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January 12, 2005
Wednesday's Feature Wild Area - Tionesta Wilderness Area
Every Wednesday in 2005, the Allegheny Defense Project will feature a proposed special area on our blog, the Hellbender Chronicles. These areas are featured in the ADP's Allegheny Wild! Proposal for the Allegheny National Forest. Many of these areas would be given protections under the Act to Save America's Forests.
The proposed Tionesta Wilderness Area
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
The Tionesta Wilderness features the Tionesta National Natural Landmark (the largest old growth forest in Pennsylvania), thousands of acres of proposed old growth management corridors, the North Country National Scenic Trail, the East Fork Roadless Area, Twin Lakes Hiking Trail, the proposed Tionesta Wilderness Trail, Crane Run Wilderness Trout Stream and other wild features.
Background: The Tionesta Wilderness proposal first appeared in 1996 when the Allegheny Defense Project was first responding to logging threats in the surrounding forest. The East Side (then known as Mortality II), Eagle Mills, James Mills, and Six Pipes timber sales all threatened the integrity of the Tionesta old growth and surrounding recovering forest lands. In 1997 the ADP started formalizing its proposal and in 1999 the proposal for a Tionesta Wilderness Area was introduced in a research paper in the Natural Areas Journal. In spring of 2004, the Allegheny Defense Project formally included the proposed Tionesta Wilderness Area in our Allegheny Wild! proposed management plan for the Allegheny National Forest. The proposal was detailed in a 66-page fully cited report. The Tionesta Wilderness Area was incorporated as a Special Area in the Act to Save America's Forests. By the end of 2005, over 1,000 businesses, organizations, and individuals had endorsed the Allegheny Wild! proposal.
Status: Today, this area remains largely unprotected. The Martin Run Timber Sale threatens logging in the heart of the proposed Tionesta Wilderness Area. The mineral rights underneath the Wilderness, and even the Tionesta National Natural Landmark, are largely held by private corporations such as National Fuel.
Description: The Tionesta Wilderness Areas centers around the Tionesta Scenic and Research Natural Areas, an old growth northern hardwood forest compromised of 300 to 500 year old trees, and its restoration values to neighboring second growth forests. The Tionesta old growth forest was designated a National Natural Landmark and is home to all kinds of wildlife including the Northern Goshawk, the Indiana bat, the state endangered Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, and a variety of songbirds that prefer old growth habitat. The old growth has incredible value as a source for restoration of wildlife and plant diversity to surrounding forest lands that are still recovering from past logging and drilling operations.
Photos of the Tionesta Wilderness Area
Backpacking in the Tionesta Wilderness
Exploring the Tionesta Wilderness
Posted by jkleissler at January 12, 2005 03:14 PM
Comments
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Posted by: jkleissler ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.alleghenydefense.org/chronicles/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 20, 2005 06:14 PM
....Speaking of "wilderness" ... I came across this group called "Friends of Allegheny Wilderness". I wrote to them using their address for questions, and they never got back to me or answered any of my (fairly innocent) questions.
Maybe they have heard of me. My website is being "watched" by certain "groups" and perhaps they are "inter-related" ... Go ahead and laugh, call me a "conspiracy-ist" ... but I know who looks at my site, when, and for how long.
I refer to this group as "Fiends of Allegheny Wilderness" for a few different reasons. ONE, they won't answer ANY of my e-mails or questions regarding their "efforts" on wilderness designations , and TWO they are "pro-logging" and "pro-oil and gas extraction". They are also very "chummy" with the local, relevant, REPUBLICAN politicians and seem to be tolerant of, or down right in favor of, the Bush Administration's environmental policies.
One of my first unanswered questions to them was "How can you be for wilderness, and not against logging, and/or oil and gas extraction?" That is a fair enough question. My next was "why is it, all your proposals for wilderness designations are in areas that are ether, too remote or undesirable for logging/oil/gas interests to pursue, or are areas that the logging/oil/gas industries in a 'million years' won't be able to touch?" I followed that with "are ALL the areas you are proposing for wilderness signed off on by the logging/oil/gas industries, ether publicly, or 'behind the scenes'?"
For an example, it seems by their website, their "pet" project or "favorite" or "most immediate" area for designation as "wilderness" is the area between Kinzua Beach, Rt. 59 adjacent to Wolf Run Marina, and Rim Rock and the immediate surrounding area. "Wilderness"? THAT area? Come on .... be serious! Given, it's a nice area ... one of my favorites ... but oil and gas and logging would never have a shot at that area ... Sure, make it wilderness ... but I don't think it needs any more protecting than it already has ... It's a VERY well visited, popular tourist trap. The trail between the Kinzua Beach and Rim Rock is littered with beer cans and used condoms (much like the three main caves at Rim Rock) ... attesting to the abundant "wild life", but hardly a "wilderness experience" by any stretch of the imagination.
My instinct would be to let the land decide what should be protected as wilderness .... That is, what needs to be protected the most. Such as, what is the most critical to the most wildlife (not the beer-drinking, condom-using variety) or what areas are being most abused and need to be protected before important or critical habitat is permanently destroyed or irradiated. Never mind trying to appease the logging/oil/gas and ask for wilderness designations for areas they have no interests in, because they are impractical, undesirable, or definitely unattainable.
I guess another good, legitimate question is ... "Are the members (founders) of the "Friends of the Allegheny Wilderness" working for the logging or oil and gas industries and 'pretending' to be an environmental group?". ... I mean to ask if they are working for those industries DIRECTLY. CERTAINLY they are working for them back-handedly, as witnessed by the fact that they are quickly becoming the "darling environmental" group of local republican politicians .... AND they are certainly the kind of "environmentalist" the Bush Administration can "get behind". A republican dream come true. An environmental group that only asks for land/areas that nobody else wants (for exploitation) and isn't opposed to "a-cuttin' 'n a-drillin'" in any way, shape or form!
Do others who join their group understand that, ... and I quote: "Friends of Allegheny Wilderness does not oppose logging in the Allegheny National Forest, nor do we support the efforts of those who do". There may be some real environmentalist who join (or have already joined) who do not fully understand the goals or operation of the group. Like I said, I tried to get answers to my questions about them (several times) and never got a respond from them. I wonder if any others had this same experience?
There are some of us who would like to see ALL of the Allegheny National Forest preserved as "wilderness", and the best way to achieve that is to oppose ALL logging and ALL oil and gas extraction. Lord knows, and so do YOU who spend time "out in the woods" in the Allegheny National Forest, that there is plenty of a-cuttin' and a-drillin' goin' on!
Stony!
Posted by: Stony at March 21, 2005 02:50 PM
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