34
Outdoors
Smoky Mountain News
Draft forest management plan released
Public comment opens Feb. 14; final plan expected summer 2021 BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER long-awaited draft of the plan that will guide management of the PisgahNantahala National Forest for the next generation has been released, with the public comment period officially opening on Valentine’s Day and extending through Thursday, May 14. Early planning for the revision began in late 2012, with a notice of intent to revise it published in early 2014 — at that time, it was anticipated that a draft plan would be released in June 2015. Robust public input and marked contention over what the plan should do in regard to wilderness designation and logging caused the U.S. Forest Service to announce in March 2015 that it would delay the release by a few months, and in summer
A
2016 another delay was announced, with a draft plan then expected at the end of that year. A raging wildfire season in fall 2016 monopolized the attention of Forest Service staff members who would otherwise be working on the plan, lengthening the timeline. In 2017, the Forest Service released proposed building blocks for the yet-to-be-completed plan and said the full draft would come out sometime in 2018. The draft was finally released on Friday, Feb. 7, with adoption of a final plan expected in summer 2021.
BUILT ON PUBLIC INPUT The lengthy timeline is a direct result of the Forest Service’s efforts to engage the public throughout the process and incorporate
Looking Glass Rock (above) and Looking Glass Falls are two of the many places within the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest with special value for recreation. Donated photos
that feedback along the way, said forest revision team leader Michelle Aldridge. “I think it’s important to note that 20 years ago when we wrote our current forest plan, this day would be the day when we got our first public involvement,” she said in an interview the day of the draft’s release. “We no longer wait until we release a proposed plan and draft EIS to get public input.” Instead, the first opportunities for public comment were held in 2013. Since then, the Forest Service has hosted 47 meetings and attended dozens of others hosted by stakeholders in the plan revision. “We’ve had extensive collaboration that helped inform where we are today,” Aldridge said. Now that it’s been released, the plan will go through a 90-day public comment period. Forest Service staff will spend the summer and fall reading and incorporating that feedback, with a draft decision expected to be released this time next year. After that release, the public will have two months to file objections to the decision and the Forest Service will have three months to respond to those objections. Then, likely in mid-2021, a final plan will be adopted.
work across boundaries with neighboring lands. Extensive dialogue with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was also essential to the plan’s development. The Forest Service coordinated with the tribe on language and desired management within the Trail of Tears Heritage Corridor.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH
PLANNING FOR WILDERNESS
The proposed plan is quite different from the existing one in substance as well as process. “The previous forest plan, the one we’re operating on right now, is really focused on outputs, not outcomes,” said Aldridge. “It treats all vegetation the same way.” The new plan, meanwhile, divides the entire forest into ecological communities, treating each forest type differently depending on what will work best for that particular ecosystem. The new plan’s emphasis on partnerships is also markedly different from the existing approach. That focus evolved following public comment on the building blocks for plan objectives that the Forest Service released in 2017. “We heard, ‘That’s great, but we’d like you to do more,’” said Aldridge. “We said, ‘We can’t do more with our existing capacity and budget, but we hear you and we’d like to do more too.’” As a result, the Forest Service doubled its analysis to look at two tiers of objectives — the first tier showing what the agency could do with its existing resources and the second tier showing what it could do with help from partners. When you consider that the species analysis alone looked at 1,046 species, analyzing four different alternatives for each on two tiers using multiple timeframes, it’s not hard to see why the plan took so long to develop, said Aldridge. The plan also emphasizes values that are important to people, both recreationally and culturally. It divides the forest into 12 geographic areas that outline goals for connecting people to the land as well as opportunities to
A key controversy in public meetings leading up to the plan’s development was the question of how best to protect the forest’s special places. Some stakeholder groups strongly supported a plan that would drastically increase the acreage recommended as congressionally designated wilderness. Others said that additional wilderness designation would hamstring effective forest management and that the priority should be to boost the share of young forest habitat through increased timber harvesting and prescribed burning. The draft plan consists of four alternatives — one that would contain no changes from the existing plan adopted in 1987, and three that would offer varying levels of change in varying ways. The team worked to strike a balance within each alternative so that all perspectives would be represented within each choice, said Aldridge. “We tried to make sure that every interest wins in every alternative,” she said. “We used that input to provide alternatives that provide a win-win for each interest.” Anyone who sat through the heated public meetings of 2014 and 2015 would likely agree that creating a solution that all sides acknowledge as a win-win is a hefty challenge, but Aldridge said she’s excited about the results of her team’s years of work. The plan’s recommendations concerning wilderness and logging are a good example, she said. Currently, the Pisgah-Nantahala contains six congressionally designated wilderness areas totaling 66,400 acres, as well as five congressionally designated Wilderness Study Areas, three of which were recommended for designation in the 1987
Be heard The U.S. Forest Service is planning a series of open houses throughout the region in March and April to take input on the draft forest management plan. Additional sessions will be scheduled later, but currently scheduled meetings, to be held 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. will be: n Tuesday, March 10, at the Foothills Conference Center in Morganton. n Monday, March 16, at the Brevard Library in Brevard. n Thursday, March 19, at the Brasstown Community Center in Brasstown. n Tuesday, March 24, at the First Presbyterian Church’s Tartan Hall in Franklin. Additional meetings will be scheduled with dates posted at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/nfsnc/nprevision.
