The Telephone Gap Integrated Resource project had a historic level of public engagement, according to advocates, before it passed in June.

By Camryn Woods, for the Community News Service

A new logging plan for the Green Mountain National Forest could harvest almost 5 million cubic feet of timber, or enough trees to fill 5,000 school buses. 

The Telephone Gap Integrated Resource project was approved on June 13 after seven years of assessment. It will manage 72,000 acres of federal, state and private land primarily in the towns of Brandon, Chittenden, Goshen, Killington, Mendon, Pittsfield and Pittsford, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s Final Decision Notice, a document outlining the new plan. 

The Forest Service said in its final plan that the Telephone Gap project would improve wildlife habitat, restore soils and wetlands, allow for prescribed burns and trail building and increase logging. But the project has received both praise and pushback from environmental organizations in Vermont over the last few years of its development.

During its commenting phase, the project received more feedback than any other Forest Service project in the U.S., according to advocates, with over 2,300 public comments filed. The public attention pushed the Forest Service to conduct an analysis of the carbon output from the project, according to Zach Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, a nonprofit founded in 2020 to protect state and public lands in New England.

The carbon analysis revealed that the adopted plan will produce 255,000 metric tons, or about 3% of Vermont’s total output of carbon in 2022, according to the state’s most recent greenhouse gas inventory.

The issue over forest management has a long history in Vermont, where old-growth forests are glaringly scarce after clearcutting led to the loss of 80% of state trees before the 20th century. Today, less than 1% of New England’s forests are over 150 years old, according to Porter, and the Telephone Gap area contains many of these rare ecosystems.

Advocates are split over how these modern-day forests should be managed. Some advocates argue that forests should be left alone, while others say that they need some level of human intervention to remain ecologically healthy. 

For example, forests are healthier when they include multiple age classes, according to Steve Hagenbuch, senior forest program manager at Audubon, a nonprofit that focuses on protecting birds. The age classes include the tall trees of the canopy, the shorter trees of the mid-canopy, and the shrubs, saplings, and seedlings that cover the forest floor, which Hagenbuch said forests don’t necessarily have today. 

Lots of species, especially birds, rely on the complexity of mixed-age classes, according to Hagenbuch. When big trees fall and create gaps in the canopy, younger vegetation fills the forest floor. That’s where bird species Audubon considers under threat like wood thrush and black-throated blue warbler like to nest. But now, he said, forests are generally less complex.

The Telephone Gap project’s Final Environmental Assessment, a document that evaluates its potential environmental impact, also found that there are fewer saplings and young trees than would be ideal in a well-managed forest. The forest plan includes using “commercial timber harvest, prescribed fire and other treatments” to open space for this young growth, according to the Final Decision Notice. 

However, these methods could also target old and mature trees that sequester carbon, increase the likelihood of introducing non-native invasive species through logging procedures and may affect air quality, according to the Final Environmental Assessment.

Vermont environmentalists worry about the harvesting of these older trees.

“We should be doing everything to protect this biodiversity hotspot,” said Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, a nonprofit that advocates for sustainable environmental and economic policies. “This is man’s hand in nature that should be left alone.”

But other environmental organizations like Audubon and Vermont Natural Resources Council, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and enhancing Vermont’s natural environments, view the project as an opportunity for the Forest Service to try a “new model” on Vermont’s forests — one that encourages the flourishing of old growth while also diversifying age classes.

In April 2024, the two nonprofits, along with William Keeton, forestry professor at the University of Vermont, submitted formal comments to the Forest Service encouraging an alternative to the project plan. The revision, titled Alternative C, was approved by the Forest Service in December of 2024 and became the version that was implemented this summer.

Alternative C deferred 661 acres of forest that display old growth characteristics from logging. With an emphasis on ecological silviculture, it includes management practices like cutting trees and leaving them on the forest floor and strategically planting trees that are better suited for the climate, according to the Final Decision Notice. It would also reduce the need for constructing temporary logging-related roadways, making it less likely for invasive species to be carried into the area by logging machinery. 

“These would be opportunities to go in and do some management to accelerate these forests so that they move towards an old growth condition even more quickly than if they were left alone,” said Jamey Fidel, forest and wildlife program director at Vermont Natural Resources Council. 

But advocates like Chris Gish, community organizer at Standing Trees, said Alternative C is inadequate. 

“They went from about a 12,000 acre logging project to about an 11,000 acre logging project, so it was a small decrease in acreage,” Gish said. The carbon analysis revealed that the original plan would have produced 279,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, while Alternative C will produce 255,000 metric tons — about a 24,000-ton decrease.

Despite this, District Ranger Chris Mattrick of the U.S. Forest Service stated that the emissions were “not significant” in the final decision notice, citing that the trees in the Green Mountain National Forest would sequester that amount of carbon in about three months.

The plan will go into effect immediately and will last through 2030. In the meantime, Standing Trees is exploring legal options to challenge the project. The amount of public engagement the project received shows the public is prepared to advocate for their public lands, Porter said.

“We’ve changed the conversation about national forest management nationally,” Porter said.

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.