Photograph by Steven Higgs
Gov. Mitch Daniels is making good on his plan to cut down Indiana's state forests. Only three years into his administration, his DNR is now planning a timber harvest in the backcountry area of Morgan-Monroe State Forest.
Gov. Mitch Daniels has succeeded in his plan to increase logging across the Indiana State Forest system. The logging level has increased 500 percent since he took office three years ago, and by 2009, the income from timber sales will have increased 1,000 percent in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest alone.
To fulfill the 500 percent increase mandated by the governor, forest supervisors are now planning to log the Morgan-Monroe/Yellowwood State Forest Backcountry Area. This area was created in the 1980s to provide a backcountry wilderness experience for Indiana citizens.
The Morgan-Monroe property manager has stated that the backcountry area needs to be logged to comply with the timber volume mandated by the Department of Natural Resource's (DNR) 2005 strategic plan.
The Indiana Forest Alliance (IFA) maintains that industrial forestry and recreation are not compatible and argues that if, after only three years, Daniels is already targeting recreational areas for logging, the increased level of logging clearly is not sustainable.
IFA and other groups will sponsor a town hall meeting on the backcountry area logging on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. in Bloomington City Hall.
IFA challenged the DNR's logging program in a 2002 lawsuit that is still pending in Monroe Circuit Court. The lawsuit was filed under the Indiana Environmental Policy Act (IEPA), but in 2006, the DNR and the governor successfully pushed legislation through the General Assembly exempting the state from the environmental protection law.
Monroe Circuit Judge Steve Galvin granted an IFA motion to amend the original complaint to challenge this illegal exemption, as well.
And District 61 State Rep. Matt Pierce will introduce the Indiana State Forest Protection Act in the Legislature. This bill would force the DNR's Division of Forestry to abide by the IEPA and complete site-specific environmental assessments of the impacts of state forest logging on the environment.
The bill would create a new State Forest Ecologist position and force the DNR to create management plans for endangered species.
Drew Laird is director of the Indiana Forest Alliance and can be reached at ifa.director@gmail.com.
Citizens are urged to attend the Jan. 29 meeting and call Jim Allen, property manager of Morgan-Monroe State Forest, at 812-988-7945 to demand that the backcountry area logging plan be canceled.
Comments
backcountry logging
The 300% increase (to a total of 400% pre-administration levels) probably has not resulted in 10X (1000% increase) the revenue on an annual basis.
If this were undisturbed virgin forest, there may be an argument, but not as much so in second and third growth Indiana forestland.
The real issue that needs to be debated and seriously considered is whether a 300% increase will result in sustainable harvesting (growth >= removals). If so (probably the case), then let a managed forest be managed sustainably, and concentrate the fire toward forest clearing for development and that ridiculous I-69 boondoggle that will permanently destroy 5000 acres of greenspace.
Perspective, people.