Green Mountain National Forest Plan Released

(Updated April 18, 2006)

On March 22, 2006 the U.S. Forest Service released its final management plan for the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF). Located in southern and central Vermont, the national forest attracts thousands of visitors each year, providing exceptional recreational opportunities for hunting, fishing, skiing, hiking, camping, and wildlife watching. The GMNF is home to a variety of plants, animals and important natural communities and it provides Vermonters with clean water, timber resources, and the chance to experience quiet backcountry solitude.

The final management plan zones the GMNF into designated uses for the next fifteen years. Over the past four years, VNRC has advocated for a final plan that balances the availability of land for wildlife management, diverse recreational opportunities, timber and wilderness designations. Read more about how wilderness serves as a vital complement to other important forest uses here.

Overall the Forest Service’s final plan offers a reasonably strong opportunity for timber harvesting and wildlife habitat management on the GMNF. The final plan allocates 61% of the forest to areas where openings can be created for hunting opportunities. The plan also calls for an annual allowable rate of 16.4 million board feet of timber to be cut on the GMNF, which is higher than the 10.3 million board feet that has been cut an average annual basis over the past 44 years. Furthermore, the Forest Service has suggested longer timber harvest rotations for certain management areas, which will allow for recreational settings with older and larger trees.

In a disappointing decision, the final plan allows ATV trail corridors to be considered on 45 percent of the GMNF. VNRC believes this is a misguided policy decision, which threatens to open the national forest to potentially damaging and intensive uses of the forest. The overwhelming majority of public comments submitted to the Forest Service – over 90% - did not support opening the forest to ATV use. Unfortunately, despite the best possible intentions of Forest Service employees, they will likely lack the resources they need to properly manage and enforce ATV use on the GMNF. VNRC is currently studying the implications of this disappointing management decision.

In a positive move, the plan provides numerous special area designations including the Moosalamoo Recreation and Education Area, the ecologically diverse Escarpment Management Area, and improved acreage for Ecological Special Areas and old-growth retention. The final plan, however, weakens the requirement to monitor wildlife species and manage for viable populations of wildlife species, and it does not achieve the right balance of lands to be designated in the more permanently protected status of Wilderness.

The Forest Service found that 124,321 acres on the GMNF were available to be considered for Wilderness designation, where nature primarily runs its course. VNRC had advocated for 79,200 of these acres to be designated as Wilderness as part of a proposal from the Vermont Wilderness Association. The final plan only designates 27,473 of these acres for new Wilderness designation, with a concentration in the Glastenbury Mountain area. Read more about the VWA's reaction to the plan here. The Forest Service does allocate another 30,930 acres as Remote Backcountry, a designation that promotes wilderness like conditions. However, this designation only receives temporary status under the life of the plan and does not achieve the permanent protection of Congressionally designated Wilderness.

On April 8, 2006, Vermont’s Congressional Delegation introduced the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006 to permanently protect 48,161 acres on the GMNF as new Wilderness. Click here to read more about the proposed bill.

Overall, the final forest plan offers a mixed bag of management designations and decisions and VNRC will continue to study the plan in depth this summer. Please visit us for ongoing coverage of this issue.

Read the Forest Service's final plan here.

Please contact Jamey Fidel, Forest Program Director, with any questions at 802-223-2328 ext. 117 or jfidel@vnrc.org.