A call to protect the forest

Roanoke Times Op-Ed: February 25, 2007

Sherman Bamford

Bamford is the public lands coordinator of Virginia Forest Watch and a Sierra Club member.

Imagine your alarm clock buzzes and red lights flash across its screen announcing: "Time to get moving. The next 10 to 15 years of the George Washington National Forest are at stake."

The Forest Service's Feb. 15 Federal Register notice announcing the beginning of the George Washington National Forest Plan Revision process is such a wakeup call.

If you really care about the forest and its amazing fishing, hunting and recreation spots, you already know how important this 1.1 million-acre national forest is. But many people are not aware of the fact that this forest supplies clean water to communities throughout the commonwealth, including Staunton, Harrisonburg, Strasburg and Lynchburg. Or that Virginia and the George Washington National Forest is a stronghold for native brook trout, black bear and unique salamanders.

In fact, our George Washington National Forest is our last best hope for preserving the beauty and diversity of our Appalachian Mountains here in Virginia. It is our ark of wildness in a sea of development that blankets much of the commonwealth.

Virginia Forest Watch, the Sierra Club and seven other groups will soon be releasing a Citizens' Action Plan for the forest, "Our Land, Our Water, Our Home: Ensuring a Healthy Future for Our George Washington National Forest." The citizens' plan will highlight the important values of the forest, the threats to them and specific recommendations for the long-term direction of this vital forest.

This new vision calls for an ecologically sound restoration approach that will heal and renew the forest. We are working to protect 65 Virginia Mountain Treasure areas across the forest, safeguard the places where wildlife live and raise their young and places where rare plants are found, and ensure that sources of clean water are strictly protected.

The Citizens' Action Plan is urgently needed because logging and roadbuilding continue unabated, even in rare old-growth forests. The fate of precious wild areas like Toms Knob, Big Schloss, Great North Mountain, Jerkemtight and Elliott Knob still hangs in the balance.

Other urgent problems also must be addressed at this critical time. For example, the forest has seen a dramatic rise in illegal off-highway vehicle use. And careless management practices have created conditions where non-native plant species thrive.

Our public lands are a public trust held for citizens and future generations. We should be proud that our American democracy gives us a voice in the management of open spaces like the George Washington.

Unfortunately, in recent years the administration in Washington and the U.S. Forest Service have been turning in the opposite direction -- often eliminating public participation opportunities or subverting the hard-won gains of conservationists through back-door regulatory changes with significant effects

Thanks to a questionable 2005 rewrite of the rules, the Forest Service already plans to weaken wildlife, clean water and other environmental protections in the George Washington by transforming enforceable standards and goals to vague, unenforceable "desired conditions" and guidelines that the service need not follow.

A subsequent 2006 rewrite of the rules cuts off many avenues of meaningful public participation until the individual project stage. We also expect the George Washington National Forest Plan Revision to move at an extremely rapid pace this time, finishing within a year and a half.

However, the public should not be dismayed. Instead, we should be encouraged to take more vigorous action. If you or your family know of a special place on the George Washington that must be protected, contact a conservation group, attend a face-to-face meeting, write a letter and do not hesitate to make an extra effort during this round.

Five initial meetings are taking place in early March, in Lexington, Covington, Hot Springs, Woodstock and Harrisonburg (www.virginiaforestwatch.org). You can also write a legislator on behalf of forests, clean water, roadless areas, old-growth forests and more enlightened forest policy -- both here and nationwide. Make your voice heard. Together, the citizens of Virginia can save the George Washington National Forest -- for all.

Updates on plan revision efforts can be found on the Web at www.virginiaforestwatch.org.