After reading the Editorial Opinion published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Sunday, July 3rd, the Tennessee Wildlife Federation feels compelled to respond to several statements within the op/ed that we view as both misleading and uninformed. We were surprised and disappointed that the overall tone of the piece conveyed a lack of the balance and sound judgment that we’ve come to expect from such a prestigious publication.
Over the last few years, we have witnessed a growing interest in forestry issues on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau – and for good reason: Tennessee’s Plateau region is a truly unique natural resource that has undergone a degree of transition over the years, and particularly over the last decade. However, we take issue with the editorial’s perspective for three primary reasons.
First, it does not account for the dynamic of continuous change on the Plateau that has been occurring for well over a century – indeed, since the advent of western civilization to the area. To fully grasp what has been transpiring to the forested areas of Tennessee’s Plateau, a basic timeline or natural history supported by facts is required to add context to any valid argument. Without this context, arguments can only be speculative.
Second, on the subject of context, it is also helpful to view forestry issues on the Plateau as part of a larger picture – forestry management and practices (or lack of thereof) in Tennessee as a whole. There are many common denominators occurring across the state that must be factored into the equation when addressing the subject of forestry on the Cumberland Plateau.
Third, any sound argument or perspective should be backed by research, statistics and facts. The editorial piece is noteworthy for the lack of balance and misuse and misquotation of scientific evidence used to define the problem on the Cumberland Plateau. Terminology used, such as “massive destruction” and “ravaged,” while appearing emotionally charged are in truth devoid of fact or supportive statistical data. It paints an inaccurate picture of what is truly transpiring in these forests.
A Brief Natural History of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau Region
When the first European explorers and settlers came to Tennessee, the natural landscape was in many ways different from how it appears today. The Cumberland Plateau area was basically unpopulated by the native American Indians, whose towns and settlements were centered along the main river and tributaries of the Tennessee and Cumberland Valleys. However, it was commonly used as a hunting ground that contained several historical pathways over the highland coves, gulfs and the plateau itself. It is the commonly accepted view that the Plateau was once covered in a continuous canopy of hardwoods, as was the majority of the eastern United States past the Mississippi River to the Great Plains. In fact, the Plateau contained vast expanses of oak savannah and natural grasslands interspersed with canebreaks and mixed native forests that included pine. These savannahs and grasslands occurred and were, in part, maintained by native Americans through burnings, and also over time through natural forest fires. Exactly what percentage of the Plateau was open versus forested is unknown – but authorities state that these savannahs and grassland barrens were both numerous and vast – far greater in area than we realize today.
Beginning in earnest during the second half of the 19th century, Tennessee’s remote Cumberland Plateau – quickly by-passed by most white settlers due to its poor soil and extreme terrain – experienced events that would profoundly alter its natural landscape. Massive scale logging and timber harvesting came first, followed by mining for stone, sand, minerals, and of course – coal. Photographs taken, as early as the Civil War period in Chattanooga, give testament to the complete and overall destruction of the native landscape. If you recall what Copper Hill looked like in the early 1970’s – you’ll get an idea of how extreme and scarred that the Plateau region had become prior to World War II.
The Cumberland Plateau’s land base of 2.9 million acres is currently 75% forested, and has maintained that percentage since 1950.
As of the millennium, new dynamics have entered the equation and are having a major impact on the Cumberland Plateau’s forest. The major timber companies have sold almost all of their considerable properties on the Plateau, and have left vast tracts of land for sale. In Van Buren County alone, over 2/3’s of the land went up for sale in the late 1990’s. Also, though many parts of the Plateau remain fairly remote, some have experienced considerable growth and development that have led to fragmentation and a change in land-use practices.
The Big Picture: The Status of Tennessee’s Forestlands
The vast majority of the hardwood forests in Tennessee – whether on the Cumberland Plateau, in the Cherokee National Forest, or in the river bottoms of central and western Tennessee – are typically sixty to eighty years old. Today, our state, which now appears in many instances as one continuous hardwood forest mixed with pasture, agriculture, and development, has been transformed over the years into a natural woodland treasure. Roughly 55% of Tennessee’s land mass is still forested, and of that percentage, 88% is hardwood forest. An entire generation has grown up thinking of Tennessee as lush tree garden – and probably rationalize it as always having been that way.
It’s also common knowledge that Tennessee, and specifically the southern Appalachians and Cumberland Plateau, is home to the most diverse array of flora in the North American hemisphere. In conjunction, the region’s freshwater resources –streams, tributaries, rivers and reservoirs – are a component of the region’s natural amenities closely related to the overall health and sustainability of the forests. Though having these remarkable natural resources in their favor, Tennessee’s forests are still vulnerable – and several of these real and potential threats bear consideration.
First is the lack of scientifically based timber management on a broad scale, and for an example, we need look no further than our own massive 650,000 acre Cherokee National Forest. Despite a mission statement from the USFS that includes timber management for both wildlife habitat and timber harvesting, there has been a virtual moratorium on any cutting for the last twenty years due to countless lawsuits brought to bear by environmental groups like the Dogwood Alliance. This lack of applied timber management has led to a steady decline in many wildlife species that call the Cherokee home, and has also had an negative effect on the overall health of the forest. When properly implemented, proven techniques of forest management perpetuate the sustainability of the forest, and the flora and fauna that are a part of that forest. Ergo, we can not afford to think of a forest as being only trees.
Another threatening trend is the fragmentation of Tennessee’s real estate, and the methodology often used to finance speculative land purchases for development. One illustration of this problem is the recent purchase and clear-cutting of 12,000 acres on the southern Plateau adjacent to the Franklin-Marion State Forest, which was obtained by out-of-state developers and financed, in part, by the sale of timber rights and wholesale clearing. This resulted in 5-acre lots for horse farms, ranchettes, and vacation homes. Another foreboding example recently occurred in western Tennessee where large portions of a 100,000-acre holding, purchased from a vacating timber company, were extensively cut in order to help finance the land purchase. These forestlands and wildlife habitats are now lost for our generation.
A final and very real threat is misinformation and lack of understanding of what is actually happening in Tennessee’s forests, including those on the Plateau. Environmental groups such as the NRDC, the Dogwood Alliance and others, despite the lack of proven scientific data, have managed over time to distort the facts and to stigmatize forestry practices in public opinion.
Visit the NRDC website, and click onto the Cumberland Plateau’s biogem page and read…” Wild woods are riotous with lush green growth, but around the Cumberland Plateau, paper companies and their timber suppliers are converting forests into lines of loblolly pines…” Did anybody at the NRDC bother to check the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Inventories from 2004 that state that pine plantation acreage has actually declined from 146,000 to 85,000 over the last five years? Erroneous statements like this are not based in fact – they are designed to evoke an emotional response and do much to discredit the NRDC.
“Environmental extremism arose in the mid 1980’s. It arose because the majority of people accepted all of the reasonable points on the environmental agenda, and the only way to remain adversarial and confrontational and anti-everything was to adopt even more extreme positions – eventually abandoning all science and logic altogether,” states Dr. Patrick Moore, an original founder of the Greenpeace environmental movement and renown sustainable forestry advocate. “The Forests of North America cover about the same area as they did a hundred years ago. Yet 75 percent of the public think they are disappearing,” Moore continues. “The reason there is so much forest today is that we use so much wood – and wood is renewable. Wood is made by renewable solar energy in a factory called the forest.”
Fact-based Solutions for a Sustainable Forest
While we can identify these threatening trends such as lack of management, fragmentation, and misinformation to help us draw conclusions on what is truly occurring on the Plateau, nothing can replace actual research and applied science. There is a distinct need for developing and maintaining a sound database of forest and natural resource information on which to build workable and sustainable solutions for the Plateau’s forests that are based on knowledge.
There is strong reason to support the creation of a “sustainable forestry think-tank” through a public/private university partnership that could include the University of Tennessee’s School of Forestry, Tennessee Tech’s Water Resource Center, and the University of the South’s Landscape Analysis Laboratory, for the purpose of collecting and analyzing data from Tennessee’s entire portion of the Cumberland Plateau. These institutions, all with outstanding reputations, have the resources to collectively pool and process information that could provide a far more accurate and valuable “mosaic” of reality concerning the Plateau’s forests and related eco-systems than currently exists.
Such an approach would far surpasses the agenda-driven rhetoric of large environmental groups like the NRDC and Dogwood Alliance. These organizations, as is apparent from their own arguments, “cannot see the forest for the trees.” The State of Tennessee possesses the methods, means, and resources to address the Cumberland Plateau issues with ability and authority. It’s time to put the speculation aside, gather our considerable resources together, and begin to assess and address sustainable solutions for our remarkable Cumberland Plateau.