Dear Editor,
What was at first a peaceful and unassuming summer has now jolted Vermonters with another wave of midyear inundations. Many communities just beginning to get back on their feet from last year’s flooding have been forced back to square one. In the wake of these unfortunate circumstances, we are reminded that Vermont’s forests are more than places for grounding and recreation; they are essential to the survival of our communities.
For much of my life, I lacked interaction with forests. I didn’t grow up with them nearby. My knowledge of forests was minimal at best. I rarely spent time in them. I never thought twice about how forests might serve my daily life or those of so many other beings.
One summer in high school, I was fortunate to spend time in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. After I returned home, there was an itch inside my brain that I couldn’t seem to scratch. I began to view my surroundings differently. I may not have had a forest next door, but a drive across the Hudson River provided access to wooded areas.
The forests were near, I just needed to wake up and find them. And so, I did.
Hailing from an urban environment, I found peace among the trees for the tranquility offered in their natural beauty and relative silence compared to my home. I could roam beneath a forest’s canopy and atop its rich soil for hours. The more I found myself wandering, the more my gaze shifted from big trees and pretty views to the forest as a whole. In this change, I realized the complexity and sheer vastness of ecological functions that can exist within even a relatively small forest ecosystem. Today, I still find that serenity that initially drew me to the woods, but I’ve also started to venture into the forest equipped with a different set of senses. I began to recognize forests not only as places of big trees, but also as homes assembled from a vast web of interconnections.
In this hearkening, one thing became clear: The forests are calling, but we are failing to show up and listen. Currently, we are gifted what might be our best opportunity to stand for the protection and conservation of mature and old-growth forests on public lands such as the Green Mountain National Forest. In the spirit of reciprocity, I urge my fellow citizens to ask themselves, “In all that the forests do for me, what now can I do for them?”
In late 2023, in response to direction from President Biden, the U.S. Forest Service announced a plan to create a National Old-Growth Amendment. What U.S. citizens have been handed is a proposal with an appealing name, but nothing more. Consistent with its title, this amendment should have been designed to protect and restore mature and old-growth forests across the U.S.
Instead, as recently reported in the Guardian, the Forest Service is proposing new policies that may weaken protections for the small amount of old-growth forest that remains in the US. A 90-day comment period began on June 21, so now is your chance to weigh in. It is vital that when this amendment is finalized, it safeguards mature and old-growth forests without chances for logging and other forms of harmful management.
While the Forest Service is actively developing policies that could facilitate destructive old-growth logging, the GMNF Telephone Gap Integrated Resource Project proposes to log 800 acres of old-growth and more than 10 thousand additional acres of mature forests near the Chittenden Reservoir, totaling an area larger than the City of Burlington.
Forest management in National Forests is historically predicated on an outdated school of forestry that tends to believe active forest management, including the clearing or thinning of mature and even old-growth stands, is necessary for forest health and wildlife habitat. But the latest ecological and climate science says otherwise. The consequences for all parts of the forest ecosystem will be monumental, demonstrating why it is so important for the public to demand that the Forest Service establish strong protections for mature and old-growth forests.
To continue benefiting from the spiritual refuge and ecosystem services provided by forests, it is crucial that we construct a relationship with forests in which we halt our subjugation of them. We protect them, they protect us. We conserve them, they conserve us. The profiteering of mature and old-growth forests on state and federal lands is happening under our noses. We shall not and cannot let this ensue.
Graham Gordon, a rising junior at Middlebury College and an intern with Standing Trees, a Vermont-based nonprofit that works to protect and restore New England’s public lands.
