Always Nice to see how modern foresters are more propagandized than educated!

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/p...30614/APN/3061
40666&cachetime=5

Whistleblower accuses agency of mismanaging Southern Appalachian forests

By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer
June 14, 2003

A U.S. Forest Service archaeologist is accusing the agency of mismanaging its
Southern Appalachian holdings, and he's using its own 100-year-old surveys to
back him up.

In a whistleblower action filed Friday, Quentin R. Bass II argues that the
agency has illegally ignored the true nature of the region's forests in an
effort to justify increased logging and prescribed burning on 3 million acres
in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. It is basing its
management strategy on the results of widespread clearcutting that occurred
before the government acquired the land, he claims.

"By ignoring the great weight of the past prior to the 20th century, our use of
the forest and the effects of this use has become confused as a `natural'
process," Bass wrote in a disclosure document filed with the agency's Office of
Special Counsel.

Relying on data collected in the early 20th century by its own ecologists, Bass
argues that most of the region's forests were naturally a stable ecosystem
dominated by tall, old, "uneven-aged" trees. Bass argues that the Forest
Service is treating these lands more like Western forests, where controlled
burns and thinning out of trees are needed to keep the woods healthy and
prevent wildfires.

He submitted his findings as part of the management plan revision for
Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest, but said they was largely omitted from
draft plans and environmental impact statements for Cherokee and four others
undergoing revision.

"It runs almost directly contrary to how they have been managing the forest and
how they are proposing to run the forest in the forest plan," said Doug Ruley,
an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Asheville, N.C.
"They're saying, `We're the ones who asked you to put this together, and now
we're not interested because it's highly inconvenient.'"

Terry McDonald, a spokesman for the Cherokee forest, said officials had no
immediate comment on the complaint. The other forests covered by the complaint
are the Chattahoochee/Oconee in Georgia, the Jefferson in Virginia, the Sumter
in South Carolina, and the Talladega and Bankhead in Alabama.

Bass said the old surveys in Appalachia reveal a "permanent, uneven-aged or
`all age' forest, which reflected a state of dynamic equilibrium and maintained
itself through single-tree falls or smaller disturbances."

"The natural forest types of the Southern Appalachians and the resulting
terrestrial and aquatic plant and animal species are determined by the
permanent environmental characteristics of the land itself, not by successional
changes over time," his complaint said.

James S. Clark, an ecology professor at Duke University's Nicholas School of
the Environment and Earth Sciences, had not read the forest service plans. But
he agreed that "the role of fire and other disturbances are often overstated"
when it comes to the Appalachian forests.

"This guy's descriptions of the Southern Appalachians are basically right,"
said Clark. "His understanding of the dynamics of Southern Appalachian forests
are fairly accurate."

By failing to include his findings in the land management plans presented for
public comment, the agency has violated federal laws and regulations, Bass
argues.

"Not coincidentally, these draft forest plans prescribe massive burns, logging
and other even-age management that results in a higher volume of merchantable
timber than would result under management that better reflected the underlying
natural ecology of these forests," he wrote. "Irreparable harm to our Southern
Appalachian national forest is inevitable as a result of these omissions and
violations of law."

Many of these lands had been clearcut multiple times by the time the government
acquired them. But ecologist Hugh Irwin said that's no excuse to repeat what he
considers the mistakes of the past.

"You know, it's undeniable that the Southern Appalachian forests have gone
through incredible changes and damage, but many of the elements for that
recovery are still there," said Irwin, who is with the Southern Appalachian
Forest Coalition. "And moving them in a direction like they used to be is a
much better course than accepting that the forests are changed, so we're never
going to get back there."

The general counsel's office has 15 working days to determine whether the
disclosure should be referred to the secretary of agriculture who would have 60
days to respond.