Zack Porter’s recent commentary for VTDigger, in which he said that Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources is threatening democratic ideals, omitted some inconvenient facts.
First, Porter implies that the only people with a right to weigh in on management of Vermont’s state forests are those who use them for “s’mores, skis and summer hikes.” He doesn’t mention that many people in Vermont derive their livelihood from harvesting and manufacturing wood products, and that ANR is charged with managing state lands for those uses as well as recreation. In Porter’s vision, the 800 loggers and truckers who support Vermont’s forest economy, and the thousands of people in forestry and forest manufacturing who rely in part on wood from well-managed state forests, don’t get a vote.
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Second, to round out Porter’s claim about pricing people out of state parks, he might mention that his organization, Standing Trees, has cost ANR perhaps tens of thousands of dollars in expenses by repeatedly suing to stop forest management on state lands. If put to a democratic vote, how many Vermonters would elect to have ANR spend those dollars maintaining parks and keeping them affordable instead?
Vermont’s state lands are gems because of the stewardship of ANR and its dedicated people, not despite them as Porter suggests. The agency is carrying out its mandate from the elected Legislature of Vermont and balancing multiple conservation, economic and social interests. That looks like democracy to me.
Joe Short
Concord, N.H.
