres are to be cut is total bullshit. The project area may be thousands of acres, but the treatment units total acres is much smaller. And for every inch cut, the FS conducted biological, hydrological, soil science, archaeological, botanical as well as forestry surveys to determine where, when and what type of treatment will meet the long term management objectives. I have a very hard time with Standing Trees and any organization that intentionally misleads the public. These folks claim they want “Wilderness”, which is a racist concept that ignores thousands of years of environmental manipulation by indigenous people. I am an environmentalist. We need to address climate change, water quality and a host of issues by protecting our lands. But that doesn’t mean we can’t manipulate and help restore balance through human intervention.

16