Letter: U.S. Forest Service decision disappointing

Man hands writing in the diary, coffee mug and laptop on wooden table

From: Julie Lowe

Hoosier Chapter Chair, Sierra Club, Columbus

The he U. S. Forest Service so quickly dismissing the overwhelming opposition from Indiana residents regarding the Houston South Management Project in the Hoosier National Forest is disappointing. The Hoosier National Forest (HNF) can be seen on our state map as the two big green patches in southern Indiana, one near Lake Monroe and the other near Patoka Lake and extends to the Ohio River.

The Houston South Vegetation Management and Restoration Project is a management proposal by the U.S. Forest Service to log 4,375 acres, repeatedly burn 13,500 acres and to build 16 miles of roads through the Hoosier National Forest over wildlife and established hiking trails in an effort to manage the forests under the HNF 2006 Forest Plan.

For a variety of reasons hundreds of people and several environmental groups have formally opposed this forest management project but the forest service plans to proceed. Many oppose the logging that would be done on the forested slopes of the Lake Monroe Watershed.

The reservoir is a public drinking water source for 120,000 Monroe County residents and the water is already suffering from algae blooms. This project would almost surely add more stress to the fragile ecosystem that is already being affected by climate change.

Specifically, my opposition to the logging and prescribed forest burns are about losing all of the carbon currently being stored in those 100-year-old trees and the carbon they could continue to store. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body of the United Nations, (IPCC) said "the main finding of …this… group was the need for urgency" and that "deforestation … was turning a natural carbon sink into a source of emissions."

Industrial logging can create large-scale carbon emissions. More logging occurs in the U.S. forests than in any other nation in the world.

I do not believe timber should be harvested from public lands and that is exactly what the Hoosier National Forest is, public land. The U.S. Forest Service boasts the importance of our forests and grasslands on the website https://itsallyours.us.

A video explains that national lands belong to the people, shared lands are shared heritage and that’s part of what it means to be an American. If its truly all mine I would like to keep the 100 year old trees for their beauty and for their ability to draw down the carbon from the atmosphere and to sequester it for centuries. The Houston South project is planned to last 10-12 years. The IPCC and their recently released report gives mankind 10-12 years to act to prevent catastrophic effects from climate change.

The HNF 2006 Forest Plan goal of maintaining and restoring sustainable ecosystems could be understood in the context of a time when the current climate crisis was not fully understood.

These times demand a different set of actions. What the U.S. Forest Service does in the next few years will most definitely affect the outcome of our climate crisis.