To the editors:
Re: “Forest Service issues draft management plan for 72,000 acres in Rutland County”
With conservation groups like Vermont Natural Resources Council and Audubon Vermont, do forests even need enemies?
These groups, along with professor Bill Keeton, are promoting the Green Mountain National Forest’s 10,959-acre Telephone Gap project, which would overwhelmingly target mature and old forests, including 691 acres of old growth and 1,800 acres in one of Vermont’s largest unprotected roadless areas.
While VRNC and Audubon push a narrative that the Telephone Gap proposal would “balance” conservation and resource extraction, any truly balanced approach would simply leave this rare, intact island of mature and old forest alone. Research shows that unmanaged forests store more carbon, more effectively buffer flooding, and are more climate resilient than managed forests, and it is clear that Vermont needs much more old forest on the landscape.
91% of all the acreage slated to be cut at Telephone Gap is classified as “old” or “mature,” including 691 acres of USFS-inventoried old growth dating back as early as 1861. With only 0.3% of New England forestland over 150 years old, it is hard to overstate what an important opportunity Telephone Gap presents to protect old forests — and avoid releasing a staggering 254,556 metric tons of CO2.
The Forest Service, VRNC and Audubon may be digging in their heels for more reckless logging on our public lands, but there is still time to save Telephone Gap. Anyone can submit objections to that end to Vermont’s congressional delegation, the White House and to the Forest Service until January 17th.
Chris Gish
Cambridge
All specific information in this letter regarding the Telephone Gap project is taken from the USFS’s environmental assessment and appendices.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Chris Gish: Save Telephone Gap and protect old forests.