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July/August 2005: Forest Wealth, Branches Magazine, August 2005: Waldorf-Inspired Environmental Positivism, Karyn Moskowitz June 2005: Deciphering Forest Servic-ease
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By Karyn Moskowitz and David Haberman in: Branches Magazine www.branches.com, July/August 2005 issue, The public forests of southern Indiana are a vast treasure for all citizens of the state and the surrounding area. Many people are drawn to the rolling hills and deep ravines of this thickly wooded region for a variety of reasons. Our public forests are a source of well-being for a large number of people who live in or visit southern Indiana. As locations of natural beauty and tranquility, they are important places for recreation that is vital to the physical and mental health of many. Much of our local culture and music has come from these forests. For the few involved in commercial logging in the state and national forests of Indiana, these forests are also a source of monetary income. While the commercial extraction of trees is a conventional way of exploiting the economic value of public forests, this use often destroys other values the forests hold for a large number of people for a long period of time. What, we might ask, is the value of forests left standing? Let's first consider their value in terms of the common but limited sense of money. Many businesses in southern Indiana, for example, completely depend upon recreational activities that take place in intact, natural forests. These include sporting goods stores, cabin and canoe rentals, gas stations, and companies that sell hunting, fishing, hiking and camping gear. While money earned in this fashion does not go directly into the coffers of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources or the USDA Forest Service, it is a significant source of income for many people in the state. Economists from the Fish and Wildlife Service have determined that wildlife viewing, especially birding, is one of the highest sources of income for public forests. In fact, the forests of southern Indiana represent one of the largest remaining nesting areas for neo-tropical songbirds. State sponsored logging operations have a devastating impact on both the birds and the birding industry. One of the reasons public lands in the eastern United States were originally purchased and put into reserve was to protect public water supplies. When healthy, the public forests of Indiana work very hard to purify, store and regulate water flows. Imagine what it would cost to replace these essentially free natural “purification plants .” A few years ago the people of New Jersey determined that it was more cost effective in pure financial terms to leave Sterling Forest – a watershed that provides drinking water for 2 million state residents -- standing and working for free, as opposed to logging it for immediate profit and constructing a multi-billion dollar treatment plant that would need to be built in its place. Moreover, a water treatment plant would have to be rebuilt after some time with additional funding, whereas a healthy forest would serve this purpose indefinitely. Our public forests are also sources of fertile soil and clean air. How does one begin to appraise the economic value of these, which are essential to all life? One way to look at this is to determine what we would have to build to replace the services that forests provide. Mature forests are our best source for carbon sinks. As we all learned in grade school, we breathe out carbon dioxide and the trees use it to grow and live. Today, we pump out large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that threaten our atmosphere, while mature trees act as natural carbon sinks and “sequester” the gases as they grow. Importantly, they also clean our air and provide us with fresh oxygen. What would we have to pay to build a machine that could do this as effectively as our forests? Public lands offer a variety of “special forest products,” such as medicinal herbs and edible plants, mushrooms, and boughs and vines for wreaths to name just a few. Many local residents depend on ginseng, yellow root, and high-value morel mushrooms for a source of income. There are perhaps many other plants in Indiana forests with medicinal value that we don't even know about yet. A case in point: In the Pacific Northwest, the Forest Service used to regularly cut down and burn the Pacific Yew tree as slash in its logging operations; these were recently found to contain Taxol, a cure for breast cancer. More locally, Mayapples are an Indiana forest plant that some researchers have found to include a compound that is being developed as a cure for childhood leukemia. Although statistics are not available for the state of Indiana, studies done on the mushroom industry coming off of national forests in Oregon, Washington and Idaho found the economic value of wild mushrooms to be nearly $50 million a year. Yet these special forest product values are regularly overlooked and discounted by our public land managers. How do we begin to put a price on the many creatures that inhabit our public forests? What about endangered species such as the Indiana Bat or the Fanshell Mussel? Economists (including those employed by the Forest Service) regularly do just that. Many people place a very high value on knowing that the Indiana Bat, for example, exists on our public lands, and will exist for their children and their children's children. Studies have shown that even people who may never see an endangered species nor even care to see one are willing to pay a certain amount of cash per year in order to assure the survival of that species. Adding up what all of the citizens in the region would be willing to pay to protect an endangered species is called in economic terms a “contingent valuation.” This may seem like a terribly abstract concept, until one considers the millions of dollars donated to nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy and other public land trusts to preserve natural areas for wildlife habitat that they may never see . While it is easy to make a case for the economic value of mature intact forests, let's think about “value” in a larger sense. For many – especially those who are unable to afford their own private forests -- the public forests are a place for profound recreation and spiritual renewal. Many hike into these forests to connect deeply with a larger world of life. Forests provide a rare opportunity for fruitful contemplation in an increasingly hectic and industrial world. When a forest is ravaged by a commercial logging operation, this inestimable value is lost for decades and the human spirit is severely diminished. Finally, the public lands of southern Indiana – if not logged – can function as essential reserves for biodiversity. This may ultimately be their greatest value. According to a study conducted by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, there is growing consensus among biologists who study mass extinction that we are currently in the midst of the fastest and most devastating mass extinction ever experienced on this planet – and it is being caused by human activity. This is a grave matter that concerns us all, since scientists agree that biodiversity is necessary for the overall health of any species and the rapid loss of biodiversity now taking place is one of the greatest threats to all life on Earth. The picture that is emerging from recent biological research is that life is like a tree with each of the different species representing a leaf. The current question is: How many leaves can be stripped from the tree before the entire tree dies? With this in mind, many scientists are calling for our public forests to be turned into preserves for biodiversity. Mature forests are home to most species on the planet. The species most threatened in our area are those that need large tracts of mature intact forests, not those dependent on open lands. By assuring forest creatures a good home, we will all be much healthier and wealthier. Karyn Moskowitz is a partner in Greenfire Consulting, LLC, an Indiana-based economic advising firm, and Vice-President of the Board of Protect Our Woods. David Haberman is a professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University and assistant coordinator of the Indiana Forest Alliance. WALDORF-INSPIRED ENVIRONMENTAL POSITIVISM by Karyn Moskowitz, August 2005 I recently attended a workshop facilitated by a Waldorf educator from Colorado, Rochelle Chayet, entitled “Creating Your Heart's Desire in Your Family Life.” The workshop was attended by a group of other parents in Bloomington who are creating a Waldorf kindergarten. The facilitator hinted that, in Waldorf education there is the philosophy that until a child is old enough to handle it, he or she should be kept sheltered from the reality of the environmental destruction going on in their midst. As a mother of a five year old, and long-time citizen activist working for forest protection, I felt stunned. Did she mean that all the protests that I had dragged my child to since she was born have done her harm? Should I stop taking her with me, and talking about what it is that I do for work, my life's passion? The facilitator got quiet, and whispered, “that is up to you to decide.” This philosophy of creating a positive worldview for small children is grounded in the realization that a child must know that the world is in fact “a good place.” It is thought that, if the child sees that the world is in fact chock full of people (in fact people in positions of authority like Smokey the Bear) who are harming the planet at large, and sometimes even their backyard, then the child will lose the desire to grow and enjoy life. After all, if the world is inherently full of people doing “bad” then why should the child want to live here? (Just as a point of reference: Smokey the Bear is the Forest Service's tragic symbol of a bureaucracy gone crazy. The agency started using Smokey as a public relations tool in the 1940s so that kids and parents would buy into the agency's fire suppression program. This program helped the agency sell the idea that we need to stop forest forests because they were dangerous. What they did not tell us is that they wanted to suppress forest fires so that the valuable trees did not burn and could be sold off to the highest bidder and bring money into their budget. What happened next is the tragedy: The fire dependent forests of the Interior West and Florida and others then became very dangerously flammable. We live with this legacy today where many national forests burn at unnaturally high temperatures and see widespread destruction. The Smokey image also forced the idea onto the public that they were responsible for any forest mishaps, while the agency continued to log away the country's future behind the scenes). This has given me a lot to think about. In support of Waldorf philosophy, the facilitator herself who has taught kindergarten for many years in the same community, and now sees the children she has taught grow up into seniors in high school, has first hand experience with the results of this teaching. She said that many of these teenagers now work actively on environmental, poverty and community issues, having a deep love for the earth and its inherent “goodness.” I am moving toward agreement with Ms. Chayet. There is something deeply tragic about a small child hearing and seeing public land trees be hauled off to the highest bidder. Knowing that my child will have (we hope and pray) many years of adult life to help protect what is precious to her, what is the rush? I asked Ms. Chayet if the teenagers at her school fell apart when they finally realized the truth about the environmentally-destructive actions of some of the adults in their midst. She told me that no, they took it in stride, and their strong grounding in the positive attributes of humanity and the Earth propelled them to action. This workshop has helped me gain a more positive outlook about the situation surrounding our public lands. I recently read in the Bloomington Alternative that diverse citizens groups are organizing to protect the Yellowwood State Forest watersheds. The mayor of the City of Bloomington, Indiana, Mark Kruzan, recently announced that he would not spray Griffy Lake with chemicals to try to control the nonnative Brazilian Elodea. The City has also embarked on a project to form a Sustainability Commission to help guide Bloomington toward a more socially, environmentally, and economically safe future. For myself, I will ride the wave of positive outlook that the Waldorf teaching philosophy has inspired. And from now on, my daughter does not hear nighttime tales of Forest Service road blockades and endangered species. But she will hear lots of stories about the critters that are alive and thriving, and about how these wonderful public forests help us breathe, relax, and fill us with joy. Deciphering Forest Servic-easeKaryn Moskowitz, June 2005 Christine and I have been working to help shape Forest Service policy for the past 14 years, collectively. Between us, we have read over 100 Environmental Impact Statements for Forest Service timber sale projects, and analyzed and commented on three forest plans. This year, the Forest Service released forest plans for eight national forests in the Midwest. We commented on the Land Between the Lakes Plan for Concept Zero, the Daniel Boone National Forest Plan for Kentucky Heartwood, and the Hoosier National Forest Plan for Protect Our Woods. To comment on forest plans, one must learn an entirely new language, one that I call “Forest Servic-ese.” The Forest Service, like other federal bureaucracies, responds to incentives in order to keep itself alive. The incentives at work here are the timber sale receipts that the agency receives and gets to keep when it sells off the right to log on national forests to logging companies. In order to make logging more palatable for citizens, and indeed to hide its intents to log, the Forest Service masks its intentions with “green” sounding plans. In the Hoosier National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, the Forest Servic-ese to hide commercial logging is “creating forest openings for early successional habitat.” The language sounds really good on the surface, right? But digging deeper into the Forest Plan, one begins to wonder why the Hoosier National Forest needs early successional habitat, when the Forest is already surrounded by logged-over private forests and agricultural fields. The other more ominous finding in the Forest Plan for the Hoosier National Forest is that they are simply not telling the public the truth about the extent of the logging they plan on the Hoosier. Early on in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), you can read that, “Approximately 41 percent of National Forest System land would be classified as suitable for timber production.” However a closer look at the DEIS will show that the Forest Service is asking for permission to log on almost every single acre of the Hoosier under the guise of “salvage logging.” Salvage logging is defined as: “A timber sale for which an important reason for entry includes the removal of disease- or insect-infested trees, dead, damaged, or down trees, or trees affected by fire or imminently susceptible to fire or insect attack. Such term also includes the removal of associated trees or trees lacking the characteristics of a healthy and viable ecosystem for the purpose of ecosystem improvement or rehabilitation, except that any such sale must include an identifiable salvage component of trees described in the first sentence.” One can see that just about any tree can be forced into this category and subject to removal. A close look at the Forest Service budget and past logging history will show that the agency has used salvage logging as justification for a majority of logging projects in the past decade. Also, the agency gets to keep 100 percent of the timber sale receipts from salvage logging projects, providing an enormous perverse incentive to log. Below see our opinion piece printed in the Herald Times.
Citizens Can Help to Shape Future of the Hoosier June 23, 2005 This guest column was written by Karyn Moskowitz and Christine Glaser, partners in GreenFire, LLC, a Bloomington-based business working to integrate environmental, economic and social concerns. They can be reached at 336-0360. After the publication of the Proposed Land and Resource Management Plan for the Hoosier National Forest this spring, citizens now have an opportunity to help shape the Final Plan and to direct the Forest Service on how to manage our federal lands. Commenting on the plan is critical, as the Forest Service has once again made a decision to allow private interests to commercially log on the Hoosier National Forest. However, logging the Hoosier puts at risk economic, social and environmental public benefits of standing trees. The plan allows commercial logging on 40 percent of the land, including 40-acre clear-cuts in some of the most beautiful and remote sections of the Hoosier. The public forests of Indiana account for only 4 percent of total forest land in the state. A study by the John Muir Project from 1997 concluded that logging on national forests provides for only 3.3 percent of the nation's total annual wood consumption and for less than 4 percent of the saw timber used in construction. And commercial logging operations in the national forests actually operate at a loss to taxpayers and the Federal Treasury of more than a billion dollars a year. That means that we are paying the Forest Service to clear-cut our public lands, when we could be keeping public forests standing for free. In 1990, then Congressman Frank McCloskey surveyed our district (South Central Indiana) and found that 70 percent of residents oppose commercial logging in the Hoosier National Forest. Now the Forest Service is again pushing logging over other forest uses, like wildlife viewing, or harvesting of wild mushrooms and medicinal herbs. With this, they put at risk, or substantially degrade, the value that many of us put on these other uses of the forest, which, in fact, also happen to bring the most money into the local economy. Economists from the Fish and Wildlife Service have determined that wildlife viewing, especially birding, is one of the highest sources of income related to public forests. The forests of southern Indiana represent one of the largest remaining nesting areas for neo-tropical songbirds. The birds and the birding support recreational industries like sporting good stores, outfitters, equipment rental, gas stations and hotels, but these can thrive only when trees are kept standing. Recently, increased logging on state forests is already putting at risk some of these industries. One of the reasons public lands in the eastern United States were originally purchased and put into reserve was to protect public water supplies. When standing and healthy, the public forests of Indiana purify, store and regulate water flows, including the headwaters of Monroe and Patoka reservoirs. Imagine what it would cost to replace these essentially free natural "water purification plants" and flood control "devices." Many economists also find that cities that are close to beautiful and wild natural places actually do better in terms of economic development than cities that don't protect their surrounding natural places. A higher quality work force is drawn to a community with clean air and water, and places to recreate. That is why it is critical that the city of Bloomington, Monroe County, and all of south central Indiana, including area businesses, take an active interest in this issue. Please go to <http://www.heartwood.org/>www.heartwood.org to send your comments to the Forest Service by June 27. © 1997 - 2005 Hoosiertimes Inc. |
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