Unreal! Post it up somebody. I can't.. made front page news.. cut those trees. Let's make some habitat!.. glad I'm gone..

Timber sale coming up.. cut it!!!!!

From a news post:

Environmentalists are pushing against a Department of Natural Resources plan to allow the logging of about 1,100 trees in largely undeveloped area of a central Indiana state forest.

The group Hoosier Forest Watch maintains that the logging work would damage the 1,500-acre back-country section of Morgan-Monroe State Forest near Bloomington.

DNR officials are scheduled to sell the rights to the timber during an auction Thursday that will include three other sales of timber spread across Morgan-Monroe and the nearby Yellowwood State Forest, The Herald-Times reported. A total of about 7,500 trees are being included in the sales.

Hoosier Forest Watch coordinator Myke Luurtsema said Morgan-Monroe's back-country provides an ecosystem that includes the federally endangered Indiana and gray bats and state-endangered hooded, cerulean and worm-eating warblers.

The area also is important because it has few roads or trails, Luurtsema said.

"The state parks are so developed and heavily populated," he said. The back-county section "provides a unique experience that you can't find anywhere else in the state of Indiana."

John Seifert, director of the DNR's Division of Forestry, said surveys found the back-country area has no species that require that specific habitat such as the old-growth forest and that the agency has a long history of responsible logging on state properties.

"It always grows back if you take care of it," Seifert said.

Luurtsema said the forest alliance is asking members to make phone calls to Gov. Mike Pence's office and ask for the timber sale to be stopped.

Logging in Indiana's state forests has increased from 1.4 million board-feet in 2002, to more than 14 million board-feet in both 2011 and 2012.

Seifert said 3,000 acres are set aside as nature preserves in Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests and that there are thousands of acres designated for recreation as well. Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests are each 25,000 acres.

The Indiana Division of Forestry gives 15 percent of revenue from its timber sales back to the counties where the trees are harvested. Indiana counties received $381,440 from last year’s timber sales. Half of that money is spent on fire control in state forests.

Every year the Division of Forestry holds timber sales all over the state. Part of the reason for establishing the State Forest system is to maintain and utilize a healthy forest. Only when the cuts take place on or near Bloomington do we ever hear of opposition. The fact is that all of the science is on the side on proper forest management through controlled harvest. All of the emotion is on the side of a few mis-guided tree-huggers who literally can't see the forest for the trees. We hired the state forester and the folks in the forestry division to do a job. Let 'em do it.

If you want to sit and watch a tree grow unfettered go to the state PARKS where logging is prohibited. This is nothing more than the old NIMBY syndrome restructed for Bloomington head cases.

An excellent habitat article on why managing the forests properly are needed especially in Indiana:

http://www.ruffedgrousesociety.org/UserFiles/File/OtherSilentSpring.pdf

HatchetJack

Yes jack that's the best article that I have read on the proven science of good habitat management.

Bloomington won't even look at it..

WFYI Video - Forests at Work

http://video.wfyi.org/video/2306581601/

Jack

What's a grouse again? Oh yeah, Indiana dodo. I doubt we ever have any game birds. Too many people with different ideas.

Let's hope we can change that....

A good number of years ago, I came out of a woods just south of town after squirrel hunting, and while working my way back to the truck, I passed a tree top from a recent logging effort and heard some rustling in the emerging weeds. No less that 14 grouse came out of the one spot. Haven't seen that since the tree huggers have taken over common sense.

Sorry but when you spell "Myke" like that, it's pretty hard to take you seriously.

When I describe Indiana to others I put it like this.... Gary is one armpit, South Bend is the other armpit, and Bloomington is the ***hole of the State...

Sorry if anyone is offended but I can't help the truth of it all...

The habitat and wildlife would be so much better for some selective logging in YWSF and MMSF. More edge cover is much more beneficial than huge unbroken blocks of mature timber...

More on the issue today on the front page of the Bloomington paper but I can't post it..

Keep cutting guys!

Subscription required to pull it up on the Herald website. Sorry.

Yeah I know.. brew has it I think.. I think.. and the wife reads that rag so maybe I can get it..

What is the purpose of Indiana’s state forests?

Jack Seifert, director of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry, and Jeff Stant, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance, have two very different perspectives on the answer to that question.


A timber sale Thursday morning offered nearly 7,500 trees and more than a million board-feet of wood in four parcels in Yellowwood and Morgan-Monroe state forests, including 1,100 trees in a designated backcountry area in Morgan-Monroe.


Forest protection groups, such as the Indiana Forest Alliance, think backcountry areas should be off limits for logging to allow an old growth stand to mature on the public land.


Seifert thinks all areas of Indiana’s state forests should be managed for timber stand improvement. The department’s policy is to allow logging on all 150,000 acres of state forestland in a 20-year rotation.


“We’ve been doing this for 100 years.,” Seifert said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Nothing’s changed. We’ve been selling timber since state forests were established.


But the policy to log all state forestland on a 20-year cycle started under Gov. Mitch Daniels, and the amount of timber sold from state forests has skyrocketed in the past decade.


Seifert said the division of forestry looks at Indiana’s forest from a broader perspective than the environmental groups. The state’s canopy includes not only timber-managed state forests, but also private forestland, other public lands such as the Hoosier National Forest, and forests where no logging occurs, including state parks and nature preserves.


He said state parks and nature preserves are the state’s version of wilderness areas and encompass “thousands and thousands and thousands of acres that will never be harvested.”


Morgan-Monroe’s backcountry area and most of the state’s nature preserves have been logged at some point in the past, Seifert said, and it’s time to log them again. “We’re not the West Coast. There aren’t 1,000-year-old trees here,” he said.


“Our philosophy is, manage the forest before the tree dies,” Siefert said., adding that the standing timber in the Morgan-Monroe backcountry is worth about $8 million.


Tracts that have been logged recently look like they’ve been devastated, Seifert said, but not for long.


“In 20 years, it will have tall, straight trees,” ready to be harvested again, “and in the process, we’ll have made a few dollars doing it,” he said.


Opposing opinion


Stant says management of state forests has changed. He called the 20-year logging cycle “cookbook” management of a complex ecosystem.


But it wasn’t always that way, he said. Several decades ago, logging was going on, “but they had an eye towards leaving the deeper parts of the forest alone. There were other values every bit as important as providing private commodities to industry,” including providing areas for a wilderness experience.


“What’s the point of having state forests if they’re going to be just a timber supply?” Stant asked at Green Drinks Bloomington Wednesday evening.


“The forest isn’t a field of cane or corn or jack pine. The forest is more complex than that,” he said.


“We’re talking about balance, reasonableness...The policy state forests are working under today is extreme... It’s about wood, it’s about serving private timber companies,” he said.


“There’s no place in state forest system for tree farm,” he said. “That’s a private enterprise. (Seifert) is taking public lands and privatizing their use.”


“These forests are not Jack Seifert’s forests. They’re not the governor of Indiana’s forests. They’re the people of Indiana’s forests, but they’re being managed to produce timber,” he said.


Logging in state forest backcountry areas represents a lost opportunity to preserve deep, old forests, and removes a rare ecosystem niche, Stant said.


Until the early 1800s, ancient forests occupied 20 million acres across Indiana. Today, only a few hundred acres of virgin forest remain in the state, and the entire forest canopy is a scattered 5 million acres. Public land is 10 percent of that, and the 350,000 acres that are the Hoosier National Forest and state forests are the only opportunity for preserving large chunks of deep forest, where a true wilderness experience is still possible, Stant said.


“It’s not all old growth, but old growth starting to come back,” in places including Brown County state Park and the backcountry of Morgan-Monroe State Forest, he said.


“Some people want to log every tree out there, but most people think our public forests are there for something else,” he said.


“The private timber industry doesn’t need a stick of timber off our state forests. State forests generate 4 to 5 percent of wood being milled in Indiana. The rest comes from private woodlands, and that’s where it should be coming from,” he said.


The role of the division of forestry should be to educate and assist private landowners in producing sustainable forests, Stant said.


State parks and nature preserves don’t offer a true wilderness experience because camping isn’t restricted, and in some areas, hiking off-trail is prohibited.


Much of the acreage of state parks is dedicated to parking lots, swimming pools, campgrounds and golf courses, Stant noted.

Thanks brew

Fortunately only Bloomington, IN seems to be plagued by those convinced they know better than the trained foresters. I hear a whine coming from the south but it's feeble and in vain. I think the timber sale in question took place Thursday.

As for golf courses in state parks - there are 2 golf courses in the 25 state parks. State parks and reservoirs have about the same acreage as state forests ~ 150,000 acres. Plus there are 250+ nature preserves in the state. But then our friends in Bloomington only argue with emotions never with facts or with science.

For the full read on the Strategic Plan for Indiana' State Forests go here:

http://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/files/fo-Forestry-Strategic-Plan-2008-2013.Final.pdf

Jack

Thanks jack..

More lakes at M-M State Forest sounds great, but after going to the Open House there yesterday morning, there is still no progress in restoring the dam at Bean Blossom lake that gave way in November of 1993. 20 years of no progress in that regard shows little enthusiasm toward getting that lake back. While walking around the new $650,000.00 Forest Training center near completion, I foresee little in those plans being implemented in the near future.

I loved that lake. We used to frog gig there and there were lots of fish including some northern pike they had stocked as an experiment. We also used to grouse hunt the area around the lake and just used the parking lot down at the dam before walking up and down those hills. I also would love for that lake to return. Maybe DNR staff will see this and think twice about restoring that area.

Jack

I get most of my information from DNR personnel from all over[off the record]and they know I don't kiss and tell where I got it, and because they like their job and are not prone to ruffle too many feathers, they can only ask and suggest [beg and plead]. I can only speak from the short time I spent there on Sat. morning, but the only other visitors I saw were interested in trails and bicycle riding. I've been at this game for more years than I care to remember, and a lot of the ideas in that 30 some page plan are just that. Wishful thinking in the common mans language. Forgot to inquire as to where that 650K came from, maybe you can dig out the source? Did fire off a kind of WTF e-mail letter to our State Senator last night about the lake, may or may not get something other than a "thank you for contacting my office", but I have my reservations. BTW Jack, next time you're down that way, take the back road into the Forest, that being Rosenbaum Rd., but drive slow. The condition of the road is deplorable at best. It was in better shape when it was nothing but gravel. Wonder how much this little item cost? http://www.vrbo.com/479469

I love driving on all the backroads in that forest. Yellowwood I don't know as well but I can show you where the grouse used to be in Morgan-Monroe. I did catch my first smallmouth in Cherry Lake though.

Jack

Jack, I noticed the IDNR Division of Forestry Strategic Plan is for 2008-2013. Is an updated, or new, 5-year plan in the works?. If so, any news on what the Division is or will be doing to solicit comments or suggestions before the plan is completed?

Good question!!! I have no idea but I think several folks at IDNR see this page everyday and someone might shoot me note on the next 5 year plan if there is one. I had always assumed the plan was created for the duration of Mitch Daniels administration.

Jack

Do they ever do any logging in the Greene-Sullivan State Forest?

I'm betting the on-line listing is incomplete but I only show logging at Greene-Sullivan back in 2008.

http://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/5194.htm

Might call the district forester and check it out.

CONTACT: Phil Jones, Greene-Sullivan State Forest, 2551 S. State Road 159, Dugger, IN 47848,
(812) 648-2810


Jack

I'm not that concerned about it. I was just curious if they ever have, and if so, why there wasn't a big outcry over logging that forest.

If you looked at the list you'll see most if not all the state forests get logged at one time or another. The problem is that Morgan-Monroe is right next to Bloomington and some of the residents there don't want science intruding on their own private forest.

Jack

Well that's one mild way to put it I guess..