Integrity of Northern Highland American Legion State Forest At Stake

 

      

  

DNR Now Hearing From the Public about Alternative Management Scenarios

The DNR’s alternatives for the Northern Highland American Legion State Forest (NHAL) list six possible forest management scenarios, four different recreation plans and six wild resources alternatives. Now is time to let the DNR and the Natural Resources Board know your wishes for Wisconsin’s largest property (225,000) which contains one of the highest densities of lakes anywhere. 

ATV riders and the motorized tourism industry are putting pressure on the DNR to open up the NHAL for ATV trails and their resulting abuse. We need you to make your voice heard. Otherwise, what few quiet areas on the forest exist will be lost to the whining rampage of ATV’s . The deadline for comments to the DNR is March 17^th.

Following are a set of comments that were submitted to the DNR from ECCOLA. These comments are organized by three primary categories: Forest Management, Recreation and Wild Resources.  Please use any or all of them for your own letters and e-mails.

Recreation

ATV Trails 

·         ECCOLA strongly supports the ATV ban in alternative A and B. Given the undeniable, willful destruction of public property, ECCOLA wants to know if the DNR has established damage thresholds to our public resources that will automatically trigger a shutdown of the activity?

·         With the number of ATV riders in Wisconsin growing from 113,000 to 126,000 in the past year, opening up more trails to ATV’s will only create more avenues for destruction because of a lack of rider ethics and law enforcement.

·         Given the fact that over 600 miles of ATV trails already exist on surrounding ownerships, it makes little sense to open up the NHAL to ATV abuse and threaten its fragile aquatic ecosystems for a marginal change in ATV trail miles.

·         ECCOLA is very disappointed that the southern portion of the Highland Hiking trail has allows ATV’s in Alternative D. Given that such a huge proportion of the NHAL is already open to motorized uses (88%), converting any portion of the Highland Trial to an ATV trail sends a message to the public that the NHAL is no longer interested in multiple use.

Forest Management

Old-Growth Management 

·         Protect all existing old growth (>120 years) stands no matter the stand size. Old growth stands make up such a miniscule percentage of the NHAL and regional landscape, it makes little sense to take what little old-growth remains and whittle away at it in any alternative.

·         The DNR’s Community Restoration and Old-Growth inventory (CROG) identified that about 15-18% percent of the NHAL could return to old growth conditions over the next 50 years. These sites were given a rank from A to C that described their ecological potential. At a minimum, all CROG sites that rank A, AB and B should return to old growth.

·         The alternatives need to distinguish between the areas that will be managed old growth and which areas will be passively managed old growth.

 

Wetlands –

·         Forested wetlands such as bottomland hardwoods, swamp conifers and swamp hardwoods should not be part of the timber base. The potential for irreparable resource damage, regeneration failures, poor operability and altered hydrological regimes from logging are too high to warrant the risk.

·         The alternatives point out on several occasions that a majority of the rare species on the NHAL is located in aquatic ecosystems. Given that these ecosystems rely upon properly functioning wetland complexes for suitable flow and recharge rates, it makes little sense to harvest wetlands that in most cases, provide marginal timber production.

State Natural Areas

·         The alternatives make no mention where state natural areas are delineated. The selection of biotic inventory or CROG sites for new or enlargements of existing state natural areas needs to be part of planning process and open to public involvement. 

·         The planning documents need to show the relationship between the percentage of passive old growth on the NHAL and the size and distribution of state natural areas.

Biotic Inventory Sites 

·         The DNR’s Biotic Inventory for the NHAL identified 65 sites that contain endangered species or have a high degree of the original flora and fauna for the plant community. At a minimum, all sites classified as high, high-medium should be protected by a Type I designation or be inducted into the state natural areas program.

·         Medium ranked sites should also receive at a minimum, a native community management designation, Type II recreation classification or one of the two designations above.

Reestablishment of White and Red Pine – ECCOLA applauds the goal to reestablish red and white pine forests over a large portion of the NHAL on several alternatives. We believe that a large majority of the public will fully support the reestablishment of large blocks of big-diameter pine forest.

Wild Resources

ECCOLA urges the Department to evaluate the following ecologically important sites in the selection process for Type 1 and Type II recreation areas:

1)       Protect the areas identified as existing or suitable wolf habitat. These areas include: 1) Manitowish Wilderness and the wetlands to its East; 2). Areas in the NE part of the forest on or adjacent to the Partridge and Frank Lake wild areas; 3). Areas on or adjacent to Indian Creek wild Area & Rainbow Wetlands.

2)       The areas of undeveloped lakes( Allequash-Aurora Lake/Scientific Lake Area of Pallete/Escanaba/Lost Canoe/Nebish) which serves as prime habitat for eagles, loons and ospreys (Dupage-Bass Lake Area) – (Bittersweet Lakes-Fallison-Firefly Lake area)

the following sites deserve to be protected with a Type I or Type II management regime.

Lower Manitowish River Macrosite—Within the Manitowish River Macrosite, the Manitowish River Wilderness should continue to be protected as a Type I site.   Catherine Lake, the Circle Lily Swamp and the North Bass Lake Primary Site should be managed as Type II because they don't need active management to continue their community type. The remaining portion of the Macrosite should be managed at least by a Type II regime.

Star Lake Crescent Macrosite - which includes an area bounded by: all of the area north of Hwy K, Salsich Wilderness Lake, the proposed Partridge Lake East and West Area Type II recreation areas and an expansion of the existing Star/Plum Lake Hemlocks Natural Area to include other old-growth stands. . 

The third most important area for Type I or II designation is an expansion of the Frank Lake Wild Area to connect to the Star/Plum Lake Natural Area. and to include a separate neighboring unit for the Scientific Lakes/Escanaba Trail system.

Boundary Expansion

The proposed expansion zone between the current northern boundary and the Michigan state line is not as urgently needed as a southern expansion along the Wisconsin River which would encompass the McNaughton Swamp and Menninghoff Wild Rice Marsh.