The Sierra Club North Star Chapter proposed an alternative for the 10-15 year management plans for Superior and Chippewa National Forests, and submitted comprehensive comments on the draft plans last September. More than fifty volunteers and experts wrote a 200-plus page of comprehensive comments on the plans. A summary of the issues Sierra Club brought up is below, divided into the variety of issues addressed in the national forest plans.
The draft plans set goals for how the Forest Service will restore different kinds of forest (for example, old growth or white pine) for the next 100 years. Our volunteers researched how these goals would affect habitat for different kinds of wildlife and recreation.
|
Major Issue |
What would conserve the environment |
What the plans do |
|
Potential wilderness (roadless areas) |
Support protection of our last potential wilderness areas, and recommend that Congress adopt them into the Boundary Waters. |
Recommends protecting none of the 90,000 potential acres. Recommends that around 60% of it be on regular-rotation logging. Worse, the Roadless Rule that would have protected many of these areas has been reversed by the Bush administration. |
| Wildlife | Develop conservation strategies for all sensitive species. Restore diminished habitat types immediately. Preserve all interior forests. | Alternative E would restore less mature forest than most other options. Logging, emphasized in Alternative E, alters the shade and specific soil conditions on which moonworts and most of the 62 other species of concern depend. |
|
Old-growth |
Goals for future old growth need to be increased to compensate for more frequent windstorms due to global warming. |
Old-growth not designated for special protection in draft plans! |
|
Interior forest & fragmentation |
Protect large patches of forest that isn’t broken up by roads or clearcuts (interior forest). Recent timber sales on Chippewa National Forest have been eliminating interior forest at an alarming rate, and forest plan goals should account for them. |
16% of this vital habitat will disappear from logging in the next ten years, and wouldn’t be restored for fifty years. The DEIS fails to address the degree of fragmentation that will result from the Proposed Plans. Much more attention should be paid to increasing connectivity of critical habitat areas. |
|
Research & Natural Areas (RNAs) |
These areas with the best biodiversity and old growth--covering only 0.8% of both forests, half of it unsuitable for timber--should all be protected. |
Only 5% of potential RNAs are protected. |
|
Aspen logging |
We support logging with restoration goals, such as on aspen sites where conifers used to grow, followed by conifer planting. Forest Service should do more conversion to restore diminished kinds of forest. |
Logging accelerates in the first decade of the plan, but restoration goals don’t kick in for 20 or 50 years. Future plans may delay them further. |
|
Range of Natural Variation (RNV) |
Manage forests toward natural balance of habitat types, including different forest age of trees and dominant tree species. |
Forest Service adopted RNV as a measuring stick for the plans, but delayed most restoration for 20 years. |
|
Non-motorized trails |
Increase non-motorized hiking areas, and protect the Superior Hiking Trail and the North Country Trail and their viewsheds. The proposed plan should allow for the establishment of wildlife viewing trails. |
The plans spend very little ink describing where people who ski, hike, canoe, camp, or bike will be able to go to escape the sound of ATV or boat motors. |
|
Recreational Motor Vehicles |
The Forest Service should manage some areas
for quiet recreation.
ATVs should be allowed on all trails posted as open. The Forest Service should not allow free-for-all access on delicate former logging roads. None of the last remaining roadless areas or high-quality native forests appears to be protected in the proposed plan from erosion, rutting, noise, and uprooting that accompany ATVs. |
The proposed plan would protect rare plants in Chippewa National Forest by prohibiting motorized recreation on unofficial roads and cross-country. But in Superior National Forest, the plan allows ATVs to ride on logging roads year-round, and to go cross-country during hunting season. The plans would build 90 miles of ATV trails on both forests, and new landings and roads to many lakes and rivers that don't have motorized access. No quiet areas are proposed. Forest Service has relegated decisions about ATV regulation to site-specific plans to be done later, avoiding forest-wide study of cumulative impacts. |
|
Accountability |
Plans should have quantifiable and accountable objectives during the implementation period (1-15 years), for example in white pine restoration, natural tree composition, intra-stand tree species diversity, age class, old-growth, structure and habitat connectivity. Management during the first decade should set a restoration pace to achieve the 100 year goals. |
Logging accelerates in the first decade of the plan, but restoration goals don’t kick in for 20 or 50 years. Future plans may delay them further. |
|
Forest economics |
Forest Service should analyze jobs and economic value created by wilderness and wildlife resources, not just logging. |
DEIS falls short of minimal requirements for economic analysis. Fails to look at the economic effects in detail including both marketable and non-marketable items |