Editor’s note: This commentary is by Greta Binzen, of Strafford, who is junior majoring in environmental studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
[I]n a country where climate change is censored from government websites and most federal environmental programs are underfunded, it’s easy to assume that politics and environmental protection are perpetually at-odds. But trees don’t grow overnight, nor do people change overnight. To see the steady progress of environmental politics requires patience and an ounce of inquiry. If we don’t accept incremental progress as successes than we may as well hang up our hats and call it good night.
Look no further than Essex County. Here, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s proposed habitat management plan for the Nulhegan Basin lays out a plan that would protect over 26,000 acres of forested land for the benefit of a vast variety of migratory birds, spawning fish, winter mammal communities and threatened and endangered species.
It has been almost 20 years since the acquisition of the Nulhegan Basin for the sake of conservation. Almost all the trees in the basin are younger than 40 years indicating the success of this program in allowing young trees to grow and mature. It will be much longer before the Nulhegan Basin truly resembles the forest it was before the sweeps of clear-cutting that so dramatically altered the ecosystem, but through federal regulations, it is recovering.
While most federal lands systems attempt to give weight to an array of land usages from outdoor recreation to timber production and livestock grazing, the mandate for the Nulhegan Basin gives wildlife full priority. Such a directive was given by Congress in the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, which explicitly states the mission of the refuge system as wildlife conservation.
It is, however, ambiguous how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to truly live up to its mandate when the very success of this program relies on the timber industry to implement projects. Over and over, the document acknowledges the detrimental effects logging has had while continuing to allow the timber industry access to the forest.
Some will argue that to truly protect wildlife requires restricting all anthropogenic land use. Maybe that would be ideal but almost definitely that’s not realistic. To say that people can never live in tandem with the Earth is not only depressing but an insult to the indigenous cultures that came before us. The plan spells out a logging plan that minimizes environmental impacts while still allowing rural Vermonters to make a living.
As far as I’m concerned, this is what environmental progress looks like. While regulation may not be, and rarely is, as sweeping as seems necessary, to throw it aside as insignificant is short-sighted. To support wildlife does not have to mean an end to growth and development; it just requires thoughtfulness and an eye to the future that has not always existed in the past. Trees do not grow up in a day; likewise, the actions we take today may not achieve results for decades into the future. That does not mean they are not worth taking.
The public comment period is open until April 12.
