The U.S. Forest Service is close to approving one of the largesttimber sales in the eastern United States. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The U.S. Forest Service is close to approving one of the largest timber sale
in the eastern United States. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports.
The Forest Service says it wants to cut timber on more than eight-thousand
acres of the Allegheny National Forest in pennsylvania. Dale Dunshie is a
spokesperson. He says it’s an attempt to improve an area of the forest that
has a lot of dead trees.
“Without a prompt action on our part, the forest ecosystem is
going to continue to decline and we will not have a healthy, thriving viable
forest in this mortality zone.”
But a group that opposes the timber cut says there’s another motive. Kirk
Johnson is with the Allegheny Defense Project. He says the forest service
is trying to make room for more commercially viable trees called the
Allegheny Hardwood Forest Type.
“So, there’s this enormous economic incentive to perpetuate
this artificial Allegheny hardwood forest type.”
Wood from trees such as black cherry and red oak can fetch as much as 20
times the price as hemlock and beech trees that were originally dominant
in the Allegheny Forest. Cutting could begin as early as this year.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.