Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

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volraider
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Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by volraider » Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:30 pm

This is what's happening to our grouse habitat. The Tennessee Wildlife Act is converting 20,000 more acres to wilderness. This means no management of these areas. We need to all send a letter to Alexander, Corker, and Roe to withdraw their support for the Act. Here's the letter I sent. It takes just 2 minutes to write and sent to them. It doesn't matter where you live if you will just drop a email on how this is a bad idea.

I would like to comment on your support of the Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2011. It saddens me to see you support something that goes against what the majority of your constituents don't support. The Wilderness Act is a death sentence for lots of different species that depend early successional habitat to live and reproduce. This habitat provides food, cover and protection from predators – and populations will decline if the Wilderness Act is passed. This will also negatively impact the economy by cutting off access to a renewable energy source. Trees are a renewable energy source that provides thousands of jobs throughout the timber industry. We have spent thousands of dollars studying what type of forest management plan we need and then turn around and prevent implementing it because of a select few people. I would like to see you withdraw your support for the Wilderness act.

Thank You,

Brian Derrick

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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by Mountaineer » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:36 pm

Senator MoJoe is floating and promoting the idea of a Wilderness area in West Virginia as well.
It will indeed end all pretense of any proper management of the National Forest in the coverage area....bad deal.

My suggestion tho would be to directly address any complaint via the non-game early successional species such as the Golden-Winged Warbler.
That bird already has a Federal, I believe, Iniative for it's survival.
Putting a face on the problem always helps....especially a non-game face.
I have addressed in my letters the actual % of the particular NF in early successional...for the Wayne NF that stands at 3.4%.
If you can access that info it can illustrate how far off from healthy the NF is at this time....and growing worse.

Good luck.

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isonychia
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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by isonychia » Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:16 am

One day future generations will benefit from un-managed forests. In our lifetime, benefit from these wilderness zones will be null, or even, as you fear, seem to be doing more bad than good. The truth of the matter, however, is that if these areas are left un-managed for the next 300-400 years, old growth forest will be dominant, and contrary to popular belief, old growth forests provide amazing habitat and microedges. large, 300yr old, fallen trees create gaps in the canopy where grouse habitat will take over and hopefully fires will be allowed to run their natural course bringing in even better habitat for a variety of species. 20,000 acres isn't a lot to sacrifice when you think about the benefit this will bring 4 and 5 generations from now. Don't you wish that someone had the forethought to think about the future 4 or 5 generations ago today? I wonder what the grouse populations were like in the 1600's!

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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:01 pm

isonychia wrote:... I wonder what the grouse populations were like in the 1600's!
P-Poor.
But the past century ruffed grouse heydays from unregulated logging and fires should never return either.
The middle ground, based upon sound forestry principles, should be the focus of all toward our forests....today or 400 years in the future.
One can not and should not return to the 1600s...far too much has changed in the forest world.

Old growth is good and proper as a segment of a forest....a healthy forest tho has varying age classes from ES to saw log to old growth.
It is all about Diversity in age class, and so to the health of our national forests now.
There is also a difference in the forests of the West and those of the East that also must be considered....clear cuts, for example, take a different shade in the East versus the Pacific rain forests.
Generalizations be bad.
300-400 years will likely find the ruffed grouse in the East extirpated from the majority of the NFs here....they can only hold their breath so long.

Fire can indeed be a sound management tool.
But it can also be an uncontrollable misery given an unhealthy forest....and folks fear fire, reckon that will change?.
Hands-off managment such as favored by the obstructionist SELC and old growthers sets the stage for disasters both big and small.
Our children and beyond deserve that we make sound decisions based upon sound mangement principles today.

volraider
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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by volraider » Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:19 pm

One day future generations will benefit from un-managed forests. In our lifetime, benefit from these wilderness zones will be null, or even, as you fear, seem to be doing more bad than good. The truth of the matter, however, is that if these areas are left un-managed for the next 300-400 years, old growth forest will be dominant, and contrary to popular belief, old growth forests provide amazing habitat and microedges. large, 300yr old, fallen trees create gaps in the canopy where grouse habitat will take over and hopefully fires will be allowed to run their natural course bringing in even better habitat for a variety of species. 20,000 acres isn't a lot to sacrifice when you think about the benefit this will bring 4 and 5 generations from now. Don't you wish that someone had the forethought to think about the future 4 or 5 generations ago today? I wonder what the grouse populations were like in the 1600's!

In the old days mother nature took care of itself. One lightning strike could create 20,000 areas of new habitat before the fire went out. Now days in east Tn a good fire will get put out before 500 acrea's is burnt. In Tn we spend thousands on forest management and then let a group of 100 tree huggers stop our progress. Little trees need love too!

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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by isonychia » Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:38 pm

Old growth is good and proper as a segment of a forest....a healthy forest tho has varying age classes from ES to saw log to old growth.
I would argue that true old growth forests do in fact have a great variety in age classes. There is a great book on some studies in the H.J Andrews forest in Oregon (albeit a completely different ecosystem than out East). I Will say that most eastern states have done a terrible job of forestry management (I lived in NC for most of my life, and a great portion spent in the Pisgah) (not that the western states have done much better with all of the over grazing). I think 20k acres is a pretty small section, I worked on a ranch this summer that was doubling on their 300k acres. While I think setting aside 20k for no management is a good idea, I think it has to be done in conjunction with doing some slashpile cuts and burns in sections throughout the NF in an equavilant of 20K acres. Which really would be much better, given they don't clear these areas out but rather burn them or leave the underbrush for erosion and nutrient management.

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mcclinj
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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by mcclinj » Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:47 pm

Its the same way up here in PA, the Allegheny defense project and Allegheny wild has proposed a different wilderness area for about every acre of Allegheny National Forest....Luckily they keep getting voted down and most areas are still open to logging and natural gas exploration.

On a side note, these groups do usually have pretty good maps and knowledge of the forest roads that they use during their granola love in sessions...just gotta be sneaky on how you ask for them.

-John

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ezzy333
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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by ezzy333 » Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:55 pm

For the life of me I don't understand why we want to try and preserve and waste a renewable resource like a forest. I can't believe how much we waste in this country under some silly preservation program. I strongly believe in conservation and not wasting anything but the preservation of natural resources just doesn't work since they all die or disintegrate through erosion or some other force and are wasted.

Good responsible management is a benefit and not something we should be complaining about in my opinion. Anything we can do to advance the conditions that provide a better environment that aids people as well as animal and plant life is our only hope of providing for our kids of the future. I don't need to see a live or dead tree that is 2 or 3 hundred years old that is preventing a new one from growing.

Ezzy
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=144
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=207

It's not how many breaths you have taken but how many times it has been taken away!

Has anyone noticed common sense isn't very common anymore.

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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:11 pm

isonychia wrote:...I would argue that true old growth forests do in fact have a great variety in age classes. There is a great book on some studies in the H.J Andrews forest in Oregon (albeit a completely different ecosystem than out East). I Will say that most eastern states have done a terrible job of forestry management (I lived in NC for most of my life, and a great portion spent in the Pisgah) (not that the western states have done much better with all of the over grazing). I think 20k acres is a pretty small section, I worked on a ranch this summer that was doubling on their 300k acres. While I think setting aside 20k for no management is a good idea, I think it has to be done in conjunction with doing some slashpile cuts and burns in sections throughout the NF in an equavilant of 20K acres. Which really would be much better, given they don't clear these areas out but rather burn them or leave the underbrush for erosion and nutrient management.
"Slash pile cut & burns will never happen on a NF in the East...certainly never on more than a postage stamp photo-op level as some state projects now do.
The SELC believes only in "natural" fires....other work will generate a lawsuit posthaste.
Hard to improve on clearcuts and natural regeneration...if deer leave the regen alone.
However, shelterwood and other cut prescriptions have their place in a good management mix.

20K is not small, everywhere....very few 300K+ ranches in the East.
As well, eastern NFs often have private land within their boundaries....purchase of private acreage is where many NFs, such as the Wayne, began. While pseudo-wilderness, untouched and unroaded exsits in the mountain Apps., It is not quite the same as forest systems farther toward the left coast.
Best to not compare apples and rutabegas.

Old growth is just that....the few openings from aged trees toppling will never, ever raise the % of ES compared to the forest as a whole :idea: to a level of diversity that is most healthy to the forest and those who draw life from it.
With all the aspects of a modern world affecting the forest, believing that leaving it alone to age gracefully into old growth is as silly as thinking the critters can be left alone to cope with that same modern world and all will be rainbows and balloons with them and their get.

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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by Clay » Mon Jan 23, 2012 8:43 pm

Email sent.

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rschmeider
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Re: Tennessee Wilderness Act (we need help)

Post by rschmeider » Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:04 am

Clay wrote:Email sent.
Can you post the email address?

Found it......http://tnwild.org/get_involved.

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