“The Virginia Forest Watch (VAFW) has just wrapped up a very active year,” said Jerry Gray, Virginia Forest Watch chairperson, reporting to his membership. “We are on the way to gaining new wilderness and national scenic areas in southwest Virginia, thanks to a historic vote in the U.S. House of Representatives that we and others worked hard to win. We kicked off a campaign to better protect the George Washington National Forest in the upcoming 15-year plan revision. And we fought against two bad timber projects upstream from flood-prone areas.”

“We have also made a difference for privately-owned forests,” Gray said. “We fought for a voice for local communities in how logging is conducted in their backyards. We began developing a plan for a Forest Certification framework in Virginia that will give consumers more options for buying locally-grown, sustainably-raised forest products. And we backed up these efforts with practical workshops for local residents.”

Forests comprise 62 percent of the land base of the commonwealth of Virginia, but are at great risk from development. Everyone relies on remaining intact forests for clean water, flood protection, wildlife and hunting opportunities, recreation and tourism, and the natural beauty that makes Virginia unique.

Forest tracts also play a vital role in staving off climate change. The state Department of Forestry estimates that Virginia’s 15.8 million acres of forests offset about 20 percent of Virginia’s CO2 emissions.

Private lands

During the upcoming General Assembly, VAFW will be working with other partners to get a resolution setting a new direction for the Department of Forestry. The goal is to require them to collaborate with local governments for the development of forestland management tools to enhance the role of forestlands in mitigating climate change — including carbon trading and forest certification.

Two years ago, the Virginia Forest Watch was instrumental in establishing the Forest Issues Work Group (FIWG) of the Virginia Conservation Network, a statewide network of over 115 environmental groups. Virginia Forest Watch (VAFW) continues to play a lead role in the FIWG. In the past year, the FIWG completed two reports, one on Forest Certification, and a second on the conflict between local authority and state authority, under the Department of Forestry, over logging practices.

Public lands

VAFW’s public lands program is working to protect one of the largest assemblages of public lands in the Appalachians, the 1.8 million acres of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests (GWNF and JNF). “Many people don’t know it, but there is a greater acreage of Forest Service roadless areas in Virginia than in any other state east of the Mississippi River,” said Sherman Bamford, public lands coordinator. “That is a tremendous natural legacy.”

In October, Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher’s Virginia Ridge and Valley Act passed in the full U.S. House of Representatives on a voice vote. Members, friends and allies of VAFW played critical roles over many years to bring this about. Even before VAFW’s formation, future board member Shireen Parsons and staff member Sherman Bamford authored a book that mapped wild areas later included in the bill. Board members like Annie Malone of Sugar Grove convinced local boards of supervisors to support the bill. Board member and Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition staffer Mark Miller worked tirelessly to move the bill forward on a local level and on the federal level, taking the time to walk through every area and show officials the beauty in many areas.

VAFW Chair Gerald Gray testified before a U.S. House subcommittee that, “Southwestern Virginia is blessed with many creeks and rivers within our forestlands. These waters are a crucial lifeline for native trout and for local communities. Unfortunately these rivers and streams face problems of development — more contaminants and increased sedimentation from logging-absent the protection offered by the Wilderness and other designation.”

The Act will permanently protect seven stand-alone Wilderness Areas, two National Scenic Areas, and six expanded Wilderness Areas on 55,000 acres of the JNF. The Bill has gone to the U.S. Senate, where it has the support of both of Virginia’s senators, John Warner, the lead sponsor, and Jim Webb.

To the north, the Forest Service launched its Plan Revision for the much larger GWNF in February 2007. Initial drafts indicate that over the next 15 years the Forest Service intends to weaken fundamental protections for the GWNF and could fail to protect key natural areas on the Forest.

In response, Virginia Forest Watch has published its Vision for the George Washington National Forest Plan, which is available on the VAFW website. Sherman Bamford, in a February 25 Roanoke Times guest editorial, wrote that the Vision “is urgently needed because logging and roadbuilding continue unabated, even in rare old-growth forests. The fate of precious wild areas like Toms Knob, Big Schloss, Great North Mountain, Jerkemtight and Elliott Knob still hangs in the balance.” Bamford also noted worsening problems with illegal off-highway vehicle use and non-native plant species.

In preparation for the fight ahead in March, VAFW encouraged its members and other citizens to attend initial meetings in Hot Springs, Lexington, Woodstock, Low Moor and Harrisonburg.

VAFW is also currently working to protect “Virginia Mountain Treasure” areas on the GWNF by co-leading hikes in these areas and by encouraging people to sign up to “adopt” these areas. The publication Virginia’s Mountain Treasures: The Unprotected Wildlands of the George Washington National Forest will soon be released by a coalition of groups, including VAFW.

VAFW is encouraging people with a strong interest in a particular area or a strong interest in hiking, fishing, nature study, photography, history or some other activity to adopt areas and be the eyes, ears and voice of these areas in the coming years. Already, several citizens have adopted areas, including Maya Bohler and Caryl Connolly of Roanoke.

Since April, Forest Service meetings and planning activities have been temporarily halted because a federal court in California declared the Bush Administration’s questionable rewrite of national planning rules to be illegal, but meetings could resume at any time.

At the same time, VAFW continues to monitor the two National Forests on a day-to-day basis. VAFW continues to oppose the controversial Back Creek timber sale in Scott County, upstream from an area that suffered two devastating floods. VAFW, the Clinch Coalition, local citizens and other allies won an appeal of that project in the summer of 2007, and forced the Forest Service to go back to the drawing board.

VAFW is also opposed to the recent Marshall Run timber sale in Rockingham County, an area that has also seen numerous severe floods. According to Walter Sampson, a local landowner, “A tremendous rush of water runs down [the mountains] after heavy rains,” he said. “That background puts me in a position to be against cutting that puts more water in Marshall Run.”

For more information on these activities, contact Sherman Bamford, Public Lands Coordinator, Virginia Forest Watch (VAFW), PO Box 3102, Roanoke, Va. 24015-1102, (540) 343-6359, bamford2@verizon.net, or visit www.virginiaforestwatch.org.