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Familiar Buzzwords For “Forest Stewardship” Could Justify Logging

US Forest Service Asked To Table Grant Proposal Pending Public Consultation

see 2 updates below

[Update #1: 11/9/24 – NJ Conservation groups support the proposal and strongly urged:

This plan will be solely about ecological restoration and contain no logging, just like Baldpate Mountain where there has been no logging, not even salvage after the tornado, and nothing but forest restoration and invasive and deer control. Please focus on the plethora of horrible stuff statewide – this is not one of them !

I guess you have to trust them. I don’t. And the Baldpate Mountain project is a mess, with industrial fencing of acres of lovely meadow, with very little maintenance, leading to overgrown invasives, not forest. ~~~ end update]

At their October 17, 2024 regular meeting, NJ Highlands Council Executive Director Ben Spinelli briefed the Council on a grant application recently submitted to the US Forest Service (USFS).

The Council is seeking a USFS grant to support a $1.46 million proposal to develop a “Forest Management Plan” for the 35,000 acre forested Newark Watershed.

Having witnessed the destructive logging that is justified by the slogans “forest management” and “forest stewardship” – and how government grant funds promote these abuses without any public awareness – alarm bells went off in my head.

So I immediately filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for the grant application to understand what the Council was seeking to do to these forests.

The Council delayed responding for 2 weeks past the legal deadline and finally provided the USFS grant application documents today. The needless delay heightened my skepticism.

Based upon a very rapid review of those documents, there are some red flags:

1) While it contains some good stuff (e.g rare plant inventory, just 10 acres of tree plantings) there is the usual abuse of “stewardship” and “treatments” based on forest health, invasive species, creation of habitat, and restoration. So this is more than study, data collection and assessment, it includes management (logging?)

2) It was supported by the NJ DEP State Forester and deemed consistent with the NJ Forest Action Plan (which promotes all kinds of abuse).

3) The proposal goes out of its way to claim that the DEP conservation easement and deed restrictions on Newark Watershed Lands do NOT restrict development of a Forest Stewardship Plan.

4) It duplicates DEP responsibilities for water quality related monitoring and data collection.

5) It seems like this is a project from Michael Van Clef – I invite anyone to take a field tour of Baldpate Mountain in Hopewell for an example of his work. (I noticed that the proposal included a fenced in area to prevent deer browse. Take a look at how that’s worked at Baldpate!)

6) There is no evidence that I saw showing that there was any consultation with conservation groups, the public, tribes, or the local and county governments.

Based upon this rapid assessment, I reached out to USFS to request that this grant proposal be tabled pending adequate public participation and scientific peer review.

I strongly urge you to join this request – we may be able to nip this in the bud and prevent harms:

Dear US Forest Service:

I am writing regarding a grant proposal recently submitted by the NJ Highlands Council, titled:

“Partnership for a comprehensive forest stewardship plan and water quality in the Newark Watershed”

The proposal responds to a solicitation from the USFS:

“USDA Forest Service Eastern Region, State, Private, and Tribal Forestry Fiscal Year 2025 – Landscape Scale Restoration Competitive Process”

I filed a public records request with the Council to obtain relevant documents and received a reply today.

As you know, the management of NJ’s forests is a matter of extreme public interest – particularly Highlands forests – as evidenced by NJ Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith’s creation of a legislative Forest Management Task Force. You may recall that Senator Smith was prime sponsor of the Highlands Act, which was based upon a USFS 2002 Report on Highlands forests.

After a year of public deliberations, that Task Force issued its Report and recommendations, which are currently pending legislative review and policy development.

Given the priority of the various forestry issues, pending Legislative policy development regarding forest management, and the absence of meaningful public consultation by the Highlands Council in developing the subject grant proposal – including tribal and conservation group consultation – I urge the USFS to table consideration of this grant application at this time, pending adequate public participation and scientific peer review.

I am copying Chairman Smith and DEP Commissioner LaTourette in hopes of their intervention to slow this project down and allow public participation and scientific peer review.

Respectfully.

*Bill Wolfe

*retired DEP planner and former member of NJ Gov. McGreevey’s Highlands Task Force and drafter of the NJ Highlands Act.

c: Senator Smith

Senator McKeon

DEP Commissioner LaTourette

Highlands Council Ex. Director Ben Spinelli

[Update #2 – 11/10/24 – Here is my reply to NJ conservationists who support this project:

“since you brought it up, I checked up on the Baldpate performance. I wrote about these problems a decade ago, see:

http://www.wolfenotes.com/2014/11/whats-up-with-baldpate-mountain-reforestation-project/

Here are excerpts from Mercer County Parks Report – were these mistakes ever admitted by Van Clef and are these mistakes being repeated in Newark?:

“Plant Stewardship Index Survey and Report Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain *Public Version

The study confirms my layman’s observations  and criticisms (see page 44 – 46) – so even if you agree that reforestation is an appropriate management of the meadow (which I don’t), the project is a failure.

I restate the Mercer County Report findings in full (boldface are mine):

Large Reforestation Exclosure:

This is the second, larger reforestation exclosure. Maintenance as turf ceased in 2010, and the area was fenced and planted with native trees and forbs.

The area showed substantially poorer sapling growth than the small exclosure.This is attributable to the significant breeches in the exclosure fence.Deer sign was conspicuous throughout the area.

Much of the sapling regeneration in this area is white ash. Other tree recruitment appears to be from nearby trees, mostly wind-dispersed species.

The ground layer is dominated by Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese stiltgrass, and other weedy, primarily non-native species. Common milkweed and wrinkleleaf goldenrod are the most common native forbs.

Autumn olive has largely been controlled by herbicide. Multiflora rose is severely affected by rose-rosette disease.

An interesting occurrence of black cohosh was found, flowering, inside the fence. The nearest population outside the fence is approximately 30 meters away.

Stewardship Discussion

A few observations were made that pertain to deer fencing and afforestation. These are not intended to second-guess any existing practices (which were structured in part by funder approaches and time constraints), but to build on observation to inform future approaches.

1. Most of the saplings appeared to be natural recruits. Given adequate protection from deer browse, trees have recruited quite readily. Given that survivorship of planted tree stock appears quite low, this calls into question the practice of introducing trees to afforestation sites (at least where thorough site prep and supplemental watering are not feasible), as opposed to allowing trees to recruit naturally.

2. Exclosures should be managed with a mowed perimeter inside or outside the fence so that the fence can be regularly inspected for breeches and easily repaired should damage to the fence occur.

3. The survey found low diversity in the sapling cohort, and a high degree of invasive plant colonization of the ground layer. Might an alternate restoration approach, a type of long-term managed succession, lead to a more diverse restored habitat than direct afforestation? That is to say, successfully restoring a habitat to a diverse meadow and shrub community may lay the groundwork for a structurally and species diverse forest in the longer term; taking a lawn or ruderal field and planting trees in it may not lead to the desired future condition of diverse native forest. 

Wolfe