ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 13, 1996 TAG: 9612130011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHERMAN BAMFORD
"EXPLORERS looked down from the mountaintops to an ocean of trees that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could reach. The lavish space, the undulations of the ground, the flowing, waving tops of the trees filled them with awe."
This description of the primeval Eastern forests that met early European explorers is from Richard Lillard's classic history of American forests, "The Great Forest." With few exceptions, magnificent virgin forests once stretched continuously from Maine to east Texas and from Minnesota to Florida.
Today, the great forests of the East have been reduced to a few small patches of virgin forest.
According to the Native Forest Council, a group dedicated to protecting the remaining forests, less than 5 percent of original native forests across the United States now remain, and nearly all of these are in the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies.
To walk in an Eastern old-growth forest is to experience one of the marvels of nature. Typical hardwoods have lives of 200, 300, 400 or more years. Far from "dying forests," old-growth forests embody the miracle of renewal in nature. Living trees create a complex forest canopy, ideal for songbirds. As standing trees weather, shelter is provided for bears and a host of other forest creatures.
Here and there as trees die - or are blown over - the cycle of life continues. Insects feed on the decaying plant matter and are, in turn, consumed by animals higher up the food chain. Large trees fall into streams and create small pools for brook trout.
As trees topple over elsewhere, they kick up the soil, providing excellent growing conditions for many deep-woods wildflowers. The decaying trees themselves replenish the soil, extending the "life" of the tree centuries after the tree dies.
All of these life processes go on simultaneously across the forest and allow it to survive for generations.
Most Eastern old-growth forests are small remnants of 40 or 50 acres. In 1994, the Virginia Natural Heritage Program discovered an old-growth tract on the scale of 3,600 acres in Alleghany County, believed to be one of the largest such tracts for oak in Virginia and, perhaps, the whole central Appalachians.
The tract, found on Peters Mountain south of the town of Hematite, was carefully analyzed using aerial-photography records, research plots and tree cores. A large portion of the area contained representative trees from 200 to 300-plus years old.
The Natural Heritage Program concluded that the forest was virgin.
In a letter to the Forest Service, Lesa Berlinghoff of the program said, "[l]arge contiguous old-growth stands are likely to be important as reserves of biodiversity and as population strongholds especially for animal species sensitive to habitat fragmentation. It is important to identify these largest areas of relatively undisturbed habitat so that they may be targeted for inventory and assessment of biological significance, for avoidance of further fragmentation, and as logical `core' areas of bioreserves."
The Peters Mountain tract is on the George Washington National Forest. One would think that the Forest Service, a steward of our public land, would be ready to embrace this newly discovered biological treasure and give it the highest degree of protection possible. Instead, it is making plans to cut a portion of it down.
The Forest Service has already logged more than 417 acres near Hematite in the last 20 years, some inside the old-growth area and some just outside of it. The Forest Service is now planning to log 187 acres, one of the largest sales ever proposed on the George Washington National Forest. The agency is planning to use "modified shelterwood," a logging technique that clears away most of the canopy, much like clearcutting.
In this latest timber sale, several of the planned cutting units are again inside the boundary of the 3,600 acre old-growth tract. Others are just outside it.
Strangely, the Forest Service denied that there were any old-growth forests or unique habitats in the area until the last minute, suppressing this information from the public and the media until after the decision was made. Apparently, pulling a fast one on the American public is an acceptable way of doing business in the James River District where the sale is to take place.
Timber production is not allowed in areas classified as old-growth under the forest plan, but such logging will take place if the Hematite sale goes through. At least 10 acres within the cutting units are documented old-growth forests 200 to 300-plus years old.
Much of the rest may be younger old growth, undiscovered old growth, stands nearing old-growth status, or protective buffers for old growth. Targeted stands outside the virgin forest include one cove hardwood stand at least 125 years old. Rich cove forests this old are uncommon in the Appalachians.
The Hematite area is a wonderful area with two wild trout streams, moss-covered rocks, deep ravines, ridges and towering old-growth oaks. It is the location of a future segment of the Allegheny Trail, a long-distance hiking trail that joins the Appalachian Trail further south. Who would dream that the stewards of our public lands would treat our forests this way?
Every Virginian should be outraged.
Sherman Bamford of Roanoke is a Preserve Appalachian Wilderness activist.
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