Place: Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin
Threat: Logging
 The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest was
established in 1933 in response to deforestation and over
logging that took place in the late 1800s and early
1900s.
Wisconsinites and visitors alike enjoy the
Chequamegon-Nicolet for its wonderful fishing, hunting
and camping opportunities.
"We all think of lakes and forests up north as places to go
and relax to get away from it all," says Chris Nehrbass
with the Sierra Club in Wisconsin. "Our National Forests like the Chequamegon-Nicolet
are places for many in the Wisconsin and urban Minnesota areas to do just that: relax."
Today, over 70 years later, the forest remains threatened by unsustainable logging and the
Bush administration’s nationwide push to increase commercial logging. The
Chequamegon-Nicolet and the 1.5 million acres that comprise the state’s largest tract of
public land is a prime example of how economically and ecologically unsound logging
harms the landscape and local economies. The Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest is
the highest-cut national forest in the country and has logged at least 116 million board
feet of lumber each year for the past decade. From 1992 to 2001, over 188,000 acres
were logged.
Now the Bush administration is opening more than 70,000 acres of wild forests in
Wisconsin to logging and mining including five timber sales in the Chequamegon-
Nicolet National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service recently announced a revised forest
management plan that allows massive logging projects which require construction or
reconstruction of over 100 miles of roads in order to provide the commercial logging
industry access to almost 45,000 acres of National Forest lands. The push to log
continues even though non-timber values in Wisconsin National Forests are ten times that
of timber revenues.
Throughout the summer of 2003, the public was able to comment on the revised Forest Service plan and suggest better forest management alternatives through letters, email, and public meetings. The Sierra Club felt that the Forest Service did not adequately modify the project. In mid-October 2003, on behalf of the Habitat Education Center the Environmental Law and Policy Center crafted a legal challenge to three logging projects in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
The
challenged projects would log 13,100 acres in the heart of Canada lynx, Northern
goshawk, and pine marten habitat, for a total of 50 million board feet of timber. Over
3,000 of these acres would be clear-cut.
"Wisconsin’s National Forests, especially the Chequamegon-Nicolet, have been scarred
by destructive logging for decades," says Nehrbass. "It is time we embrace a new vision
of protecting and restoring these spectacular forests."
There is a better way. We can protect these special places in the Chequamegon-Nicolet
National Forest and protect the extraordinary recreational opportunities. With the Bush
administration more focused on increasing logging, there is an absence of a strong plan to
guard these invaluable places, and timber sales must be challenged on an individual basis
and local comments are weighed heavily by the USFS in making decisions.
Sierra Club Contact:
Brett Hulsey, Wisconsin: (608) 256-0565
Additional Info:
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