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What does the 2006 Vermont Wilderness Act do?
Permanently protects 48,000 acres of federally owned land on the 400,000 acre Green Mountain National Forest as Wilderness. This means that 28,491 acres along the high elevation ridgelines around Glastenbury Mountain and 12,437 acres around Romance Mountain will receive lasting protection as will key additional lands surrounding the Breadloaf and Lye Brook Wilderness Areas.
This bill is an important step in the right direction but the Vermont Wilderness Association believes several key additions are needed to ensure the safeguarding of some of the Green Mountain National Forest's most important ecological areas. VWA advocates the expansion of the Vermont Wilderness Act to include:
- Approximately 14,000 additional acres around the proposed Glastenbury Wilderness Area.
- Approximately 6,000 acres around the headwaters of Lye Brook and the Winhall River near the Lye Brook Wilderness Area.
- At least 4,000 acres in a new Lamb Brook Wilderness Area.
Does Vermont need more wilderness?
Yes. Vermont has relatively little designated wilderness today, and most of the existing wilderness areas are small. Vermont needs more and bigger wilderness areas, and the Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) is the best place to create them. As development increases in Vermont, there are fewer and fewer places for people to enjoy non-motorized recreation in a backcountry setting. In addition, many wildlife species, such as interior-forest dependent songbirds, bobcats and bears thrive in large, undisturbed tracts of forests for their habitat. We are fortunate that existing Wildernesses can be enlarged and new Wildernesses can be established on these public lands without causing substantial impacts to other uses of the national forest.
The six federally designated Wilderness areas on the GMNF total about 60,000 acres, or 1 percent of Vermont. Federal wilderness areas comprise about 2 percent of New Hampshire, 14 percent of California, and 10 percent of Washington. New York has no federal wilderness, but state-designated wilderness and "wild forest" comprise 6.6 percent of the state. Roughly 5 percent of the nation is protected as wilderness. Vermont needs more wilderness areas.
Vermont's six existing wilderness areas average 10,000 acres in size. Some conservation biologists recommend establishing wildernesses of at least 25,000 to 40,000 acres in order to protect and restore the region's diversity of native wildlife and plants. Large acreages ensure that portions of the wilderness areas will remain unaffected by the hurricanes, windstorms, fire, insects and disease outbreaks and other large-scale natural disturbances that occur periodically over time. Vermont needs bigger wilderness areas.
What activities are permitted in Wilderness?
All non-motorized activities are permitted in Wilderness areas. Those permitted activities include:
- Photography
- Bird watching
- Nature study
- Hiking
- Camping
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Fishing
- Canoeing
- Kayaking
- Snowshoeing
- Skiing
Wilderness is "multiple-use" both in fact and in law. The "multiple-uses" of Wilderness, according to law, include:
- Watershed protection
- Maintenance of soil and water quality and ecological stability
- Wildlife habitat, including for rare and endangered species
- Unsurpassed opportunities for outdoor recreation
What is not permitted in a Wilderness area?
Timber harvesting, road building and motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles and ATV's.
What support is there for Wilderness and keeping ATVs off the Green Mountain National Forest?
During the recent public comment period for the Draft Management Plan for the GMNF, over 90 percent of the comments received by the Forest Service called for more wilderness designation and opposed allowing ATVs anywhere on the Green Mountain National Forest.
Would additional wilderness designation affect Vermont's timber supply or timber industry jobs?
No. Only about 6,000 acres in the 2006 Vermont Wilderness Bill is deemed by the Forest Service as suitable for timber production. Most of the national forest's timber base is unaffected by the wilderness bill.
The total volume of timber harvested in Vermont is only about half of the wood that grows in Vermont each year, and the timber removed from the national forest is 1% of the annual statewide timber harvest. Private lands now supply the vast majority of wood to the market, and can continue to provide an ample supply of logs to local and regional sawmills.
Will the wilderness bill affect snowmobiling in Vermont?
Yes, but in a very small way. Fewer than five miles of the 7,000 mile VAST trail system will be closed if the Wilderness Act as currently written becomes law. Conflicts with the existing VAST (Vermont Association of Snow Travelers) trail network were minimized when delineating the proposed wilderness areas. No primary corridor trails in the VAST system would be affected, although a few side or feeder trails would need to be closed or moved.
Doesn't Wilderness lock out the public and lock up resources?
No. Far from locking out the public, wilderness areas are open to everyone for a variety of traditional uses including hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, snowshoeing, skiing, birding, and nature study. The only activities not allowed in wilderness are those requiring mechanized or motorized equipment. Wilderness areas on federal public land are truly a democratic resource, popular among all kinds of people, and available to anyone seeking a backcountry experience.
Wilderness designation ensures that public values are protected on public land. While some compromises in the Wilderness Act of 1964 allowed for limited commercial activity in wilderness areas (specifically livestock grazing in the West), wilderness designation essentially frees land from exploitation. It is a promise to posterity that some parts of the American landscape will remain undomesticated, where natural processes can operate freely. Thus, Wilderness provides a valuable scientific benchmark against which we can measure our progress toward sustainable use of managed landscapes.
The precious resources of solitude, primitive recreation, scenic beauty, and quality wildlife habitat are secured by Wilderness protection. Clean water, productive fisheries, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and other "ecosystem services"-the byproducts of healthy ecosystems upon which healthy human communities depend-are sustained by Wilderness.
Will new Wilderness affect revenues to local communities?
No. A new federal law has essentially severed the link between town revenues and national forest logging. This means that payments to most towns with national forest land are no longer based on the annual revenues from timber sales, ski area leases, or other special use permit fees. Payments are now based on the number of acres of national forest land in those towns, regardless of how that land is managed by the Forest Service or the amount of revenue the land generates.
The annual Forest Service payments to towns will be the same if the land is in tree plantations or wilderness areas. These wilderness areas will eventually become old-growth forests.
What will forests in Wilderness be like in the future?
Forest ecologists suggest that roughly 80 percent of the pre-settlement forest of New England was old-growth, with the rest of the forest in younger stages. Natural disturbances such as hurricanes, ice storms, insect outbreaks, beaver activity, and wildfire contributed to a mosaic of forest age-classes across the region. The native wildlife evolved in this type of landscape. Some game species that thrive in young forests have lower population densities in older forests. However, survival of many non-game species-the majority of wildlife- depend on the structural complexity and downed woody debris found in wild, unlogged forests. Medium-sized carnivores such as fishers and martens prefer this type of habitat for security and denning sites.
Old-growth forests have many large, standing dead trees, or snags, which are important for woodpeckers. They have deep, organically rich soils that hold moisture, and a diversity of plants on the forest floor. The greatest number of mosses, liverworts, and lichens are in old-growth forests. Many species of birds that prefer large blocks of interior forest habitat, such as cerulean warblers and northern goshawks, will be found in these woods.
Does Wilderness benefit wildlife?
Yes-immensely so. When forests are protected as wilderness, they are allowed to become old-growth forests, largely free from human disturbance. Wilderness areas are among the most complex, biologically diverse habitats in the world and are considered to be "ecological life rafts" by conservation biologists.
They are essential to the restoration and conservation of biodiversity in our rapidly changing landscape, threatened by acid deposition, global climate change, and growing population.
The increased structural diversity of older forests is directly linked to their increased biological richness. Large trees, downed logs, standing dead trees, hummocks, and small canopy gaps provide a diversity of bird nesting and mammal denning sites.
These older, undisturbed forests tend to have higher numbers of standing dead trees, or snags, which are important for woodpeckers and cavity-nesting species. They also support wildlife species that prefer large blocks of unbroken forest habitat-species such as American marten and northern goshawks.
What's next?
Wilderness can only be protected by an act of Congress. Urge Vermont's congressional delegation - Senators Leahy and Jeffords and Congressman Sanders to add several key areas to the Vermont Wilderness Bill and make sure it passes Congress before adjournment in October 2006.
Congressional Delegation Contact Information:
For more information, contact Peter Sterling at peter@vtwilderness.org or 279-6840
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