The current effort around the Monongahela National Forest plan revision in West Virginia is a great example of wilderness advocates engaging in the planning process to further efforts to protect wilderness. The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition has recently launched a full-scale effort to generate comments on the forest plan while highlighting the importance of their citizens’ proposed wilderness areas.
The new draft plan for the Monongahela National Forest was announced earlier this month with a “preferred” draft alternative that would roll back current protections for roadless areas, triple current logging levels and increase clearcut sizes. While the Forest Service has tried to characterize their preferred alternative as a middle ground, a quick examination of the plan shows that only a small fraction of the Mon’s remaining wild areas are recommended for wilderness designation.
Rather than dwelling on the short comings of the draft plan, the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition is using this as an opportunity to engage supporters, calling on them to comment on the plan and support Alternative 3 - an alternative that, while not perfect, protects many remaining roadless areas and recommends all but a handful of the citizens’ proposed wilderness areas for wilderness designation.
The Coalition has been quick to launch their effort, sending out email alerts to members and supports throughout West Virginia and surrounding communities. They have also included action alerts and a complete analysis of the Forest Service plan in a number of newsletters. Also, they have been working to educate all their supporters and encouraging them to voice their support for wilderness. In addition to working the mail and email lists, the coalition has also launched an effort to take advantage of tabling opportunities throughout the region at State Fairs, harvest festivals and other events. They are also working with local activists to host and organize “house parties” where they screen the new West Virginia Wilderness video and talk about the forest plan and the impacts that it will have on local forest users.
All of these activities will build towards a lobby week in Washington DC at the end of September where activist from around the state will be meeting with West Virginia’s congressional delegation to talk about the forest plan and the importance of protecting the Mon’s remaining wild areas as wilderness.
Well aware of the successful forest planning history in the Mountain State (see background section above), the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition hopes to build on this tradition and once again use the forest planning process to protect the forest’s remaining wild areas. They will be working through the process during the current 90-day comment period and will continue to advocate that the congressional delegation work to designate all remaining wild areas on the Mon as wilderness.
Background
West Virginians have a long and proud tradition of using the National Forest planning process to improve protections for the forest. Forest planning nationwide started as a result of an historic lawsuit on clearcutting in West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest. Concerned citizens forced the Forest Service to begin detailed planning processes to ensure that the massive over-cutting that resulted in devastating floods would never again endanger local communities.
The Mon’s current forest plan was developed in the mid 1980’s in a campaign that again made forest plan history. A draft plan developed by the Forest Service was released for public comment in late 1984. That draft called for dramatically increased logging, road building, mining and pine conversion on the Forest. It was met with an enormous public outcry against commercial development of the Mon, in what became the largest public response to any forest plan in the eastern U.S. at that time. Almost 4,000 substantive comments were submitted in support of protecting the Mon as a refuge for wildlands, backcountry recreation and wildlife habitat and nearly 18,000 signatures were collected in support of protecting the Mon and sent to the Forest Service in Elkins. Over 90% of those comments were from West Virginians.
As a result of this public input, the Mon plan was dramatically changed to emphasize remote wildlife habitat and primitive, non-motorized recreation on the Mon, not commercial development. There was still timber harvesting in certain areas, but with restrictions. Importantly, some of the wildest lands left in the Mon were protected from logging and road building – so that today there are still significant areas of potential new wilderness on the forest.
As required by law, the Forest Service recently began revising its now nearly two decades-old forest plan creating a new round of challenges and opportunities for those who love West Virginia’s wildest places.
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