What Are Vermonters Saying About Wilderness? A Sampling of Recent Letters to the Editor
More wilderness for national forest
The Green Mountain National Forest represents in the order of 7 percent of the land area of Vermont. Few will contest the assertion that the Green Mountain National Forest is unique among the natural regions of Vermont and that an appropriate management plan that recognizes this reality should have preserved and incorporated as wilderness those areas that can not be duplicated in the larger less restricted 93 percent of Vermont's land area. Those potential areas for incorporation as wilderness were categorized as remote wildlife habitat, escarpment, wilderness and wilderness study areas, that in absolute terms amounted to some 167,614 acres.
Wilderness provides for the maintenance and the evolution of those natural processes that cannot be adequately replicated in Vermont outside the national forest. As one who availed himself of the opportunity of attending several of the hearing sessions relating to the formation of a forest management plan and who, with over 10,000 others, submitted written comments, the designation in the final management plan of only 29,000 acres of wilderness, in spite of the overwhelming support for 70,000 to 80,000 acres, to say the least, is inadequate and inappropriate.
This season of the year not only brings to mind the emergence of new beginnings but also the sobering fact that our much esteemed and beloved congressman, Sen. Jim Jeffords, will soon be retiring. A fitting valediction to and recognition for his service to the people of Vermont and of his love of these Green Mountains, is for our congressional delegation to honor him and all Vermonters in and through an appropriate wilderness bill.
ROY PILCHER
Proctor
Rutland Herald
April 5, 2006
Vermont needs more wilderness
The Forest Service just released the management plan for the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest. About 60,000 acres is currently wilderness and the Forest Service is recommending that an additional 30,000 acres be preserved as such. This still leaves most of the National Forest open for potential timber harvesting.
I am not in any way against timber harvesting. However, I am perplexed by the arguments of those who feel they deserve access to all of our public lands. Harvesting timber on our public lands, although necessary and even beneficial in some areas, is expensive to taxpayers. There are tens of thousands of acres of National Forest that are either remote, high elevation or steep slopes. Cutting these areas would cost us millions of dollars to build roads for logging equipment, not to mention the ecological damage resulting from harvesting in these areas.
It is impossible to argue that we are going to run out of National Forest to harvest without cutting in the Glastenbury Mountain and Romance Mountain wilderness areas. During the public comment period for this plan, 90 percent of the comments asked for more wilderness. That tells me that the Forest Service probably should designate even more than the proposed 30,000 acres as wilderness. This land is owned by all of us. Let's try to balance everyone's interests fairly.
ANDREA PROULX
Worcester
Rutland Herald
April 8, 2006
Expand wilderness, protect access
Wilderness designation is absolutely not elitist. Designating an area of the Green Mountain National Forest as wilderness keeps it in its natural state for all to enjoy, both current and future generations of Vermonters.
Anyone can visit these wilderness areas at any time of the year, and I believe they are a necessary refuge for both wildlife and people.
Wilderness designation does not lock up the forest. Hunting, fishing, trapping, dog sledding, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, hiking and camping are all permitted in wilderness areas.
Further, wilderness designation does not affect a town's income. Payments to towns with land in the GMNF is based on the number of acres of federal land in those towns.
I support expanded wilderness in Vermont and I applaud our congressional delegation for its efforts.
Evan Mulholland
Brookfield
Times Argus
April 21, 2006
Wilderness Act right for Vermont
On April 6, Sens. Jim Jeffords and Patrick Leahy as well as Rep. Bernard Sanders introduced a bill called the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006, which expands on the recently released Forest Service Management Plan for the Green Mountain National Forest, adding some 48,000 acres for wilderness designation.
The Wilderness Act essentially tracks the Forest Service Management Plan, but adds some acreage to four already-established wilderness areas, and proposes to create two new wilderness areas, one in Glastenbury and one in the Romance/Monastery Mountain area, to be named after Joseph Battell, the Bread Loaf area landowner whose gift of land set aside thousands of acres now encompassed by the Green Mountain National Forest.
While the wilderness areas would remain free from logging and motorized vehicles, the act also designates a new 16,900-acre national recreational area around Mount Moosalamoo, which would be open to recreational activities of all types and which does not prohibit other, compatible uses for the forest, including logging.
In acknowledging different types of usage areas, as well as the importance of maintaining remote areas as wilderness, the act attempts to balance competing interests in the Green Mountain Forest. Perhaps more than many other states, the spirit of Vermont resides in its land; protecting the biodiversity of the forests is just as much a part of preserving the character of Vermont as is protecting the state's family farms.
Julie Kalish
Norwich
Times Argus
April 29, 2006
Bill should include more land
I was very pleased to read in the April 7 paper that Vermont's members of Congress have introduced a bill that would protect much more of the Green Mountain National Forest as wilderness than the Forest Service proposed in its new forest plan.
If the bill passes, Vermont will have a lot more national forest wilderness than it does now, but the protected acreage will still be less than 2 percent of the state. The bill really should include much more land, because the forest that will grow in wilderness areas in the future will become more valuable for science, recreation and wildlife with each passing century. They aren't making any more land in the world, and undisturbed landscapes are shrinking all the time.
In a recent My Turn, Sherb Lang (April 9) declared that setting land aside as wilderness is enormously wasteful. But if we can't live successfully on 98 percent of our state's land, exploiting 100 percent of it wouldn't make us rich. Instead, it would make our descendants vastly poorer.
All accounts tell us that when Europeans settled Vermont, it was teeming with wildlife. This was not accomplished by logging. It may take many decades before protected wilderness areas grow enough to resemble our original forests, but it will happen.
I thank Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Jim Jeffords and Congressman Bernie Sanders.
STEPHANIE ROWE
Springfield
Burlington Free Press
April 16, 2006
Doesn't fit elitist profile
I'm amused that opponents of the recently released Vermont Wilderness Act, sponsored by our congressional delegation, assert that it is the handiwork of a small number of wealthy, urban elitists who mysteriously worship rocks and trees.
The fact is that almost 50,000 people used our existing wilderness areas on the Green Mountain National Forest during the most recent annual survey conducted by the Forest Service. That is not a small group of elitists. They are folks like me who want to fish, hunt, hike, snowshoe, or ski in remote backcountry, undisturbed by ATVs and snowmobiles. And the bill would have virtually no impact on Vermont's already vast mileage of motorized trails anyway.
I certainly don't fit the urban elitist profile provided by Ed Larson's opinion piece (Free Press, April 14) and I doubt many others do either. I'm an ordinary Vermonter raising a family in the country. I don't worship trees, though I confess to liking them a lot. Nevertheless, I cut our own firewood with a chainsaw and split it with an axe. I imagine I have a good deal in common with most other wilderness advocates.
As for wilderness not being a Vermont "tradition," tell it to the Abenakis.
JOHN HARBISON
Colchester
Burlington Free Press
April 30, 2006
Honoring a Vermont tradition
As a distant relative of Joseph Battell, I am pleased to hear that our congressional delegation has introduced the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006. This Act would not only increase the amount of forest land to be permanently set aside, but through the naming of the Romance/Monastery Mountain area the Joseph Battell Wilderness Area, honor a Vermont tradition of wilderness preservation and give some well-deserved recognition to the generosity of the man whose gifts of wilderness land have been a jewel of an asset for the people of Vermont.
Specifically, Battell stated in his will: "...being mindful of the benefits that will accrue to, and the pleasures that will be enjoyed by, the citizens of the State of Vermont...I hereby give...all those parts of the mountains visible from Bread Loaf Inn situated in Ripton, Hancock, Rochester, and Goshen..." to be preserved "intact ... as a specimen of the original Vermont forest."
Through the passage of this Act, Battell's vision will be honored. Thank you, Senators Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords, and Congressman Bernie Sanders, for initiating and supporting the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006 and Joseph Battell's intended "wild lands" legacy.
PETER BATTELLE
Williston
Rutland Herald/Times Argus
April 30, 2006
Many species depend on mature forests
I've followed the debate in your pages over additional wilderness in the Green Mountain National Forest with interest. As a hiking and birdwatching enthusiast, I am interested in seeing more protected wilderness areas, in Vermont.
One claim commonly made by wilderness opponents -- that wilderness does not provide important wildlife habitat -- needs correction. It is true that clearings and edges of forests offer habitat for some species, however, there are many Vermont species that depend on mature forests.
Four hundred years ago, Samuel de Champlain remarked on the seemingly limitless abundance of wildlife in our then old-growth forests. That included the catamounts and timber wolves that we have since extirpated through the destruction of forest habitat. The forests we conserve today will sooner or later acquire some of the qualities Champlain saw.
Studies have shown the importance of old-growth forests for wildlife. Consider just our birds. Blackburnian warblers, flashing brilliant yellow and orange in the treetops, are 45 times more abundant in old- growth. Our equally spectacular magnolia warblers are 40 times more abundant in old-growth. The list of birds that nest in old-grow this very long. It includes black-throated green warblers, purple finches, Swainson's thrushes, and our state bird, the hermit thrush. Many of these and other neo-tropical migrants are experiencing declines in Vermont.
For our wildlife and for future generations of Vermonters, I welcome the congressional delegation's introduction of the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006. It could be bigger and better, but it's a step in the right direction.
MARY MERGES
Burlington
Burlington Free Press
May 7, 2006
Wilderness heals nature
In a My Turn column, Bruce Shields objected to an article in which Carl Reidel "denigrates the farming practices of our European ancestors, with his nightmare of denuded hillsides and waste-choked rivers."
Actually, Reidel was right on the mark and Shields is in nostalgic denial. The results of early farming practices in Vermont were disastrous.
In 1864, George Perkins Marsh published "Man and Nature," in which he described the appalling changes he had seen in and around Woodstock, since his boyhood there. Streams that once powered mills year-round stopped flowing for months at a time because of deforested and eroded hillsides.
In "A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England," agricultural expert Harold Russell wrote that before European settlement, Vermont had an average of nine inches of topsoil. By 1982, that was down to three inches. Since it takes about 1,000 years to create an inch of topsoil, this loss will be with us for an immensely long time.
Shields says these are sins Reidel "imagines our ancestors to have committed." This is evidence of extraordinary ignorance of abundantly and competently recorded history, or of willful blindness.
Bills proposed by senators Leahy and Jeffords and Congressman Sanders to expand national forest wilderness to 1.8 percent of Vermont's land, are some of many measures that will be required to heal the natural world in the centuries to come. We should protect even more wilderness than that. Posterity will thank us if we do.
RICHARD ANDREWS
Springfield
Burlington Free Press
May 15, 2006
Preserve Glastenbury
I read with interest your editorial on April 11. I have been on the fence for a long time on the issue of wilderness in Glastenbury, and would like to address it to your readers.
I have been the forest fire warden for the town of Glastenbury since 1980, when I was appointed by the state of Vermont and the Glastenbury town administrator. I have traveled over the mountain on about every way that you can: snowmobile, motorcycle, four-wheel ATV, mountain bike, pickup truck and on foot hiking, hunting, blackberry picking and performing mountain rescue on the Long Trail. I have visited the Glastenbury fire tower in every season of the year.
In every way I care for this area and its preservation. I know that it would not be utilized without roadways and trails. Many persons use this access to hunt, ride or just enjoy the beauty of this wild landscape. While wheeled vehicles do leave tracks and cause erosion, is it worse than foot traffic on the Long Trail? As for snowmobiles, I have never seen them do much harm anywhere.
What disturbs me is the condition of the Fayville clearing. This was a lovely spot in the past when the Dick Rice family had their camp there. Dick kept the meadow mowed and the brush back on the roadsides. John Lane, formerly of Town Line Road in Shaftsbury, grafted many different kinds of apples on the same trees, most of which have now aged and died. Today the Fayville clearing is littered with trash, bum sites and broken beverage containers.
The most important aspect of Glastenbury Mountain is its service as a watershed for all of the surrounding area. The water system for Shaftsbury and North Bennington comes off the east side of the mountain. We have all seen the large aqueduct running beside Route 9 east. And the Somerset Reservoir is certainly affected by what happens on the mountain, and the Fayville branch runs right through East Arlington.
The soil is thin and rocky on the mountain, and the silviculture needs to be maintained to assure soil retention. While all game species benefit from logging, it is not always the most beneficial to the land and water. Glastenbury Mountain needs to be preserved, first and foremost, as an irreplaceable water source for our county, and to do this it should be a wilderness area.
I urge support for the addition of 28,500 acres in the Glastenbury area into the Wilderness Act.
DAVE McKEIGHAN
Shaftsbury
Bennington Banner
May 12, 2006
Laziness is lying
Reasonable people may support, oppose, or (as I do) take no position on the wilderness bill proposed by Vermont's congressional delegation. Editorial writers may not lie about that bill in print without being called to account.
That's what your editorial writer did by saying that "no hunting, fishing, or trapping at all" is permitted in federally designated Wilderness areas.
Wrong. They are not only permitted but encouraged throughout that system. In fact, some folks prefer to hunt and fish in Wilderness areas, a market niche that could be exploited by an inventive tourism industry.
Nor does your writer get off the hook by preceding the false statement with the wimpy cop-out, "unless we are mistaken." That doesn't acquit him or her of dishonesty. This was not a conversation in one's living room or the corner saloon. It was an editorial for the public prints, where writers should be held to a higher standard. Whoever does not know how to get that information with one telephone call ought not to be employed by a newspaper. In this case, laziness is lying.
Assuming it is a minimally honest newspaper, The Caledonian-Record will (1) correct the lie; and (2) fire (or at least place on stern probation) that editorial writer.
Jon Margolis
Barton
Caledonian Record
May 5, 2006
Environmental Republicans
With all the partisan bickering in Washington, D.C., I was happy to learn that Republicans, Democrats, and independents have found at least one issue that unites them: wilderness protection in national forests. In blue-state Vermont, red-state Virginia, and purple-state New Hampshire, U.S. senators and congressmen have introduced wilderness legislation to protect some of our most sensitive and pristine public land for generations to come. While Vermont's congressional delegation is comprised of one Democrat and two independents, the four sponsors of the New Hampshire Wilderness Act of 2006 are all Republicans. And in Virginia, the conservative Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, introduced that state's wilderness bill.
To some, this rare unity seems strange, especially because environmental protection has not ranked high on the Republican agenda during the Bush years. But it was not that long ago that Republicans were leaders in environmental protection. Some may recall that, despite his other faults, President Richard Nixon presided over creation of the EPA and passage of the Clean Air Act. Pennsylvania Republican Congressman John Saylor sponsored the original Wilderness Act of 1964. Together, former Vermont Republican Sens. George Aiken and Bob Stafford are directly responsible for securing protection of all existing wilderness areas on Vermont's Green Mountain National Forest. In fact, the Vermont Wilderness Act of 1984 was a bipartisan initiative co-sponsored by Stafford, Jim Jeffords (a Republican congressman at the time), and Democrat Pat Leahy. That bill became law with the blessing of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
I'm glad that some national Republicans have rediscovered their party's green roots on the issue of wilderness protection. With a 2002 UVM Center for Rural Studies poll showing 73 percent of Vermonters supporting more wilderness, our state's Republicans would be wise to follow suit.
CLANCY DeSMET
South Royalton
Rutland Herald
June 2, 2006
