This commentary is by Zack Porter, executive director of the Vermont-based nonprofit Standing Trees, which works to protect and restore forests on New England’s public lands.
“We made a promise to this mountain — a promise that the only changes it will ever undergo are Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Perhaps any other possible change to so solid a landmark would seem incredible, but we have seen it happen in other places where mountains have been stripped of trees, terraced, scarred by permanent roads. … We don’t want this to happen here, and neither do all our friends who visit us each year.” – Excerpted from a Vermont Development Department advertisement in Vermont Life magazine, autumn 1967
Camel’s Hump is not just any mountain. Vermont’s state lands are not just any land. But to the state of Vermont, very little — it would seem — is sacred.
Two years ago, on the same day that Vermont released its much-anticipated Climate Action Plan, the state also quietly released another plan that takes the state in the wrong direction. The revised management plan for Camel’s Hump State Park and surrounding lands calls for 3,750 acres of logging over 15 years, putting profits ahead of the public good, and severing the promise that all Vermonters should expect its state government to keep: that some places are too sacred, and too important for our future, to put on the chopping block.
But the siren song of short-term economic gain is always calling, and the threats keep multiplying.
In June, the public learned about long-running backroom discussions between Vermont’s Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation and two ski resorts about building a new gondola through the Mount Mansfield Natural Area, which is supposed to be permanently protected from development. We are grateful that the Barre District Stewardship Team, comprised of Forests, Parks and Recreation and Vermont Fish & Wildlife staff, recently went on record in opposition to the proposal. But a less principled team could have reached a different conclusion, with little recourse afforded to the public.
With the new Camel’s Hump management plan, the state of Vermont had an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate vision and leadership to match the urgency of the climate and extinction crises. For example, solid evidence in Forests, Parks and Recreation’s files demonstrated that limiting logging and road building on much of Camel’s Hump would help protect downstream lands from flooding. But the Camel’s Hump management plan failed to even mention that evidence, much less incorporate its recommended practices.
In 1911, Joseph Battell gifted the people of Vermont 1,200 acres atop the summit of the state’s most iconic mountain to be forever “preserved in a primeval state.” The gift was prescient: In the ensuing 111 years, all other Green Mountain summits over 4,000 feet have been scarred with roads, resorts, lifts, communications towers and ski trails. Camel’s Hump, in contrast, is the centerpiece of a 26,000-acre, largely undeveloped block of public land.
Camel’s Hump stands alone, but not only for what is absent. Far more important is what is there: Mature forests stretch for nearly 12 miles between Appalachian Gap and the Winooski River; a rich mosaic of forest, wetland, cliff and alpine habitats span nearly 4,000 vertical feet, providing astounding connectivity for an incredible array of plants and animals.
For millennia, Camel’s Hump has been known as Tawapodiiwajo, a personal seat for the Abenaki culture hero Gluskabe. Today, Camel’s Hump stands proud and tall on the horizon as a lofty anchor of our common Vermont-ness, a compass point showing us the way homeward.
Camel’s Hump might be exceptional, but its plight is indicative of threats facing all state lands in Vermont. State land managers are required by law to develop binding rules for what is and isn’t appropriate on state lands, balancing management goals to protect our climate, public health and biodiversity.
To date, no such rules have ever been issued. Without accountability and transparency, state land management is an open-ended adventure in executive privilege, removing the “public” from public lands. State agencies can cut trees, build damaging roads, and amend management plans with impunity.
Standing Trees petitioned the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources more than a year ago to begin rulemaking. The state agreed in theory but has kept the public in the dark ever since. In the meantime, logging is moving forward on the slopes of Vermont’s most sacred mountain and on other state lands, despite an unresolved lawsuit that we filed last fall.
This summer, Vermonters had a front-row seat in the unfolding horror show that is the climate crisis. How many more disasters will it take for the state to break with the status quo? We aren’t going to wait to find out. It’s past time to make good on our promises.
