The tents on Possum Trot Road are being taken down and signs are being taken back up.
Protesters plan to bring their fight against what they believe to be mismanagement of the state forests to the Indiana Statehouse.
“Because the (Department of Natural Resources) has really very publicly stated that they have no interest in input at all, the only remedy to this mismanagement of the forest is through the legislative process. We have to create laws,” said Dave Seastrom with the Indiana Forest Alliance and Wild Tecumseh Friends.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry organized the logging of three tracts in the backcountry area, near the north end of Possum Trot Road, totaling 299 acres. Logging rights were sold in November and harvesting started in December.
Work is still going on, said state forester John Seifert in an email Jan. 24. He could not say how many trees had been taken or how many more are yet to come.
There are 900 acres of old-growth forest in the Yellowwood portion of the backcountry area, said Yellowwood resident Linda Baden. The backcountry also includes the Ecoblitz study area, where scientists from all over the Midwest are conducting a complete inventory of all living things in the forest.
The DNR has devoted several pages of its website to discussing the management of state forests. They include Q&As addressing myths about timber harvests, especially the activity in Yellowwood.
The focus of this logging effort is on single trees that are mature, damaged or diseased, the DNR says. “This thinning leaves other trees, including big trees, untouched and less stressed from current overcrowding,” the website says.
Information circulated by the IFA paints a different picture.
The IFA identified the 3,750-acre Low Gap State Wild Area as one of the 13 backcountry areas in the state forests worthy of permanent protection. The DNR designated it as a protected area in the 1980s, but two tracts already have been logged, along with three new areas that are being logged currently, the IFA said.
The timber sale was announced in August. Since then, concerned residents and members of various environmental groups — including the IFA, Friends of Yellowwood, the Sierra Club and Mind the Gap — have been calling and writing to state legislators and Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Hamilton Logging Inc. bought the rights to log these 299 acres for $108,785. Forest advocates said after the sale that the timber sold for a lower figure than what the trees are actually worth.
Seifert said the price was fair. “We had four bidders show up. The price/bid was reflective of the market as well as sale conditions at that time,” he said last week.
In early November, forest advocates set up camp on Possum Trot Road to peacefully protest the logging. Several large meetings and presentations took place there, Seastrom said. Protesters even celebrated Thanksgiving together.
“People from all over the state came and stayed there, hiked into the backcountry, got a chance to look at it. Lots of communication back and forth, so as far as outreach, I think that part of it went really well,” Seastrom said.
On Jan. 11, eight masked people were issued written warnings after reportedly trespassing on Yellowwood State Forest property, in the area closed to the public for the timber harvest.
Seastrom said the trespassers had tried to stop logging trucks from either entering or leaving Orcutt Road.
“They are not affiliated with us and we don’t know who they are, but they showed up wearing black masks,” he said.
When asked if loggers had any other problems with trying to get to trees they’re trying to cut besides the masked protesters recently, Seifert did not respond.
Management decisions
Legislative efforts are underway to protect certain portions of state forests from logging.
Republican Sens. Eric Bassler, Jon Ford and Eric Koch authored Senate Bill 275 this legislative session. It would require the DNR to designate at least one undivided area compromising 30 percent of each state forest as an old forest area. Wherever possible, the size of a designated old forest area must be at least 500 acres, the bill says.
The bill prohibits the DNR from doing timber management in those old forest areas. But the designation would not affect hunting, fishing and other recreational uses of state forests.
“We’ve never had this kind of support before. It’s unprecedented,” Seastrom said of the bill.
Seifert did not respond to a question asking what he thought of SB 275.
Seastrom said the bill encourages him.
“We’ve been pounding the pavement up in Indianapolis for several years trying to get a legal remedy to what we perceive as the mismanagement of our forest from the department of forestry,” he said.
The Division of Forestry provided written responses to comments received from the public about this harvest. In those responses, posted on the DNR’s Yellowwood State Forest page, the Division of Forestry says it remains “committed to the backcountry area objectives and established guidelines” that were adopted in 1981.
Backcountry area guidelines have always allowed single-tree selection harvesting, the DNR says, and that’s the type of harvesting being done in the area currently being logged. Similar harvests happened in the Morgan Monroe/Yellowwood forest backcountry areas in 2011 and 2013. Those harvests covered approximately 215 acres, according to the DNR.
The state forest strategic plan established a long-term goal of setting aside 10 percent of older forests and younger forests as no-harvest zones. The DNR says it’s committed to setting aside these areas in both young and old forests.
The response also says that 2,900 acres of nature preserve are already set aside in areas with state forests, including a 320-acre preserve within the backcountry area.
“Forest practice and research shows that periodic timber removal assists in maintaining the overall health of the forest, including managing for endangered species, soil and water protection, sustainable timber and recreational activities,” the DNR states on its Yellowwood harvest page.
Other scientists don’t agree with that assessment.
A letter signed by more than 200 Indiana scientists was delivered to Holcomb’s office by retired Earlham College biology professor Leslie Bishop. It also appeared in the Nov. 8 Brown County Democrat.
It asked Holcomb to conserve major portions of state forests and allow them to return to old-growth conditions in order to ensure the “viability of Indiana’s native forest ecosystems for the future and for Hoosier’s future quality of life.”
In an interview with Brian Howey, published in Howey Politics Indiana on Dec. 14, Holcomb said he is concerned about the health of “forests and habitat” and he encouraged people to visit Yellowwood State Forest. But he stopped short of calling for any changes to the plan for Yellowwood.
“When we’re talking about three to five to seven trees per acre, you’re not going to notice a lot of difference. This is not a clear cut. This is a shallow, thin cut, targeting very specific diseased trees and making sure the canopy is not suffocating habitat,” he said.
“That’s the No. 1 thing I’m concerned about, the health of our forests and habitat. They are beautiful for a reason, because we’ve been managing them correctly. I tend to look to not just general scientists, but forestry scientists, from Purdue,” he told Howey.
“I want to make sure we absolutely save Yellowwood,” he continued. “I share that goal. I want to make sure it is a healthy forest and habitat. That’s what we will do. We will not sacrifice that moving forward.”
Any way forward?
Seastrom said the takeaway from this timber harvest for forest advocates is that the DNR “has no intention of compromising” and “no interest in input.”
“They claim that their science is absolute. They have completely ignored that 228 well-respected professors and scientists from across Indiana who wrote the governor, saying we need a balanced approach to how manage the forest,” he said.
“It’s clear the DNR is not willing to work with any outside force, so that’s why we have to pursue legislation.”
Seifert didn’t directly answer questions about whether there is value in setting aside older trees to not be logged, and what happens to trees that are accidentally cut in a single-tree selection, like when a tree falls on another tree. He referred a reporter to the DNR’s website.
The answer to a “misperception” about “collateral destruction” posted on the site says that “timber harvesting can look messy, which disturbs some people. Stumps are a necessary by-product of harvesting, and some trees that are to remain in the stand will be accidentally damaged during the harvest. DNR will actively monitor harvest operations as they occur to ensure that tree damage and soil disturbance is kept to a minimum.” Another answer says that altogether, fewer than six trees of every 100 on the site will be taken.
SB 275 was co-written by seven Republican and two Democrat senators. It has yet to be scheduled for a hearing in the senate’s Natural Resources Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange.
Glick allowed a similar bill, Senate Bill 420, to be read in a committee last legislative session, but she chose to not let it go to vote. That bill would have required the DNR to set aside 10 percent of each state forest to not be managed in any way, including the removal or planting of trees. However, it would still have permitted hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, mushroom gathering, mountain biking and horseback riding in those areas.
“I don’t think she’s made an actual decision not to hear the bill. It’s pending,” Seastrom said of SB 275. “If by the end of the month, the bill is not read in committee, the only other avenue is if it were to be tacked on to an existing bill as an amendment. That’s a pretty precarious way to make law.”
If that happens, the big question would be if Holcomb would sign it into law, Seastrom said.
Seifert did not answer a question about whether the DNR was willing to have a dialogue about the value of old growth areas and the goals of forest management.
“They forced this issue,” Seastrom said of the DNR.
“If they had been willing to cooperate, compromise, if they really accepted public input, rather than to say, ‘We’re the only ones that know what’s going on; no one else’s opinions matter,’ we would have been happy to cooperate with the DNR and work hand in hand with them,” he said. “But now, they’ve turned the tide.”
