Foothills Group

Letter From the Chair - Jun/Jul 2009

A Forest Falls, and the Grass Roots Stir The Sierra Club is the only national environmental group with an organizational structure that reaches down to the local level. That’s where the multi- county “group” – like the Foothills Group – comes in on the chart. A state’s groups support, and are supported by, the state chapter. State chapters connect to regional Sierra Club offices, and all three levels are supported by the national staff in the club’s San Francisco headquarters. When the local environment is threatened or suffers injury, group members can respond collectively to push for a remedy. That’s what happened in June when Clemson University management launched a 118-acre clear-cut on CU-controlled land in northern Anderson County. We were contacted by some residents living near the east-of-Pendleton site who expressed dismay at the obliteration of “a beautiful hardwood stand” whose stately solitude and abundant wildlife they had long appreciated. Could we help their efforts to halt the cut? The surprise attack was the usual Hiroshima-style clear-cut, the annihilation of a small ecosystem. The loss of the forest was bad enough, but CU chose to obliterate it at the peak of nesting and offspring-rearing season for the birds, mammals and amphibians therein. (“Oh…..You mean animals live in the woods?”) Against CU wishes to the contrary, the appalled local witnesses to the cut succeeded – with the help of Foothills Group members and other eco-cognizant persons in the region – in getting strong media coverage of the logging operation and their concerns. A number of Foothills Group members joined in peppering CU’s president with e-mails protesting the university’s $156,000 “quickie fundraiser.” CU spokespersons jumped to defend the clear-cut, which then proceeded to the bitter end. Our heartfelt gripe with CU’s timber “manage-ment” practices is that they adore the quick-and-dirty, cash-it-out-fast, clear-cut one. Their in-house foresters extol the wonders of the clear-cut (and, I surmise, the wonders of how their bread gets buttered), declaring that it’s “healthy” and “regenerative” for the ex-forest. But clear-cuts never happened before humans with saws showed up, so are we to deduce that forests naturally governed by fire and the life cycles of trees have never been healthy? By their reasoning, having a Category 5 hurricane erase Beaufort from the map would be a “healthy and regenerative” event for that area and its residents. Common sense long ago arrived at the conclusion that periodic, selective timber harvesting is the way to (a) keep a managed forest’s tree stock healthy (and profitable), and (b) minimize the stresses on, and losses of, the life forms that the forest is home to. The most destructive approach of all is a spring or summer clear-cut, and that’s the option CU chose in Pendleton. We lost the fight against laying waste to 118 wooded acres at CU’s Simpson Ag Station in the rearing season. Seeking cover and spinning away, the university reminds all that “it’s not a park, it’s a working farm,” as if the issue were ten acres of corn. Granted, the Ag Station is not the Experimental Forest, but you won’t find clear-cuts on the list of acceptable farm management practices promoted by the American Farmland Trust, a major conservancy and advisor on sustainable farming. CU further says they want the acreage for an experimental beef cattle-raising project, with “pine and hardwood” replanting this fall on portions not suited for pasture. That prompts another question: Are the other 2,400 acres at the Ag Station already dedicated to other uses? And in our latest spin episode, on July 22 CU declared that “a lot of the trees” harvested had “heart rot” and needed to go before they degraded. Apparently – and logically – nobody knew that before the Timberjacks were ordered in. We will anticipate a quick clean-up and readying for pasture and replanting. And if that happens, it will be a first for Clemson forest management. (See: “Experimental Forest” – literally.) Meanwhile, there was an element of victory in the collective response to CU’s Pendleton wreckage. There has to be a new level of awareness, even where obtuseness and hush-it-up have been practiced in the past, that wiping out a hardwood stand at the height of its annual role in the renewal of life is a flatly discreditable act. A website has sprung up that’s dedicated to taking South Carolina university managements to task for cashing in their timber holdings in a depressed market, and trashing landscapes they hold in trust for the public, just to raise a quick buck as their budgets are forced to shrink. The issue is blinking on more screens now. Management is being more closely watched for the quality of their decisions that impact our environment. Thanks for any help you gave in the recent fight, and thanks in advance for any you will give in the future. That’s what a Sierra Club group is all about. Tom Manning Foothills Group Chair