Eco Report – June 16, 2023

Hello and welcome to Eco-Report. For WFHB, I’m Julianna Dailey. And I’m Cynthia Roberts. In this edition of Eco Report, Environmental Correspondent Zyro Roze delves into Bloomington’s designation as a Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. And now for your environmental reports: The following article is about the future of the Hoosier National Forest: Log and burn, or leave alone? Indiana residents fight the US Forest Service over the future of Hoosier National Forest. The mighty, valuable oak is at the center of conflict between federal officials and logging opponents over how to manage mature forests in an era of climate change. The following story comes from Inside Climate News and presents arguments on both sides of this issue. In two of the largest projects the U.S. Forest Service has ever undertaken in the historic Hoosier National Forest, the agency plans to log more than 9,000 acres, conduct prescribed burns on another 28,000 and build more than 27 miles of roads. The “Houston South” and “Buffalo Springs” proposals have engendered fierce local opposition, not only from horse riders and hikers but chambers of commerce, and elected officials, Republicans and Democrats alike. The contest taking shape in southern Indiana is part of a larger battle now being waged over the future of the National Forests, the nation’s greatest reservoirs of forest carbon, in a changing climate. President Joe Biden has sought to protect mature and old-growth forests, but clearly his Forest Service is resisting the concept of preserving older forests as a strategic reserve of carbon, which some climate scientists have advocated. Last month, the Biden administration announced a plan for new regulations to enhance “climate resilience” in those forests. It was a follow-up to a first-of-its-kind inventory ordered by Biden that showed mature and old-growth forests make up 60 percent, or 112 million acres, of the forests managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. But the Forest Service has more than 20 projects underway like the Hoosier plans that include logging or burning in 370,000 acres of those mature and old-growth forests, according to the Climate Forests Campaign, a coalition of environmental groups. The Forest Service, which is taking public comments through June 20 on what its new climate rules should look like, argues “restoration” and “vegetation management” activities, like the Buffalo Springs and Houston South projects proposed in Indiana, may be better in the long run from a climate change perspective.  The Forest Service says that with predicted changes in climate, especially hotter, drier summers in the Midwest, Hoosier National Forest is more likely to experience wildfire and therefore they must plan appropriately to have a fire-resilient forest. More than half of the stands in the Hoosier are 80 years old or older, and there has been a sharp decline in establishment of new ones, the Forest Service said in its assessment of the carbon impact of the Buffalo Springs portion of its Hoosier Proposal.  If the Forest continues on this aging trajectory, more stands will reach a slower growth stage in coming years, potentially causing the rate of carbon accumulati