NATIONAL FOREST PLAN STRESSES PROTECTION OF PLANTS, ANIMALS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 9, 1993                   TAG: 9303090185
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WARM SPRINGS                                LENGTH: Medium
NATIONAL FOREST PLAN STRESSES PROTECTION OF PLANTS, ANIMALS
Vic Gaines sloshes in shin-high boots to the edge of a manmade pond in Hidden Valley so he can point out newly formed islands of cattails and marsh grass.
"We mimicked the beavers," Gaines, a district forest ranger on the George Washington National Forest, said above the mud-sucking sounds.
That used to mean cutting down trees. Now, in the picturesque valley where "Sommersby" was filmed last year, it means building small dams along a creek and an ecosystem to lure wood ducks and herons down from their migration routes.
George Washington National Forest's 10-year management plan, spokesman Terry Smith said, "is not business as usual. There is more emphasis on wildlife, fisheries and recreation. The plan is based on biological concerns when a year ago the focus was very much on timber."
The George Washington is the first national forest to come out with the long-range plan since Forest Service Chief Dale Robertson's ecosystem management decree came out in June. And Peg Boland of the Forest Service's planning office in Washington said it's the first to come before the Clinton administration, which wants to eliminate clearcutting and unprofitable timber sales.
"It's head and shoulders above the previous management plan in a lot of respects," said Dan Boone, a forest ecologist for the Wilderness Society in Washington. "They're on the right track with the treatment of old growth stands and recognition of large tracts of land as important to interior species."
But Boone and some other conservationists said the plan, which went into effect Monday, falls short of the agency's goals and will have to be reworked if Congress backs President Clinton's recommendations.
"The George Washington is in a good position to be a leader on this, but I don't think this plan necessarily comes to grips with ecosystem management," Boone said.
"It's a catchy-sounding phrase, but the plan allows for a whole lot more loopholes for timber harvesting," said Jim Loesel of the Citizens' Task Force on Forest Management. "It's a weak plan overall because they didn't have the biologists and botanists and ecologists to do the necessary inventory work."
But Wayne Kelley, supervisor of the forest, said the emphasis on old-growth forests and threatened species "puts the `ologists' in the driver's seat. They've got to describe the desired condition and then ask others how to achieve it. That's a reversed role."
Representatives of various conservation groups plan to meet in Harrisonburg on Wednesday to discuss the forest management, and Loesel predicted at least one of the organizations will appeal the plan.
Robertson killed the George Washington management plan in 1989 after a series of protests. He said the public played too small a role in preparing the plan.
During the past two years, the national forest hosted 13 public hearings and numerous conferences to discuss alternative management plans. The forest received and answered 4,300 written comments from individuals, agencies and organizations.
The chosen alternative is based on biodiversity and divides the forest into 22 management areas, Terry said. Each area has a different emphasis, such as recreation, protection of unique plants and animals, wilderness, remote highlands, timber harvesting and development of hunted wildlife.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB