We're calling on the NJ Forest Service to produce a Forest Action Plan that protects and enhances our forested lands.
The decisions we make now will determine how we cope with climate change over the next 10 years, and long into the future of New Jersey.
Read on to understand our concerns with the current Plan, and find some simple talking points you can use to form your own comments.
Public comment on this Plan is open until December 11, 2020.
Read the Draft NJ State Forest Action Plan and the NJ Highlands Coalition's complete Comments here:
Every 10 years NJ DEP is required to produce a State Forest Action Plan under a mandate by the US Dept. of Agriculture. A Plan is required of every state and is intended to be a strategic guide for how forest stewardship will proceed over the decade, and not a set of prescriptions.
We reviewed this Plan thoroughly and believe that it misses an important opportunity to combat climate change and take bold action to protect our forests!
The Plan successfully recognizes numerous serious threats to our forests, but then fails to address them with practical strategies supported by the most current scientific thinking.
For example, proforestation, a relatively new term in forestry, refers to allowing trees that are already planted, already growing, to continue growing to reach their full ecological potential: to develop as a forest with a full complement of environmental services including carbon storage. This approach to forest stewardship is well aligned with a new understanding among the scientific community, that larger, older trees accumulate and store more carbon than younger trees. New Jersey has little to no remaining truly old-growth forest, but there are many areas throughout the Highlands where healthy forests are maturing. Thinning these forests, or cutting down stands of intact, healthy, biodiverse forest as a stewardship practice damages the surrounding ecosystem, exposes the forest interior to invasive species, and undermines the carbon sequestration objectives articulated in the Forest Action Plan. Our established forests on state-owned conservation lands must be protected for their value as carbon reserves.
In its current draft proforestation is only recommended in the Sourlands Region. However it should be a guiding principle throughout New Jersey, and especially in its northern forests.
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The Highlands Coalition urges you to use your voice to speak up for our valuable forests and call on the Forest Service to outline and implement ambitious strategies that address the real threats to our forested lands!
Here is a sample message provided by our NJ Highlands Coalition Natural Heritage Committee to get you started. Copy and paste this message, or use it as a starting point for your own message to the NJ Forest Service.
To the New Jersey Forest Service,
This State Forest Action Plan misses an important opportunity to enhance and build upon critical climate change and environmental initiatives in the state including NJ Protect Against Climate Threats (NJ PACT), and meet the emissions reductions targets outlined in the Global Warming Response Act (NJ GWRA). Climate change mitigation and maximizing the forests' role in combatting the worst impacts of unchecked carbon emissions requires bold action on the part of every branch of government in New Jersey.
This Forest Action Plan needs to move New Jersey away from traditional forestry practices and instead, adopt a more progressive strategy that protects our forests. The scientific community has found that cutting older trees is not the best way to enhance carbon sequestration and protect ecosystem services provided by a healthy, intact forest.
The traditional forest stewardship practice of cutting and thinning must stop in the Highlands and throughout northern New Jersey. New evidence proves that innovative management strategies that protect our intact, healthy forests are necessary to protect our maturing forests, allowing them to grow into true old-growth that can accumulate and store more carbon than young forests.
Proforestation is an innovative management strategy that maximizes all of the public health and natural benefits forests have to offer, and needs to be expanded throughout the state. New Jersey has almost no truly old growth forests, but we have a wealth of healthy trees over 100 years old, especially in the Highlands. Our established forests in New Jersey's state conservation lands should be protected as much as possible for their carbon reserve values.
Thank you for considering my comments.
The New Jersey Highlands Coalition
We represent a diverse network of organizations - small and large, local, regional, statewide and national - and individuals with the common goal to protect, enhance and restore the New Jersey Highlands and to preserve the quality and quantity of drinking water for the 6.2 million people who depend on Highlands water.
Contributions from supporters such as you are New Jersey Highlands Coalition’s largest source of funding and ensure that the Coalition has the resources to continue to be your voice speaking up for the NJ Highlands in the future.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin - Shakespeare
