Wednesday, November 6, 2024

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Say no to the ‘experimental demonstration forest’ concept for The Notch Forest and Bellows Pipe Trail

Foisting an "experimental demonstration forest" concept onto The Notch Forest and Bellows Pipe Trail is neither respectful nor appropriate. Pure and simple, the logging plan is board-room derived, an empty, feel-good concept.

To the editor:

The Notch Forest and nationally recognized Bellows Pipe Trail are collectively a special “place” with deep emotional meaning for thousands. It has a comforting, often transforming, uniqueness, which simply must be treated gently. Foisting an “experimental demonstration forest” concept onto it is neither respectful nor appropriate. Pure and simple, the logging plan is board-room derived, an empty, feel-good concept. It is being crudely forced onto a diverse, largely healthy, amazingly invasive free but steep, highly erodible, wet, and fragile site. This plan for the forest neither recognizes nor respects its specialness.

I would ask any citizens leaning toward accepting the plan:

Do you know that DCR has self-exempted its forest operations from state and local wetland regulations? That no vernal pools are marked, and no perennial or intermittent steams or wetlands are marked on the ground? That regulatory buffer zones are not marked? This is on your water supply! Failure to mark these protective zones means critical decisions will be made by the operators of forestry machines—whose business is speed, not care. In this scenario, wetlands and critters do not exist. They can be obliterated at the convenience of the loggers. Simply: If it is not marked, it does not exist!

The track record of forest plans over recent decades is not pretty. The meddling mindset of proponents in this case does not engender confidence in this idea and plan. Pause and consider. You will recognize that only the old techniques are being utilized: clear-cut; shelterwood harvest; opening the forest canopy; remove invasives (until now by chemicals); killing all diverse, natural seedlings and planting two species selected for timber production while calling them climate friendly. This is a classic rough-and-tumble, big, and fast logging-industry approach in slightly greener dress.

On the science! In carefully appraised carbon-sequestering science, undisturbed, mature, maturing, and old-growth forests win hands down. In the minds of some, including the plan proposers, the carbon-sequestering science is not sufficiently settled. If so, this is not the “place to experiment” to see who is right. If an experiment is needed, this fragile site be the “control.” These already disturbed and severely eroding 200 acres east of the reservoir have the same soils and slopes as the 70 acres now proposed for further logging. Further logging is not needed for any truly scientific purpose.

Walter Cudnohufsky
Member of Friends of the Notch Reservoir and Bellows Pipe Trail
Ashfield, Mass.

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