by Anne Woiwode
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has drafted the Michigan State Forest Management Plan , the state’s first truly comprehensive strategy to manage the four million acres of state forest lands. The plan addresses multi-use purposes of forest land, including biodiversity protection, logging, oil and gas, recreation and wildlife. A DNR
webinar presents a condensed overview of the plan.
Sierra Club applauds the DNR for its efforts to provide the first comprehensive plan in the 120-year history of these publicly owned resources and urges interested state forest users to weigh in through the comment opportunity. At the end of this blog, we offer suggestions for potential comments. All comments must be submitted to ForestPlanComments@michigan.gov by December 31, 2024.
Michigan’s state forest system arose on the ashes and devastation of uncontrolled clearing of the state’s original forestlands, starting in the 1850’s and continuing until virtually all the forestshad been logged. 1 The loss of forest cover and slash left behind contributed to massive wildfires that in many areas effectively sterilized the soil. After the logging companies abandoned the land, farmers moved in hoping to take advantage of the cleared lands, but the soils were often too poor to sustain agriculture. As massive amounts of land tax reverted to the government and the conservation movement began to take hold, the state tried to restore wildlife and tree cover through the creation of the state forest system in 1903.
State forest management is based on a multiple-use philosophy, in contrast to state parks, which are managed for both recreation and protection. Historically, the emphasis has been on production of timber, game management, recreation and providing access for oil, gas and mineral development. Initially, recovering the forests and stopping wildfire was the primary challenge. Eventually a philosophy of managing the recovering forests and timber plantation specifically to maximize timber production and game species dominated. Driven by increasing reliance on timber sales, hunting permits, off-road vehicle and snowmobile permits and other fees to pay for all of the management activities on the state forests, the forest management strategies were largely driven by those paying the bills. As an example of this, by the 1980’s an approach to land management called the Deer Range Improvement Program (DRIP) led to management across virtually all ecosystem types with uniform clearcutting for both timber production and game habitat. The state forester at that time contended that he would be happy to redesign red pine plantations in order to foster more diversity, showing a complete contempt for restoring native ecosystems and biodiversity.
The Sierra Club Michigan Chapter began in 1990’s to actively work to get the DNR to adopt a management philosophy based on the ecological and geological features of a site, emphasizing restoration of Michigan’s extraordinarily diverse ecosystems as a path to sustainable forests. Building off engagement in the planning by Michigan’s three national forests (the Ottawa, Hiawatha and Huron-Manistee) starting in the 1980s, Forest Ecologist Marvin Roberson and volunteer Tim Flynn began to explore how management decisions on the state forests were being made. They studied highly localized 10 year management plans (compartment reviews), visited sites being evaluated, wrote comments, and showed up at DNR meetings, usually as the only members of the public. Marvin has continued this work for his 30 years on staff, bringing his training as a forest ecologist and hands-on knowledge to advocacy with the DNR. The impact of this advocacy and that of others, including DNR staff, who are working to improve DNR’s management with a goal of supporting and sustaining biological diversity shows in the substantially improved philosophy embodied in the proposed plan.
However, there is still room for improvement. Sierra Club is developing detailed comments on the 1,766 page proposed plan and working with partners on common issues. But the voices of
Michiganders who are concerned about climate change, protection and restoration of biodiversity, as well as impacts and benefits of the multiple uses allowed on the forest can bring a much needed perspective to the agency as it considers this plan. Sierra Club suggests that commenters include these concepts in their comments:
● All goals in the State Forest Management Plan should be based on what biodiversity can provide, not driven by demands for timber, game species and recreational uses.
● Considerations in the planning process should be about what standards are required to
meet biodiversity goals, not whether to meet them or not.
● Linking climate change to each of the management goals is an excellent feature of the plan.
● Applaud the DNR for this being the first truly comprehensive state forest plan.
● The plan is substantially better than past plans, and reflects many improvements that
scientists and advocates have argued for over many years.
Please direct any questions to michigan.chapter@sierraclub.org.