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West Virginians Have a Proud History of Protecting the Mon National Forest
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by Mary Wimmer | 2005

Since being created as a forest reserve for flood protection, the Monongahela National Forest has had a long history of protection by West Virginia citizen groups

Since lands comprising the Monongahela National Forest recovered [albeit in altered form] from massive clearcutting in the early 1900’s, West Virginians have had a long and proud history of protecting

these forested public highlands from future exploitation. The first major action involved halting clearcutting which had reared its ugly face yet again, this time by the U.S. Forest Service land managers. Legal actionwas taken by the WV Izaak Walton League and the WV Highlands Conservancy, and the U.S. Forest Service lost, greatly restricting the size of future clearcuts on the Mon.

Furthermore, the impact of this lawsuit was felt nationwide as Congress, in response, passed several laws that dictated how our public national forests should be managed, including development of forest land management plans with NEPA-guided public involvement. The Wilderness Act was also passed in 1964 establishing a federal system for permanently protecting special wild federal lands.

The next major protection efforts came with the citizen’s bills that resulted in designation of our five current Wilderness areas, permanently protecting them from logging and road building. Through the leadership of the WV Highlands Conservancy and The Wilderness Society, Dolly Sods and Otter Creek were designated in 1975, and Cranberry and Laurel Fork North and South in 1983.

Soon after, the West Virginia public, with leadership in part from the newly formed WV Chapter of the Sierra Club, became fully engaged in the development of the Mon’s current forest plan following the process laid out in the new laws. A draft Plan developed by the Forest Service was released for public comment in late 1984. It called for increased logging, road building and mining on the Forest, along with conversion of some hardwood forest into pine.

This draft plan was met with an enormous public outcry against commercial development of the Mon, in what became the largest public response to any forest plan in the eastern U.S., and one of the highest in the nation. 3,600 replies, mainly letters, with nearly 18,000 signatures reached the Forest Service in Elkins. Over 90% of those comments were from West Virginians. Less than 3% supported the draft plan! (The public responses are documented in Appendix F of the 1986 Final Plan.) As a result of this public input, the Draft Plan was dramatically changed into one that would emphasize remote wildlife habitat and primitive, non-motorized recreation on the Forest, not commercial development. There would still be some logging, but with long rotations to feature large, veneer-type trees to complement shorter rotation hardwoods on private land. No pine conversion would be done. Importantly, some of the most wild lands left in the Mon would be protected from logging and road building in a new management called “6.2.” Since the final plan was signed in 1986, there has been no major public conflict in the direction it laid out.

Now, twenty years later, with new Forest Service personnel who lack this history, and a new administration in Washington, the Forest Service is proposing to revise the current forest plan. The fate of the Mon’s special remaining wild places that have not been permanently protected will rest with this new plan. As you will read elsewhere in this issue, some draft alternatives would actually open up some 6.2 areas to logging and road-building. It will be up to the West Virginia public yet again to get involved to protect the Mon’s wild places.