Pennsylvania
Wild Areas Wild Areas are the state forest system's version of Wilderness. About 8% of the state forest lands are in Wild Areas. However, while Pennsylvania Wild Areas are spectacular places they are far from protected. Wild Areas are potentially open to logging, pesticide use, and some road building. Efforts are underway to change that. Pennsylvania is the birthplace of Howard Zahniser, author of the federal Wilderness Act, and the Pennsylvania Sierra Club is leading an effort provide them protections that they deserve. You can help by telling the Bureau of Forestry to increase the State Wild Areas by demanding that Wild Areas be protected from logging, pesticides, and all road construction. You can also endorse the Sierra Club's campaign by visiting their website at http://pennsylvania.sierraclub.org. Pennsylvania Natural Areas Pennsylvania Natural Areas make up only 4% of state forest lands but represent some of the most important and unique haitats in the state. Natural Areas currently receive the strongest protections and are protected from logging and have somewhat protective buffer areas ranging from 300 feet to 600 feet. However, there are many more habitats on state forest lands deserving of protection as natural areas. Furthermore activities such as pesticide spray are allowed in state natural areas. In addition, logging and possibly other damaging management activities would be allowed in buffer zones. You can help by asking the Bureau of Forestry to adopt additional areas as state forest Natural Areas. Ask that complete protection be given to Natural Areas and their buffer zones. State Forest Old Growth Areas The Bureau of Forestry has agreed to adopt 20% of state forest lands as old growth. However, half of this acreage is simply a designation of state Wild and Natural Areas. The rest is primarily made up of high ridge lines (that can't be logged anyway) and beauty strips along roads and trails. To make matters worse these areas are not clearly protected from any resource extraction activiites. You can help by demanding the designation of old growth areas that provide connectivity between Natural and Wild areas for wildlife. You can demand that old growth areas be protected from logging, road building, pesticide use, and oil and gas drilling. Submit Comments Now! Comments can be submitted on-line at the BOF website. Talking Points: Commenting on the State Forest Plans By the Pennsylvania Sierra Club Major Shortcomings The state forest plan prepared by the Bureau of Forestry (BOF) is a lengthy document of background, policies, objectives, and goals. It states a commitment to preserve biodiversity all throughout the document. However, the details in the plan fall short of providing a realistic blueprint for accomplishing that. One reason for this deficiency is the fact that the designation of old growth, considerations of logging, concerns about watersheds, fragmentation, and so on, all seem to be somewhat disconnected from the science and the on-the-ground conditions. The deficiency stems from the fact that there is no comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS) analyzing these conditions. There is very little biological science (as opposed to Silviculture 'science") utilized to develop the policies, goals, and objectives of the plan.Ê The BOF is the steward of our public state forests. Yet, in the plan, the BOF seems to ignore that acid rain deposition is impacting our state forests. In addition, the BOF does not prescribe management control of the overabundant white-tail deer herd other than prescribing deer fencing in certain forest treatments.Ê While the BOF does not control acid rain (EPA/DEP) or the deer herd (Game Commission), it can and should be more vocal about the impacts these problems have on the state forests and seek out partnerships with the appropriate agencies to help minimize the problems. Another shortcoming of the draft forest plan is the failure to provide for an environmental impact statement and public review for activities that have the potential for significant negative environmental impacts. Activities such as oil and gas drilling, timber sales, mining, development of facilities and road building should be required to go through a public process that includes an analysis of alternatives to the proposed activity and the associated impacts of each alternative. Currently, DCNR decides what it wants to do, rather than study alternatives and then give the public and opportunity to review and comment on the alternatives. An EIS process is used for these kinds of activities on federal lands, but not on Pennsylvania public lands. The most important component of the plan is that of establishing "old growth" management zones.Ê These are areas of our state forests that will be set aside - hopefully in perpetuity - to allow natural forces and influences to shape the forest lands. The Bureau of Forestry recognizes the benefits that old growth forests can provide, but does not translate that into proactive planning. The details of the Bureau's old growth management plan can be seen on the Proposed Old Growth Areas map included with the plan. In part due to our continued state forest wild area campaign over the last few years, the proposed old growth management zone includes all of the state forest natural areas and almost all of the state forest wild areas. Some good zoning is delineated on the mapping such as a corridor surrounding the Mid State Trail through Rothrock and Bald Eagle forest districts, expansion of a few wild areas, and old growth designation for some medium size drainages in the Tioga state forest district. There are major shortcomings in the proposed old growth management plan: 1. It is not clear from the plan that old growth management zones would be completely free from commercial timber harvesting. Several sections of the plan suggest that silviculture "treatments" (read timber harvesting) could "accelerate" the formation of old growth. That is simply a misguided policy; we cannot expect forests, let alone trees, to get older by cutting trees and impacting the forest floor with these types of man-made disturbances. 2. As mentioned above, not all of our state forest Wild Areas are included in the old growth management zones. Quehanna Wild Area (Moshannon and Elk state forests), our state's first and largest wild area, is heavily fragmented with sections that would still be subject to commercial timber harvesting. The state's newest proposed wild area, the Squaretimber Wild Area (Elk State Forest), would receive a similar fate with the BOF proposal.Ê Sadly, only a very small portion of the Quebec Run Wild Area (Forbes State Forest) would be included.Ê 3. Inclusion of the state forest natural and wild areas in the proposal accounts for roughly half of the goal of 20% of state forest lands managed as "old growth". The other half is, unfortunately, comprised of much smaller, thinner, and dispersed pieces of proposed old growth zones. With few exceptions, this half of the BureauÕs proposal are areas where commercial timber harvesting is not suitable anyway - due to topography (slope), stream buffer zones, and, as stated as a management criteria in the plan, aesthetic buffer zones. The latter is especially disturbing as the BOF would like to hide commercial timber harvesting activities behind thin stands of big trees. 4. Worse yet, most of these thin strips of proposed "old-growth" would be along existing paved and unpaved roads which, while allowing the driving tourist to see big trees, does not allow for functional old "forests". It is bad enough to have thin strips of "old-growth" zones thus allowing natural and manmade disturbances to have significant potential to disrupt the entire tract, but the proximity of roads to these old-growth stands would allow more invasions of exotic pests and plants and an increased potential of man-made wild-fire. 5. The BOF proposal does little to further protect our existing state forest natural areas with buffers of protected old-growth management zones. Except where natural areas happen to lie within the larger wild areas, most of the natural areas would still be subject to edge fragmentation with commercial timber harvesting. 6. The BOF proposal does not go far enough to connect large core-areas (natural and wild areas) with permanently protected old growth corridors. The biggest example of this is that there is no connecting old growth zone between the protected natural and wild areas surrounding the Pine Creek gorge of Tioga and Tiadaghton forest districts and the large wild areas in the Susquehannock and Sproul forest districts.Ê Similarly, there is no significant corridor connecting the wild and natural areas of the Bald Eagle Forest District. There is a great potential to allow a real framework of interconnected wildlands in the state forest system that is not realized with the BOF proposal. Primary Recommendations: - All state forest Wild Areas should be fully protected with old growth management zoning. - Old Growth management zones should guarantee permanent protection of forests with a complete removal of commercial or "salvage" timber activities. - Existing Natural areas and Wild areas should be expanded and new areas created to include a diversity of habitat types. - Old Growth management zones should be connected with wide, protected corridors. - BOF should undertake an environmental impact statement process that includes public input for all activities that have the potential for significant environmental impacts. Secondary Recommendations: - Old Growth management zones should be delineated to protect larger tracts of forest lands than those currently proposed. Buffer zones and smaller tracts of forest delineated for other purposes should not be counted by BOF as old-growth acreage. - The BOF should fully inventory and plan for the sustainability of all plants and animal species in the state forest system, not just the propagation of commercially desirable tree species. - The BOF should be a more vocal advocate for the protection of state forests by recognizing and advocating remedies to all of the threats to forest lands, including acid rain deposition and an overabundance of White Tail Deer. - Old Growth management zones should be applied to areas that are the most remote and undeveloped, and not applied simply to create visual buffers from commercial timber operations in the more interior portions of our forests. - Old Growth management zones should be expanded around state forest Natural areas and Wild Areas. - No new ATV trails should be developed on state forest lands.
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