PERSPECTIVE

FOREST PLAN FAIL

The Forest Service fumbled its Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Plan. But there’s still time to fix it.

BY WILL HARLAN

HERE’S SOMETHING YOU ALREADY

know: Land in the mountains is crazy expensive and hard to find. Prices are skyrocketing, making it tougher than ever to own a slice of heaven.

But here’s something you may not know: you already own one million acres of mountain property.

Your property includes cascading waterfalls, ancient forests, and the highest mountains in the East. You can hike thousands of miles of trails and paddle, fish, and swim in its pristine streams.

You share ownership equally with every other American, and you pay your staff—the U.S. Forest Service— to manage the property. They maintain the trails and enforce the rules that you make.

Every 20 to 30 years, you write a plan that describes how your property should be managed. You get together with the other owners to hash it out, and your staff writes it all down. This plan is the most important document of your property. It spells out the rules for your property and decides how your taxes are spent.

After eight years of planning, you and 92 percent of your co-owners told the Forest Service that you wanted more protected areas and less logging in your one-million-acre Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest. Unfortunately, your staff—the Forest Service—just published a forest plan that does the exact opposite.

The newly released PisgahNantahala National Forest Plan will quadruple logging while weakening protections for the forest’s most important recreation and conservation areas.

The Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest is the most visited national forest in the country. Nearly seven million people visit it each year, and nearly all of those visitors are natureloving outdoor enthusiasts: hikers, mountain bikers, paddlers, climbers, anglers, trail runners, dog walkers, and nature seekers. Overwhelmingly, these users have made it clear: they

Not Making the Grade: Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest Report Card

Protected Areas: F

The plan fails to protect over 101,000 acres of most important conservation and recreation hotspots.

Old-Growth Forests: F

Over a quarter-million acres of old-growth is in highest-priority logging designations.

Trails and Recreation: D-

Logging is now allowed in the A.T. viewshed and other iconic trail corridors, and any new trail building requires an equal mileage of trail removal.

Water: C-

The plan recommends eight additional Wild and Scenic Rivers but it does not provide any protections for ephemeral streams and increases sedimentation through steep slope logging and road building.

A MOUNTAIN BIKER RIDES THE STAIRE CREEK TRAIL IN THE PISGAH NATIONAL FOREST. PHOTO BY STEVEN MCBRIDE

Nearly seven million people visit it each year, and nearly all of those visitors are nature-loving outdoor enthusiasts: hikers, mountain bikers, paddlers, climbers, anglers, trail runners, dog walkers, and nature seekers. Overwhelmingly, these users have made it clear: they want more of the forest protected.

Craggy National Scenic Area: D

The plan protects a chunk of Craggy but targets 4,000 acres for highest-priority logging.

Wilderness: D

Over 100,000 acres of Wilderness Inventoried Areas are left unprotected and open to logging.

Endangered Species and Wildlife: D

The plan claims that quadrupling timber harvests will not harm any rare species.

Logging: F

A new timber harvest project includes industrial logging in the Appalachian Trail corridor and Trail of Tears National Historic Trail corridor near a historic Cherokee village site. The plan incentivizes timber harvests over recreation, especially in dozens of the most important recreation hotspots.

Equity: F

Black and Hispanic populations are excluded from environmental justice consideration in the forest plan, and the plan does not measure climate, air, and water impacts of quadrupling timber harvests on these communities.

Climate: F

The U.S. Forest Service owns the largest stock of carbon-storage forests in the country. Yet the plan does not include climate and carbon-storage benefits of mature, intact forests in any decisionmaking.