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The natural ecosystem
is so delicate. It takes years for it work out its balance
and function healthily. It's amazing that sometimes when
left alone the forest will work out its balance and be strong
and healthy. Why screw that up when we've got a forest that's
gone so far into a natural state and may be achieving some
balance. It's so important to have that type of landscape
to see, to walk through, to be inspired by, to allow it
to do its thing. Can I say.......it has a right to be there,
to grow, we have no right to mess with it. Forestry management
as it's being presented has no place here. Let it be, let
it grow. Logging, it's not appropriate here anymore...
-- Chris Rosen |
| 04/20/04
- The Town of Kent is not usually where one would expect to
find much public controversy. This sleepy bedroom community
in the center of semi-rural Putnam County, is a sparsely populated
town of rough hills and recreational lakes. Yet it finds itself
in the center of a growing movement in NY State to control
logging on NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
lands. And, sitting in the middle of this town is 1200 foot
tall Mount Nimham, the mountain that has become the center
of it all. [read
more] |
02/24/04 -
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is still
reviewing
comments on its proposal to selectively log 85 acres of a
415-acre parcel
to demonstrate how well-managed forests can protect water
quality. For the
most part, residents and local lawmakers still oppose the
effort in Kent,
calling for the state-owned forest to remain untouched and
a recreational
haven. [read more] |
 12/31/03
- "We're hopeful that, based upon what the Town Board
said, they will cease and desist," state Sen. Vincent
Leibell, R-Patterson, said this week. "We want (the state)
to stop." Leibell was referring to
the Town Board's unanimous passage of a resolution this
month opposing the controversial proposal by the Department
of Environmental Conservation. Leibell and Assemblywoman
Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, sent DEC Commissioner Erin M.
Crotty a letter three days before Christmas, asking her
to take into account the "strong opposition" generated
by the proposal. [read
more] |
 12/10/03
- One resident, who has promoted the grass-roots opposition
effort through a Web site he runs, www.planputnam.org, said
the public response wasn't antilogging but propreservation.
Formerly farmland and pasture, the proposed model forest property
is a haven for hunters, hikers and mountain bikers and is
"the closest recreational opportunity for many outside
of ball fields," Jeff Green said.
"People have come to value forests," Green said.
"There are so few around. It's not like upstate, where
this would be a very different situation. We wouldn't be
having these meetings." [read
more] |
 11/23/03
- "It's NIMBY-ism at its worst,"
he said. "I respect their opinion, but everything we're
doing is based on science. They're making us out to be the
most evil people in the world, but folks who live in urban
and suburban areas use wood products, including the peopie
who want to tar and feather us, except they want it to be
harvested in British Columbia." [read
more] Rene
Germain, chairman of the New York City Model Forest Committee
and associate professor of forestry at the State University
of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
in Syracuse |
| 10/29/03 - Putnam Valley
Passes Tree Law - That is to say removing 30% of the trees
within 10,000 square feet of any lot at one time or over the
course of time will violate the provisions of this ordinance
unless the permit were obtained. Under the Freshwater Wetlands
law there is a two year time period. This is somewhat more
restrictive than the Freshwater Wetlands law." [read
more] |
11/04/03 - Well-managed
natural forests in New York City's watersheds can minimize
the risk of landslides, erosion, and sedimentation. Forests
in New York's Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watersheds substantially
improve water purity by filtering pollutants, such as pesticides,
and in some cases capture and store water. [read
more] |
| 10/02/03 -
About one dozen paid state employees and various contractors
who are working on the Mount Nimham model forest in Kent met
a raucous crowd of more than 40 people at an "information"
meeting set up by the by the NYS DEC after their plan to log
Mount Nimham was exposed to the public several months ago.
[read more] |
10/03/03 -
A swath of the forest around Mount Nimham in Kent was quiet
yesterday, save for the whining call of a catbird and the
rush of a swollen stream. That serenity, though, isn't matched
by the public's reaction to a proposal to turn 415 acres of
the 1,100-acre state property — which abuts New York
City's West Branch Reservoir — into a model working
forest. Local officials and residents this week greeted the
proposal with anything but silence. [read
more] |
| 09/26/03 -
"The logging is just a means to an objective," said
Jeff Wiegert, supervising forester for the state Department
of Environmental Conservation. [read
more] |
Copy of the Negative Declaration given by
DEC to the logging project on Mount Nimham
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"Certainly,
one option should always be, what happens if we just let
it alone and let it resort to its fully natural state? A
forest left alone and allowed over time to become something
approximating what was here before settlement is the best
of all possible worlds." - Bob Irwin, Conservation
Director, World Wildlife Fund |
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