Forest logging plans upsetting environmentalists

State officials’ logging plans for two state forests have upset environmental activists who want the small amount of woods on public land left alone.\nLast fall, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources angered activists when it announced that the agency would begin to log “back country” areas in southern Indiana’s Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests.\nThose areas contain the oldest hardwoods that are most valuable to lumber buyers and therefore the biggest revenue producers.\nJohn Seifert, the director of the DNR’s forestry division, said the money from the timber sales would go into the state forestry fund to pay for additional forest acquisition, various forestry programs and reimbursement to counties where the trees were cut.\nHe said “single-tree selection,” and not clear-cutting, will be practiced in the Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests. Still, he said nonvaluable trees such as sawtooth or largetooth aspens may also be felled while loggers are on a site.\nIndiana’s private and public forests occupy 4.65 million acres, with 85 percent of the state’s forests in private hands. Indiana’s 13 state forests account for just 150,000 acres, or 1 percent of the land in the Hoosier state.\nCharlie Cole, a member of the environmental advocacy group Friends of Yellowwood, questioned why the state is being so aggressive with such a small amount of forested land.\n“It’s all about money,” Cole said. “There is no good reason for the type of destruction they’re planning, even in a multipurpose use program. They’re not looking at the big picture.”\nSeifert said he recognizes that different people embrace different approaches to forest management. He said there “is a lot of science” behind the DNR’s logging practices.\nConservationists often argue that forests are best left alone and that cutting trees inevitably creates more problems than it solves. But the DNR and others say judicious removal of selected trees can improve forest health and enhance the biodiversity of woodlands while also raising money for other natural resources projects.\n“There are people who have problems with multiple-use management, which is what we’re all about, and we understand that,” Seifert said. “We do. Everything has a compromise.” \nJim Allen, forest manager for Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood, said tree harvesting is currently targeted for the edges of back-country areas. He said he doubts backpackers will be seriously inconvenienced.\nThe Indiana Forest Alliance has challenged the state with a lawsuit questioning the state’s position that it does not need to make environmental impact studies before it engages in logging on public land.\nDrew Laird, the group’s spokesman, said its members are frustrated by the state’s “stalling tactics” in response to that lawsuit.\n“There is a lot we’d like to know that we can’t get at,” he said. “When they say they are only taking 50 percent of new growth in the state forests, we question that.”\nSeifert said the DNR recently announced “open house” meetings for March and April at four Indiana state forests – Greene-Sullivan, Yellowwood, Ferdinand and Clark – on the logging plans.\nBut Laird is convinced that such public meetings are just window-dressing.\n“I don’t know that they have ever listened to any comment I’ve made or written,” he said. “It’s just a show. They’ve taken the public out of the picture.”