Plan to expand forest logging divides environmentalists

INDIANAPOLIS -- The state's plan to boost by up to fivefold the amount of timber cut each year in Indiana's state forests has divided environmentalists, some of whom said it's all about money even as others argue the plan will safeguard forest diversity.\nDavid Haberman, the assistant coordinator of the Indiana Forest Alliance, opposes the plan announced Sept. 16 by Gov. Mitch Daniels, calling it "an outrageous document."\n"It's not based on solid science," Haberman said.\nThe plan's supporters, however, said it will promote the growth of valuable oaks and hickories, slow the spread of forest disease and protect some species of Hoosier wildlife.\nBut it's also about money. Currently, Indiana collects about $1 million a year from logging 3.4 million board feet of timber in state forests. The new plan calls for boosting that to $3 million to $5 million -- from as much as 17 million board feet.\n"When we generate a dollar of timber revenue -- whether from private or public land -- it's an additional $10 to the state economy," said State Forester John Seifert, a former Purdue University forestry researcher who has been on the job about two months.\n"That's why this is such a huge component of our plan. But we're going to manage the forests with the best science we have available."\nThe Indiana Forest Alliance and its member groups generally oppose all logging and question the idea that cutting some trees to open the forest canopy is necessary to help some species of trees and wildlife thrive. Haberman said encouraging younger forests will actually harm some species that rely on older growth.\n"Their argument doesn't make sense," he said. "These forests did just fine through history without ongoing logging activities."\nBut the Indiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy, which is a heavyweight among environmental groups, endorses the plan.\nAllen Pursell, the group's Blue River project director, said failing to manage the forests more aggressively will allow them to age and be overtaken by beeches and maples -- trees that differ markedly from oaks and hickories, which produce crops of nuts eaten by animals.\nPursell said opening the forest's dense canopy -- something that used to happen naturally, often by fires that are now suppressed -- allows light to reach the forest floor, giving life to fallen acorns and other seeds waiting for sunlight to grow.\nOpening such clearings will help redevelop the oak and hickory forests for which Indiana is now known, he said. Because of that, Pursell said the Nature Conservancy sees the state's plan as a sort of means to an end.