It may have started with a bat in a cave, but human activity set it loose

It may have started with a bat in a cave, but human activity set it loose.
– David Quammen

COVID-19 is a wakeup call. This pandemic is testing our health systems, government institutions, and civil society in an unprecedented manner. The immediate costs — in lives losts, to our economy, and to people’s livelihoods — are staggering.

Though this disease is new and especially contagious, it is not unique. COVID-19 is among a growing number of animal-borne viruses, bacteria, parasites and other pathogens on the rise due to the twin threats of habitat destruction and climate change. Research conducted more than a decade ago showed as much as 60% of new diseases between 1960 and 2004 came from animals.

The destruction of natural habitats is a key contributor to the spread of new and existing diseases. As human development encroaches on forests and other natural habitats, people come into greater contact with animals and are at greater risk for catching the diseases they carry.

Similarly, human development, resource extraction and climate change can reduce biodiversity. In the natural world, the most diverse ecosystems are the healthiest, having intricately woven webs of species balancing one another. When those webs are torn, the species most likely to carry and spread disease — such as rats and bats — thrive. Meanwhile, climate change is making our region warmer and wetter, and waterborne and mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue fever, Zika virus, chagas disease and malaria are moving north.

Support Our Healthy Ecosystems

You can protect our mountain region. With your support, we can protect our forest and aquatic habitats.

These diseases are seen as exotic and foreign, but the same conditions of habitat destruction, degradation of biodiversity and increased human-wildlife interaction are happening right here in our mountain region. Tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease, alpha-gal syndrome, and ehrlichiosis are spreading in our region. Studies have documented growth in tick populations when forests are broken up and the number and diversity of species are reduced.

COVID-19 is an immediate threat, and we encourage our members to find ways to directly support our communities and our neighbors now. But we are also asking you to continue to invest in our environment, our communities and to help do your part to prevent the next pandemic.

When you support MountainTrue, you power:

a Public Lands Team hard at work ensuring a management plan for the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests that protects our natural carbon sinks, reduces habitat destruction, and promotes biodiversity.
a Land-Use Team that promotes smart growth and community planning so that our continued growth doesn’t come at the expense of our environment.
Four Riverkeepers and a Western Region Clean Waters Team that work to reduce urban and agricultural pollution, minimizing levels of E. coli and other harmful pathogens in our rivers and streams, and
an Energy Team that has successfully fought to move our region away from coal and is helping to lead us toward a renewable energy future.

The fight to protect the health of our forests, rivers, and mountain communities is more important than ever. We ask that you donate today so that we can continue to protect the places we share.

Thank you for standing with us in this time of uncertainty.

Have Your Say In How Our Forests Are Managed

Action Expired

The Forest Service is accepting public comment on the draft forest management plan for all 1.045 million acres of Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests — a plan that will set priorities and protections for the next 15-20 years of these public lands. This current comment period is our last meaningful chance to provide input on how these public lands are managed.

These forests belong to all of us. Let’s make sure they are managed for the benefit of all forest users, our environment and future generations.

ICYMI: Watch Our Forest Plan Info Session

Nearly one hundred people joined us on the evening of April 7 for our live online info session on the draft forest management plan for the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests. During the session, our Public Lands Field Biologist Josh Kelly presented MountainTrue’s analysis of the draft plan and took questions from the audience. If you missed the webinar, you can watch it on YouTube.

The info session was emceed by MountainTrue Public Engagement Manager Susan Bean, and the Q&A segment was moderated by Western Regional Director Callie Moore. We were fortunate to be joined by Alice Cohen of the U.S. Forest Service, who kicked off the webinar with a brief overview of the forest management planning process.

Stay tuned for future forest plan info sessions where we’ll dive into specific regions and topics such as water quality and recreation infrastructure.

Join Us At A Forest Management Plan Comment Party

Action Expired

As many of you have heard through news reports or from our last e-news, the draft management plan and environmental impact statement for the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests were released on Friday, February 14. Our forest team is reviewing the more than 2,000 pages contained in those documents and will soon be offering our members and supporters thorough analysis to assist you in providing meaningful public comments to the forest service.

We are also scheduling a series of Forest Management Plan presentations and comment-writing parties throughout our region where our staff will present our analysis, answer your questions and help you write your comments, if desired. Below is our first round of events.

March 21: Brevard Comment-Writing Party at Ecusta Brewing. 49 Pisgah Hwy #3, Pisgah Forest, NC 28768 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM
March 24: Marshall Comment-Writing Party at Marshall Container Company, 10 S Main St., Marshall, NC 28753 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
March 26: Hayesville Comment-Writing Party at Valley River Brewery & Eatery, 994 US-64 BUS, Hayesville, NC 28904 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
April 8: Boone Forest Plan Presentation at the Watauga County Public Library, 140 Queen St., Boone, NC 28607 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM

More public comment events hosted by MountainTrue are being planned and we will update you when dates and locations are confirmed for events in Mills River, Sylva, Morganton, Asheville and Bryson City.

As we schedule additional events, we’ll also be adding them to our Forest Plan Calendar.

The Nantahala and Pisgah belong to all of us, and this is the process whereby we, the public, ensure that the Forest Service manages and maintains them according to our values. The management plan determines which areas are protected, which areas will be scheduled for timber projects or managed for restoration, and how projects, like trail building and maintenance, are prioritized.

This forest management plan has been in development since 2013, and this is the public’s last significant opportunity to have our say. The public comment period lasts 90 days (until May 14), and you can submit as many public comments as you like. So, even if you’ve already submitted a comment, you can attend our parties to learn more and add your additional concerns to the public record.

MountainTrue’s Josh Kelly participated in Carolina Public Press’s NewsMakers Forum on the Future of Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest. Watch it here.

Our first impressions of the Forest Plan is that the Forest Service has made a good faith effort to include the values of all constituencies, but that there’s still a lot of room for improvement. All the action alternatives have some elements that we like, and some we don’t.

Some specific areas of concern that we’ve already identified:

The draft plan does not include any certain protections for existing old-growth forests. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement documents that all forest ecosystems are deficient in old-growth, very young forest, and open canopy forest compared to the best models of the natural variation in these systems. Unsustainable logging 100-140 years ago, fire suppression, and other factors have gotten us where we are today. Cutting existing old-growth will only make the matter worse, and the Forest Plan should require that old-growth be protected from regeneration harvest — the process by which older forests are cut to make younger forests.
The draft plan does not specify if or how old-growth forests will be tracked, making monitoring of the goal of increasing the amount of old-growth on the ground unachievable.
The draft plan does not include specific directions to protect many Natural Heritage Natural Areas that contain the best examples of rare species and natural communities in North Carolina. In all forest plan alternatives, between 34,000 and 68,000 acres of NHNAs are included in management areas with scheduled timber harvest. The Forest Plan should preclude regeneration harvest if a site-specific review finds them to be in a condition consistent with their identification as natural areas by the state.
The draft plan proposes a 15 ft. buffer on intermittent streams – streams that dry up during a drought. We believe that the intent is to protect those streams, but the plan should require a 50 ft. buffer of protection from heavy equipment such as bulldozers and skidders a default.
The current forest plan stipulates that any timber harvest on slopes over 40% must be accomplished with an aerial cable, where at least one end of the log is lifted off the ground, or other aerial logging method to protect soils and reduce the risk or erosion or landslides. The draft plan does away with that requirement and leaves the decision, increasing opportunities for human error. The new plan should also require that all harvest methods on steep slopes should protect the soil as effectively as aerial cable harvest.
Alternative C is the only alternative that would manage Big Ivy consistent with the Buncombe County resolution calling on the Forest Service to protect the area.

Moving forward, we continue to contribute as a member of the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership to come up with a collaborative, win-win proposal that takes the best aspects of each alternative provided by the Forest Service, and fixes any of the plan’s deficiencies in protecting water quality, old-growth forests, and natural areas.

To keep up with the latest Forest-related news and action alerts and to receive updates as we add forest plan events to our calendar, sign up here.

MountainTrue’s Response to Forest Service Message on the Buck Project

MountainTrue’s Public Lands Biologist, Josh Kelly, next to a “temporary road” built by the Forest Service in 2012 in Nantahala National Forest.

This May, MountainTrue spread the word and made a call for public comments against the Forest Service’s preferred alternative for the Buck Project, which we believe is one of the worst timber cutting proposals in the history of Nantahala National Forest.

It came to our attention that many of the people who commented on the project through our online action alert received a message from Steverson Moffat, NEPA Planning Team Leader for the Forest Service, and they were curious as to what to make of it and how to respond. While we’re glad that the Forest Service is taking the time to engage with people who comment on their projects, we have a very different interpretation of the Buck Project than what was shared in the Forest Service’s message.

In the Forest Service’s response (which is included below), it is clear that the Forest Service sees a “need” to create more young forest in the Buck Project Area for disturbance-dependent wildlife species like the ruffed grouse. Not surprisingly, the majority of the logging projects in Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests use exactly the same justification. It is true that scrub, shrub, woodland (an open forest), and grassland habitats and the species that depend on them are in trouble because natural processes like fire, floods, and large-scale grazing have been interrupted or destroyed by a largely developed landscape.

Sustainable timber harvest can be used as a surrogate for these suppressed natural processes to provide habitat for declining species; however, we don’t believe that we must sacrifice the last wild areas of our National Forests and habitat for sensitive rare species to make way for open habitat. Our National Forests are large enough for both values, but only some areas are suitable for each.

As the Forest Service notes, there are over 20,000 acres of public land in the Buck Project Area. What is not noted is that this is one of the wildest places left in the Appalachians. Over 400 acres of timber harvest can be attained there without cutting existing old-growth, habitat for rare species, or building roads into areas that are ideal for backcountry management. A similar amount could be harvested from the developed footprint of the area every 10-20 years in perpetuity. To get at more will require road building into the Chunky Gal potential Wilderness Addition and cutting in sensitive habitats.

One of the biggest concerns we have with Mr. Moffat’s letter is the claim that the proposed road building and logging won’t affect the status of Chunky Gal in the new forest plan. Building miles of roads and cutting 20-acre blocks of this area will decrease the Buck Project Area’s natural qualities, making it much less likely to be recommended as Wilderness or Backcountry in the new forest plan. The planning rule literally uses “apparent naturalness” as the standard for whether areas qualify for Wilderness and Backcountry management. If the Chunky Gal area isn’t managed as Backcountry in the new plan, it leaves the area open to development with road systems in the future.

The Forest Service also makes the assertion that temporary roads are “an attempt to tread as lightly as possible on the landscape while meeting management objectives.” In fact, “temporary roads” are no more temporary than any other logging roads. They would need to be 14-20 feet wide in order to support the large equipment and trucks needed to harvest hundreds of acres of forest. These roads would be temporary in name only, and would persist for decades on the ground.

Furthermore, Forest Service regulations state that for a road to be categorized as “temporary” it can only be used once. Some of these “temporary” roads have already been used in two other timber sales in the past 20 years by the Forest Service. If a road will knowingly be used repeatedly, it is required to be added to the official Forest Service system. The problem is, that requires maintenance money that the Forest Service doesn’t have. If roads aren’t maintained, erosion into streams is a significant hazard. The Forest Service currently has an $8.4 billion backlog for needed road maintenance nationwide. When the Forest Service disregards its own regulations in order to get out of road maintenance requirements at the expense of water quality, it’s fair to call that an accounting trick. Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests need to maintain the 2,300 miles of road they already have before building new ones.

The message also states that “the Forest Service specialists who are tasked with managing the Nantahala National Forest take seriously the responsibility entrusted to them by the American people and strive to balance the needs of the ecosystem with the often conflicting desires of the public.”

The Forest Service has every opinion inside its ranks that you find in the American public at large. There are many Forest Service employees who disagree with aspects of the Buck Project as proposed. To frame the proposal for this project, which would develop the area with miles of roads and hundreds of acres of logging, as being consistent with the needs of the ecosystem is arguable at best.

MountainTrue believes the solution is to find the places where society’s need for wood, wildlife’s need for scrubby habitat, and the conditions of the forest align so that timber harvest makes sense at all three levels. That’s why we support a modified Alternative D that does not build new roads, stays out of existing old-growth forest, and does not harm natural heritage areas.

It is clear at the local and the national level that the Forest Service wants to cut more timber. The way to accomplish that is not to harm the fantastic biodiversity of the Blue Ridge Mountains by developing the last wild places and cutting areas identified as biological gems like the disputed parts of the Buck Project. We can achieve all our goals in a much more environmentally sound way by opting for a modified Alternative D.

Original Message From The Forest Service

You’re receiving this message because you commented on the Tusquitee Ranger District’s Buck Project during the notice and comment period in April and May of 2019. Under normal circumstances, you would have received this reply within about two weeks of the end of the comment period, but I had some family business that took me out of town for a few days in mid and late-May and, well, things got a little backed up.

I have taken the liberty of attaching the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) to this message that was (and still is) available for review during the N&C period. Maps of the project area and proposed treatments, which are too megabyte-rich for email, can be found by following this link and clicking the “Analysis” tab: https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=50345. I strongly encourage you to read the EA because it addresses many of the issues that you have raised.

To directly respond to specific points and concerns most of you shared with us in your correspondence:

Everyone who works for the National Forests in North Carolina also loves and appreciates our public lands and the natural values they provide, including those listed in your messages: clean water, wildlife habitat, hunting, fishing, recreation, solitude, nature study, and much more.
Yes, the Buck Project analysis area is part of an iconic Appalachian landscape, and needs our care. Referencing Chapter 1 of the EA,
There are currently 111 acres of forest in the 0 – 10 year age class, and 18 acres in the 11 – 20 year age class. This habitat type, once too abundant in the wake of extractive logging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is now rare across the Nantahala National Forest (EA at page 7). Young forest stands, those 20 years and younger, typically, provide critical age class and structural diversity that provide critical habitat for a wide variety of non-game and game wildlife species that require interior forest early successional habitat (ESH) to complete some, or all, of their life cycles (please see the references cited and hyperlinked on pages 6 and 7 of the EA). The Forest Service is balancing this need for ESH while also conserving older forest stands, which also provide important habitat for non-game and game wildlife.
Currently, 14,222 acres of the Buck Analysis area are 81 years and older; by the completion of the proposed project, this total will increase to 17,811 acres, or 86% of the analysis area.
Care has been taken to locate treatments in areas that do not contain habitat for rare plants or, where work is proposed near rare plant populations, buffers and exclusion zones have been established to maintain appropriate habitat conditions (EA at pages 35 and 36).
The Forest Service has evaluated the proposed actions on areas that have been identified as lands that may be suitable for wilderness and has determined that project activities would have no impacts to the wilderness characteristics of the Boteler and Chunky Gal inventory areas (EA at pages 28 and 29).
Potential impacts of temporary road prisms and other project activities on soil and water resources are presented in sections 3.2.1, 3.6, and 3.7 of the EA.
Proposing temporary roads is not, from our perspective, an “accounting trick”, but rather an attempt to tread as lightly as possible on the landscape while meeting management objectives.

Other topics addressed in the EA include the direct, indirect, and cumulative effects to management indicator species, communities, and special habitats; proposed, endangered, and threatened species; regionally sensitive and forest concern species; old growth forest; air resources; timber resources; heritage resources; recreation resources; scenery; social and economic considerations; road management; and climate change.

The Forest Service specialists who are tasked with managing the Nantahala National Forest take seriously the responsibility entrusted to them by the American people and strive to balance the needs of the ecosystem with the often conflicting desires of the public. We are currently reviewing all comments on the Buck Project and anticipate releasing a draft decisional EA and draft Decision Notice later this summer. You will be receiving those documents by email when they are released for the 45 day objection period. Until then, should you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.

Best,

Steverson

Steverson Moffat, Ph.D.

NEPA Planning Team Leader, Forest Service, Nantahala National Forest

Take Action: Protect the Public’s Role in Public Lands

Action Expired

The U.S. Forest Service has released an extreme set of proposed changes that would cut the public almost entirely out of decisions affecting our public lands. Will you speak out against the Forest Service’s proposal and protect the public’s role in public lands below?

The proposal would make dramatic changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which allows the public to have a say about the plans for government projects like new roads and timber sales. By requiring public input and a review of the environmental impacts of government projects, NEPA keeps these decisions from being made behind closed doors.

Here are just a few of the Forest Service’s proposed changes to NEPA:

A loophole to allow logging up to 4,200 acres at one time (6.6 square miles!) without environmental review or public input. In Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest, that’s the same as five years worth of logging at current levels all at once.
Cutting the public out of decisions to build up to five new miles of road at a time and to close roads used by the public to access hunting areas, fishing streams, and trails.
No longer requiring mining projects affecting fewer than 640 acres to have environmental review.
Allowing multiple Categorical Exclusions – activities the Forest Service has decided generally don’t require environmental review or public input – to apply to the same project. This is currently against the law, and would allow projects like timber sales to be significantly larger and more destructive.

We deserve to have a say about government projects affecting our communities.

Protect Old-Growth Forest and Vibrant Ecosystems in the Buck Project

Action Expired

The Buck Project has the potential to be the most destructive timber sale in Nantahala National Forest in more than 30 years. Submit your public comment below to protect the vibrant ecosystems, pristine waters and old-growth forests that are on the chopping block.

The Buck Creek Project would occur in the Nantahala National Forest in Clay County, NC. Every proposed timber sale in a national forest must have alternatives, and right now the one the Forest Service is recommending – Alternative B – would cut 845 acres and build 9.1 miles of roads, causing significant erosion and harm to sensitive wildlife species like the seepage salamander and the brown creeper. The plan would also include logging at least six old growth areas and logging in the Chunky Gal potential wilderness area, a 7,000 acre swath of land that has gained support for a wilderness designation from the diverse stakeholders in the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership.

Alternatives Modified B and C would also do great harm, degrading the character of the area and interior forests. MountainTrue supports Alternative D, the only one that would not harm the Chunky Gal and Botetler Peak areas, but even this alternative should be revised to include the full water quality improvements and controlled burns that are available in other alternatives.

Take the action below to tell the Forest Service: Protect the Chunky Gal potential wilderness area, old-growth forest and sensitive wildlife species in the Buck Project.