Getting from here to there in the White Mountains National Forest (WMNF) is fairly difficult. For the most part, there are a significant number of trees in the way–a lot of mountains too. Given the large swaths of wilderness, you could assume there are not too many roads in the deep forest. You would be correct to assume that. Much of the deep expanses of the WMNF are protected by that basic lack of infrastructure by the United States Forest Service’s (Forest Service) “Roadless Rule.”
A rule that was established in 2001, according to reporting from WMUR, the Roadless Rule protects areas in national forests without roads from industrial use.
It seems foolhardy to rescind the rule. The Regulations.gov website states the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking to “reduce regulatory burden” and “return decision-making ” to lower-level authorities and make the process more efficient. This would more or less make forest management a state-level issue, however, individual states do not have the funds or the resources to make those decisions. If they had the funds or resources to make those decisions in the first place, then the USDA and Forest Service would not have been created. It is also assuming everyone is acting in good faith.
I see no positive purpose to this attempt at hatchet-job deregulation. States that do not have the resources or desire to maintain forest management practices are just going to put tracts up for logging. The solution would be to properly fund the Forest Service, instead of drastically cutting funds and staff as the Donald Trump administration has. Properly funded public services are vital to preserving our natural resources, especially here in New Hampshire.
Our natural resources in N.H. are our greatest treasure; our forests draw visitors from all over. VisitNH.gov estimates that N.H. sees roughly 14.9 million visitors who bring an estimated $7.9 billion in spending. We cannot know what happens when we lose the Roadless Rule protections.
Sure, the state of N.H. may have a forest management plan, but I think that is unlikely. Considering the N.H. Republican Party’s steadfast desire to eliminate government funding by any means necessary. Leaving the task of forest management up to the devices of private business will have a terrible effect on N.H. The short-term profits of logging areas for the sake of ‘forest management’ will be enticing, but when the view of the landscape changes, will it make up for any losses of tourism?
I see hikers no longer taking the time to hike the White Mountains, or skiers no longer spending their time in the ski towns of Lincoln or Woodstock. I see nature-lovers of all stripes visiting other New England states to get their fix, or large corporations over-saturating markets in the region for the sake of squeezing out one more precious dollar for the tens of millions they make every year. The beauty and luster of northern N.H. is predicated on the proper management of the WMNF and I fear the for-sale sign will be hanging in the window soon in all our national forests. All so some money-drunk corporations worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars can get one more dollar before the fever dream of their greed overtakes them.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
