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Friends,
Tonight, the Kent Town Board passed a resolution
against DEC's planned logging operations in the Town of Kent and
specifically the 'model forest', not for the concept of the model
forest, but for its chosen location.
About 80 people attended an often raucous town
board meeting where all but a handful of people spoke against
DEC's logging plans for lands they control in our town. Those
who spoke in favor were generally professional loggers, some of
whom are involved with the Lake Gilead logging projects or came
from away, places like Dutchess County and Connecticut.
I need to thank everyone who worked so hard to
achieve this great night for the forests in Putnam's Highlands.
I especially want to thank Mike Keropian for his dedication and
Joshua Adrian for the research he's done on the benefits of old
growth forests and watershed protection and for helping leaflet
the community on the two coldest days of the year so far and,
to Scott D. who printed them for us and arranged the crawl line
for RCN Cable.
There are others - many others - who have helped
in more ways than can be counted. Scott and Ed and Mike and Penny
and Gil and Leila and Mike and Tai and Ann and Marian and Ray
and Jim and the hikers and the mountain bikers and the horseriders
and the hunters who like the forests just the way they are. And,
the Kent Town Board who voted unanimously to tell DEC we want
our forests to grow old naturally and then asking them to help
us achieve that remarkable goal. Kudos!
Thanks go to State Assemblymember Sandra Galef
for attending the meeting tonight and for asking the DEC to work
with our community to look for alternatives and to Assemblymember
Willis Stephens for his continuing support.
I'd also like to apologize for briefly losing
my temper at the meeting this evening, but the assertion by a
volunteer forester that "even aged stand management",
(the process of keeping the forest at an "even age"
of about 80 years,) is a way of accelerating Old Growth, was news
to me and the forests.
This was just one in a series of battles in the
fight to preserve what's left of our rapidly disappearing forests
- and it was one that went our way.
Congratulations to all of you!
!! Yeeeeeehaaaawwww !!
(ahem)
Jeff Green
PlanPutnam
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