2016 Accomplishments
This year saw us increasingly called to provide grassroots workshops around the East to help fellow grassroots forest friends get involved in forest advocacy. The year also featured some fun outings, a speaking engagement at APIEL, and an important victory in the Cherokee National Forest
Cherokee National Forest
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Three years of field work, meetings, and advocacy finally paid off! The Stone Pile timber sale was cancelled. It had been put on hold for a while, but now has been withdrawn completely. We are happy that Smith Mountain goes a bit longer without logging. We began working on this almost four years ago, with hours of deep field work, meetings, and discussion. Fortunately, this project proved to be unpopular with a number of groups, and the Forest Service had second thoughts. This sale would have resulted in hundreds of acres of logging on the eastern slope of Smith Mountain, and would have caused serious damage to one of the more remote places in the south zone of the Cherokee National Forest.
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We continued our monitoring of the Hogback/Island Creek sale effects, a disastrous project that the Forest Service admitted failure in. They have begun mitigation for the continued erosion and loss of vegetation.
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Spent extensive time at the Meadow Creek sale to monitor what will be extensive logging near Del Rio.
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Continued to publicize the Dinkey sale in the Ocoee district, which will have steep-slope cuts along Tumbling Creek.
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Conducted two days of field sampling in the Burn Exclusion Zone of the South Cherokee with the Forest Service, which resulted in award-winning analysis on relative forest fuel conditions undertaken by students.
Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area
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Negotiated with the Forest Service on a proposed sale on the Tennessee side that has since been withdrawn!
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Provided support to the LBL coalition in meetings with new agency staff.
Outings, Speaking, and Workshops
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Led hikes in the botanically sensitive Citico Creek Wilderness Study Area in the Cherokee and at Pigeon Mountain.
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Conducted Forest Watch workshops in Ohio and Indiana, including field trips to timber sales in the Wayne and Hoosier National Forests.
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Spoke at the Appalachian Public Interest Environmental Law conference at UT Knoxville on recent changes to National Forest law.
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Conducted several days of field analysis of post-logging effects on the Prentice-Cooper State Forest, as part of our work to get a better understanding of forest conditions on Tennessee's neglected State Forests.