State
Forest Wild Area Campaign
Phase II
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Now we enter
the second of the two phases of the public meetings for each forest
district. These meetings will deal with the draft forest plan
for each district. The list of dates and locations of the meetings
is at the end of this message. These meetings are in more sparsely
populated areas and we will have to prepare our strategy accordingly.
In addition,
the Bureau of Forestry does not plan to post the district forest
plans on their website. We expect to obtain electronic versions
of them in advance, but this would be two weeks or less before
each district meeting. Finally, the plans that are released may
not be in final form. So our overall strategy will be the following: 1. Group leaders
are to contact group members and other individuals who have knowledge
of the features of each forest in their group area. We want the
people who attend the district meetings to be as well informed
as possible about the forest, its plan and our position on it.
At this time, our position on each district is our analysis of
and talking points for the statewide forest plan, as they apply
to each district. For example, we want all state forest Wild Areas
in a particular district to be fully protected with old growth
management zoning, which must guarantee permanent protection from
commercial timbering. Also, we object to the failure of the plan
to fully provide this protection for the Quehanna, Quebec Run
and the proposed Squaretimber Wild Areas. On the other hand, we
need to express our gratitude and support for the BOF’s inclusion
of most Wild Areas and all Natural Areas in its proposed old growth
management zones. The BOF needs a plethora of positive comments
regarding this to make the old growth proposal final in the plan.
Local information should be collected, and informed people should
be urged to utilize it when they attend the local meetings. 2. The SPEL
office will assure that the chapter web mistress posts the district
plans on the chapter website, http://pennsylvania.sierraclub.org
and distribute electronic copies to people who need them. 3. The SPEL
office and the state forest committee will ask group leaders to
continue to get other organizations to sign the resolution of
support. The SPEL office will announce all the signers in September. 4. Everyone
should be continuing to get the postcards to Secretary DiBerardinis
signed. The deadline for comments is September 30. The SPEL office
will deliver sufficient supply of postcards to each group and
leaders for distribution upon request. 5. Local leaders
should submit a letter to the editor to be published in a local
paper a week or so prior to the meeting that contains an announcement
of each meeting. The SPEL office and the state forest committee
can offer advice and assistance in this task. 7. Everyone
should work towards turning people out to the meetings with as
much preparation as possible. Give particular attention to members
who attended the meetings in June. Large turnouts of SC members
in the prioritized district meetings would be beneficial. In addition
to people prepared with district-specific information, groups
should also work on turning out rank and file folks to swell the
numbers who could deliver our statewide plan talking points. 8. Dave Coleman
and Phila Back will continue to present the state forest wild
area slide show for groups. 9. Select
priority meetings and assign various groups to each meeting. Dave
Coleman has selected 10 forest districts as priorities. Next to
the forest district names are the SC groups that would be involved
in the meetings for them. (SC members are free and encouraged
to attend any district meeting in the state). Districts showing
in Bold and preceded with an asterisk (*) are prioritized.
Groups listed first have the primary responsibility for that district
forest meeting. However, any group that does or has conducted
activities in a forest outside its boundaries and has knowledge
of that forest is requested to relay information to the forest
leader of the primary group for that forest. 10. The SPEL
office will send postcards to the 100 members who live closest
to each priority meeting. 11. Urge the
groups on the priority list to make a major effort to get information
about "their" district forests, review the draft plan
and send numbers of well-prepared people to their respective meetings. Sierra Club® and "Explore,
enjoy and protect the planet."® are registered trademarks
of the Sierra Club. |
