Report: State's national forest endangered
11:33 PM 6/15/03
Ron Seely Environment reporter

A coalition of national environmental groups has ranked Wisconsin's Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest as among the 10 most-endangered national forests in the nation, mostly because of what it charges is excessive logging.

The Chequamegon Nicolet in northern Wisconsin is one of the most-heavily logged national forests, according to Dave Zaber, forest chairman for Wisconsin's John Muir chapter of the Sierra Club. In 2002, he added, the forest was logged more heavily than any other national forest in the country.

Of particular concern, Zaber said, are six proposed timber sales in the forest that are in remote areas and provide shelter for such threatened and endangered species as the Canada lynx and the pine marten.

The Sierra Club joined nearly 130 other environmental groups, including the National Forest Protection Alliance and Greenpeace, to publish a report identifying the national forests most threatened by logging, road construction and other problems such as invasive species. The report is particularly critical of new policies from the Bush administration that, according to the environmental groups, make it easier to log in the forests and reduce public oversight.

One of the world's foremost conservation biologists, Harvard's Edward O. Wilson, has endorsed the report and is serving as a spokesperson for the coalition. In the report foreword, Wilson called for an end to logging in the national forests and said the ecological value of the forests far outstrips the money made from logging.

"America's national forests are the common property of its citizens," Wilson wrote. "They are a public trust of incalculable value. They are the potential source of limitless future knowledge, possessing scientific, economic and cultural value. They are part of America's deepest history, reaching back through past geological eras."

According to the report, the Chequamegon Nicolet is "the poster child for ecologically and economically unsuitable logging." The national forest has logged at least 116 million board feet each year for the past decade and from 1992 to 2001, more than 188,000 acres of the 1.5-million acre forest were logged, the report says.

Zaber also said the public loses money on the timber sales in the Chequamegon Nicolet because the trees are sold at below cost. He said an analysis showed the national forest loses an average of $4.5 million in tax dollars a year by subsidizing the logging.

And, Zaber added, even though the new Bush forest management policy touts the jobs and economic benefit of national forest logging, the timber cutting in the Chequamegon Nicolet produces a minimal number of jobs and but a fraction of the wood cut in the state. He said about 3 percent of Wisconsin jobs are in the forest products manufacturing industry and the Chequamegon Nicolet produces roughly 9 percent of the pulp and paper in the state.

Timber cutting has fallen
Anne Archie, forest supervisor of the Chequamegon Nicolet, agreed that the national forest is one of the most heavily logged in the nation. But nationwide and in Wisconsin, she said, logging in national forests has dropped dramatically in recent years. Nationwide, she said, timber cutting in national forests has dropped from a high of 12 billion board feet a year to about 1.7 billion board feet.

Archie added that because the total acreage in the Cheqamegon Nicolet is 1.5 million acres, logging 188,000 acres over a decade is a relatively small amount of cutting. Part of the forest service's goal, she added, is to provide multiple uses in the national forests.

"There's a lot of room to provide a lot of different products and a lot of opportunities for people," Archie said.

Archie also said that eliminating logging in the national forest would hurt some northern communities because of the loss of jobs and income.

But critics argue that proposed logging threatens to harm or even destroy some of the very things the national forests are intended to protect. Six proposed timber sales would log more than 42,000 acres in remote areas of the forest, according to Madison's Habitat Education Center and the John Muir chapter of the Sierra Club. One of those sales, the Northwest Howell sale, will log more than 7,500 acres in the heart of pine marten and Canada lynx habitat. The McCaslin timber sale would log in critical northern goshawk and red-shouldered hawk habitat.

The Habitat Education Center and the John Muir chapter, both of which participated in producing the national forest report, have filed a formal appeal with the U.S. Forest Service to halt the Northwest Howell sale.

Plan is 20 years old
Ricardo Jomarron, president of Habitat Education Center, said the forest service is in the midst of rewriting its 20-year-old forest management plan. The plan sets guidelines for management decisions on issues such as logging.

Any logging sales, Jomarron said, should await completion of that plan. Don Waller, a UW-Madison biologist who has conducted extensive research on plant diversity in the Chequamegon Nicolet, said the current forest plan is based on outdated science and that new understanding about the impact of logging on rare species of plants and animals could affect the outcome of any debate over whether to log.

"Today," Waller said, "the science is even stronger, showing us that elements of Wisconsin's forests are more fragile and complex than we thought in 1986. The growth in ecotourism and wildlife watching shows that the public appreciates its public forests so there is a big economic benefit to protecting them. National forest timber sales and the new forest plan should reflect those concerns."

Waller said declines in native plant diversity across northern Wisconsin average 18 percent with several species declining 50 percent or more. Many of the losses, he said, appear related to an overabundance of deer. He added that widespread logging in the national forest perpetuates the kind of habitat that favor deer.

Archie said the forest service is proceeding with the Northwest Howell timber sale before the new plan is complete because changes that are likely in the new plan were taken into account when planning the sale.

"With these sales we've been pretty forward thinking," Archie said. "In our analysis the new things in the plan were looked at and considered."

Archie added that by focusing just on logging, environmentalists are missing what she believes are more important threats to the forest - invasive species, fragmentation, and unmanaged recreation.

"I think it is simplistic to say it is only logging that causes problems," Archie said. "I think there are a lot of other factors."