Ky’s national forests need creativity, diversity of thought to thrive

Most disagreements over how to manage Kentucky’s national forest lands revolve around two seemingly opposing truths about our forests. The first truth is that, prior to the 1800s, most of eastern Kentucky was covered in “old-growth” forests with big or old trees (often centuries old). Most were cut and cleared by 1930 and have since been repeatedly logged or lost to mining or agriculture. However, some of our older forests – especially in the Daniel Boone National Forest – are beginning to take on the character and function of old-growth. But logging pressure means that those future old-growth forests are becoming fewer and more fragmented.

The second truth is that many declining wildlife species rely on young forests, old-fields, and other brushy and open environments. Historically, these “disturbance” habitats were created by severe weather like tornadoes and ice storms, wildlife including beavers and bison, and fires set by Native Americans and, later, Euro-American settlers. Rather than working with natural processes and acknowledging these habitats on nearby private lands, the U.S. Forest Service emphasizes logging mature forests.

Reconciling how to manage for the recovery of old-growth forests while supporting disturbance-dependent species requires good-faith dialogue, creativity, and compromise. Mark Reese’s Nov. 10 Op-Ed fails to advance this dialogue, and instead relies upon misleading statements, accusations, and material omissions to attack Kentucky Heartwood.

Mr. Reese failed to disclose his long-time role representing the Ruffed Grouse Society, which received more than $500,000 of timber from the Forest Service to manage parts of the South Red Bird project. While that arrangement was being developed behind closed doors, the Ruffed Grouse Society filed a formal administrative challenge arguing the Forest Service should double the project’s nearly 4,000 acres of logging. Yet Mr. Reese wrongly accuses Kentucky Heartwood of using our lawsuit to get paid by the government. If a court determines that the Forest Service broke the law, the non-profit attorneys representing us may get compensated for their time through “fee recovery,” but Kentucky Heartwood won’t receive a penny.

He also implies that logging is not happening elsewhere in the Daniel Boone. In fact, over the last decade, thousands of acres of national forest have been logged in Rowan, Bath, Jackson, Pulaski, McCreary, Clay, and Leslie Counties. Nearly 20,000 acres of logging have been approved or proposed in recent years.

Mr. Reese promotes misleading climate science, arguing that logging increases carbon sequestration. He is correct that young trees grow vigorously. But research that considers the effects of logging equipment, milling and mill waste, and the disposable fate of many wood products, has found that logging often results in net carbon emissions. And contemporary science has upended our understanding of old-growth forests, showing that they can continue to sequester large amounts of carbon as they age.

Several years ago, I reached out to Mr. Reese to meet and share ideas and perspectives. At the time, we found agreement over how the Forest Service could manage some of the tens of thousands of acres clearcut in the 1980s and 1990s to support grouse, consistent with Kentucky’s “Ruffed Grouse and Young Forest Strategic Plan” which includes using “noncommercial practices to perpetuate high-stem-density cover.” Many of these clearcut forests are badly degraded, with tulip poplar and stump-sprouted maples replacing the oaks and hickories that were cut. Kentucky Heartwood presented this approach to the Forest Service early in the development of the South Red Bird project to support disturbance-dependent wildlife while limiting logging of mature and old-growth forests and in landslide-prone areas. The Forest Service and the Ruffed Grouse Society both dismissed the approach as not economical.

There is a great diversity of experience and opinions among those who love the Daniel Boone National Forest. That diversity of thought should be a resource for protecting the full diversity of life that depends upon our shared public lands. Assuming ignorance and bad faith on the part of people we disagree with is not helpful.

Jim Scheff is Staff Ecologist for Kentucky Heartwood.