LARAMIE – The Forest Service has just released its Environmental Assessment for the Devils Gate Timber Sale, a major logging project in which 27 of the 38 cutting units would be clearcuts. Overall, 1,144 acres are slated to be logged, in the Devils Gate and Sheep Creek drainages between the Savage Run Wilderness and the North Platte Wilderness. Because the project includes clearcuts larger than the 40-acre limit imposed by federal regulations, it will require approval by the Regional Forester in Denver, who is in charge of all national forests in the Rocky Mountain Region.

 “The forests of the Medicine Bow have been badly fragmented by 50 years of clearcutting, and new projects should be designed to heal the damage, rather than making it worse,” said Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “This level of logging should have been planned using selective logging methods that leave behind substantial amounts of trees, but the Forest Service eliminated a no-clearcutting alternative from consideration.”

The part of the Forest where the Devils Gate project is proposed was designated for “Ecological Maintenance and Restoration” under the 2003 Forest Plan.

“This is one of the biggest logging projects to come along in the Medicine Bow in years,” said Bart Geerts, with the Medicine Bow Group of the Sierra Club. “The Devils Gate project area has already been fragmented by clearcutting in the past, and is an important corridor between the Savage Run and the North Platte Wilderness areas, both of them relatively small protected areas. The Forest Service should go back to the drawing board and redesign this project in a way that causes less harm to the land and wildlife.”

While the Forest Service has invoked forest health as one of the reasons for the project, 34 of the 38 cutting units are shown as having no insect infestations in the Forest Service’s analysis. Most of the cutting units have dwarf mistletoe, a native plant that grows on conifers. Dwarf mistletoe improves wildlife habitat by increasing habitat diversity and providing nesting habitat for forest birds and mammals, but slows down wood production.

“Dwarf mistletoe is considered a forest health problem by the timber industry, but we see it as a benefit to native wildlife,” added Molvar. “Half a century of clearcutting has failed to make a dent in the dwarf mistletoe around Foxpark, the most heavily clearcut area in the Medicine Bow.”

Comments will be accepted by the Forest Service through July 17th, and can be sent to Melissa Martin, Medicine Bow N.F., 2468 Jackson Street, Laramie WY 82070. Alternately, e-mails can be sent to comments-rocky-mountain-medicine-bow-laramie@fs.fed.us. The Forest Service has not yet announced a public hearing to receive oral comments.

More information on the science behind clearcutting is available at http://www.voiceforthewild.org/clearcutting/pdfs/ClearcuttingWhitePaperFina2.pdf.

Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, (307) 742-7978
Bart Geerts, Vice-Chair, Medicine Bow Group of the Sierra Club, (307) 755-1857