Their musings, expertise and ideas and visions are encapsulated below, and Hellbender Press thanks them all for contributing to important public discourse.
But first, for the sake of professional opinion, Hellbender Press reached out to a Southeastern forestry expert who agreed to speak off the record about the proposal.
The source stressed citizens have every right to speak out on the management of public land, and suggested some key points to consider:
— TWRA is statutorily required to improve or restore habitat of game and non-game species.
— Is the hardwood forest home to high-quality rare or threatened trees such as butternut or swamp oak, and/or related habitats?
— Are there other viable, more open properties available within the management area?
— The cleared, managed areas could also become home to numerous other species that will pioneer edge habitat and openings cleared for quail restoration.
— If the land in question is already a productive hunting ground for multiple species, why eliminate the forest in favor of one sole species?
That being said, let’s dive into a great Facebook discussion among Hellbender Press readers initiated by Tennessee Lookout reporting on the original TWRA proposal.
These ideas could help us prepare for other natural-resource conflicts bound to occur in the future.
Tanner Jessel
We’re in an extinction crisis, so I appreciate the urgency here in creating bobwhite habitat. I wonder, however, after reading the state’s recent conservation plan, if the agency is not moving a bit faster than what its conservation plans call for.
Stephen Killeffer
I did not attend the Oct 4 presentation about this project, nor have I seen any planning documents about this specific project, and I don’t think I’ve ever been to the specific sites where this action is being proposed. So, grain of salt.
But I’m reasonably familiar with the specific management vision being proposed here, and I feel confident to the point of near certainty that there are no plans, none at all, to cut any “old growth” forest.
There isn’t any old growth closed canopy forest in this area, at least not on the upland, non-ravine tableland. The existing forested condition is the result of many decades of fire-exclusion, but historically it was much, much more open, with very extensive area of grasses and herbaceous plants, relatively few shrubs, scattered trees, particularly fire-adapted oaks and pines, and an overall sunny, park-like aspect.
Savannas and open woodlands, not deep, dense mature old-growth forests. This is a generally accepted consensus by the conservation botany and plant ecology community in Tennessee and the Southeast.
That being said, I’m not unsympathetic at all toward the local community. Again, without any familiarity at all with this specific project, it seems like TWRA kinda dropped the ball, and didn’t do nearly the outreach that was needed to bring in the community as a partner well earlier in the planning process. But boy, that’s tricky.
Hellbender Press
There is no shortage of efforts to restore the original “barrens” of the Cumberland Plateau and its escarpments. The question is: Is this the appropriate place to do it?
Stephen Killeffer
The natural savanna/woodland/grassland landscape of the upland Cumberland Plateau has been nearly *entirely* wiped out. It’s essentially ALL gone. What you say are no shortage of efforts at restoration, I see promising but very small baby steps toward what hopefully will be a generations-long project to allow a large regional landscape to return to what it wants to be instead of what it currently is — an artifact of modern industrial land management.
Hellbender Press
That’s some potentially valuable timber so a mite curious about that. (The forestry expert noted above said the timber would likely be of middling value.)
Tanner Jessel
If you look at reporting by the Nashville Scene you will notice a compromise solution floated is to clear non-native pine, also in the WMA.
The issue may be cutting the hardwoods generates profits that cover the cost of the actual work, while cutting the softwoods (pine) would not.
I hate to see TWRA (and grassland / quail conservationists) struggling with what appears to be a public relations blunder. If clearing the pines is not an economically viable option, TWRA should be clear about that. Perhaps people would be willing to crowd-fund clearing of the softwoods, to preserve the hardwoods?
Ultimately the hardwood forests do need some type of disturbance to promote recruitment/long-term stand survival; I think most folks are aware humans have suppressed natural disturbances such as fire for a long time, and we killed the larger herbivores (woodland bison, eastern elk) that otherwise would have done much of the forest clearing work now presently proposed.
We also killed off native peoples and their culture, one that actively cleared forests with fire. The question of “what is natural” is a difficult one, which centers on values more so than nature itself. More time, more attention to values up front might have helped TWRA out here.
Worried this blunder will damage how the public regards not just TWRA, but grasslands conservation and forestry at large.
Betsy Kauffman Humphrey
I will happily say that I felt just about every environmental and conservation agency, including the NPS, was full of bureaucrats, many of them corrupt. Except TWRA. Looking at the map and knowing the area in question, a very small portion can be considered old growth. Much of it is loblolly pine, which isn’t even native.
While TWRA is expected to consider recreational use in their management plans, should the preferences of hikers, campers, etc. outweigh the needs of wildlife?
Grasslands are needed by dozens of species. And while it’s true TWRA manages millions of acres in Tennessee, much of that land isn’t appropriate for this habitat restoration.
Because TWRA doesn’t receive state monies, relying on income from hunting and fishing licenses instead, people tend to focus on the agency as being a representative for hunters. I suppose it is, but they do a remarkable conservation job as well. Thousands of acres of land in East Tennessee, despoiled by coal mining, have been reclaimed thanks to TWRA.
As the follow-up story says, the map so many people have gotten upset about doesn’t represent any firm plan. TWRA should have said so from the outset.
I approach this from the viewpoint of a former wildlife biologist who became an investigative environment reporter.
I wish I could say I’m surprised that people who consider themselves conservationists and nature lovers are willing to toss the needs of wildlife aside because they don’t want a view ruined and who pay lip service to the changes needed to combat climate change. TWRA (does not have) a bias toward revenue-generating management, in 35 years I have never come across that. Not once.
John Johnson
I actually agree that more wild to semiwild grassland ecosystems are needed, but I am disappointed that TWRA would choose to do a project like this on top of popular hiking trails and hunting areas. They are one of the biggest landholders in the state, they have plenty of land to implement these kinds of projects.
I hope they take the public input into account and do the grassland/savannah restoration in a different location. Doing it on the pine plantations is an excellent idea.
Public opinion should be respected. Also, as stated in the article, many hunters, the agency’s main constituency, are against this plan.
Some of the strip-mined property would make excellent grasslands and savannahs. I’ve been to the restored savannah at the Catoosa WMA. I’m all for that kind of restoration. Although, as any ecologist will admit (and TWRA folks did when I asked while visiting the Catoosa site years ago) grasslands and savannahs shifted in space over time. They are not necessarily permanent features. Fire, indigenous peoples, grazing animals and drought all impacted where such areas were and how long they lasted.
Hopefully they will respect public sentiment on this and shift their grassland and savannah plans to pine plantations, former strip mines and other areas of low biodiversity and recreational value. I agree the agency overall does good work. But getting into natural resource management from an environmental perspective has led me to the conclusion that entire field has biases towards management that generates revenue.
I don’t think anybody is wanting to toss aside the needs of wildlife. There are wildlife in this designated wilderness area that have needs too. I’ve been all over the Cumberland Plateau and there are plenty of places, especially old strip mines and pine plantations much more suitable for conversion to grassland habitat.
I think grassland and savannah restoration is super important. I don’t think its appropriate on part of this designated wilderness area. Especially not in canyons. Its appropriate up on top, where it occurred historically.
Hellbender Press
But wait: What qualifies as old growth? To me, a 50-year-old secondary forest is a valuable commodity, but might not meet the “old-growth” criteria.
Tanner Jessel
(QUOTE) ”In 1989, the Forest Service chief Dale Robertson at that time, issued a national position statement on old-growth forests (USDA FS 1989). He provided a generic definition stating, “Old-growth forests are ecosystems distinguished by old trees and related structural attributes. Old growth encompasses the later stages of stand development that typically differ from earlier stages in a variety of characteristics which may include tree size, accumulation of large wood material, number of canopy layers, species composition, and ecosystem function.
The age at which old growth develops and the specific structural attributes that characterize old growth will vary widely according to forest type, climate, site conditions, and disturbance regime. Old growth in fire-dependent forest types may not differ from younger forests in the number of canopy layers or accumulation of down woody material. However, old growth is typically distinguished from younger growth by several of the following attributes:
1. Large trees for the species and site.
2. Wide variation in tree sizes and spacing.
3. Accumulations of large-sized dead standing and fallen trees that
are high relative to earlier stages.
4. Decadence in the form of broken or deformed tops or boles and root decay.
5. Multiple canopy layers.
6. Canopy gaps and understory patchiness.”
Hellbender Press
The most common perceptions of “old-growth” forest, at least locally, are, por ejemplo, the giant hemlocks and poplars that graced places like Albright Grove near Cosby. Those gigantic hemlocks are all dead and falling down now because of an exotic bug. Poplars remain; I reckon maple is occupying the hemlock territory.
Tanner Jessel
One other comment to add as a visual reference for understanding the appearance of “old growth” varying by species — this was posted recently in the “Nurturing Nature” Facebook group by someone who works at an arboretum in Virginia. The finder is showing us an old growth Virginia creeper vine.
