Triage

Triage

Very, very sad for the forest

Buckland State Forest, Buckland, MA (US) has been triaged as a WOODLAND (aka tree plantation). We sent a complaint to the Massachusetts government administration during the triage, but they did not listen. Triage will be hard to undo, but undo we must.

Forests under state and federal management face the same dangers. Caution! The link here is of most forest organizations in the US and some other nations, but ask yourself the question, "Does this organization listed protect the species' forest or does it protect the rights of people to exploit the forest?" It can't do both. The slightest use of a forest harms the forest forever. There is no win win. The forest always loses if used in any way by people (e.g. trails, logging, hunting) and the forest gradually slips out of the natural dynamic equilibrium which it needs to survive as a species' forest. See federal list http://www.discovertheforest.org/partners/  , US Forest Service (www.fs.fed.us) Forest Partners.

Under the US Obama administration they are getting better at promotion, but the US Forest Service is still run buy the forest resource stakeholders. A stakeholder is an organization or person who has a property or money interest in some action. Ethical conservationists are not stakeholders. As individuals, ethical conservationists have no personal profit as their goal. State and federal foresters and employed ecologists are stakeholders.

Beware of stakeholder words and expressions. Does that word come from a forest industry or was that term co-oped by industry. Beware sloppy words that originally were used by the GREENS, but have been adopted by industry. For example, the word biodiversity has been adopted by nearly all forestry companies who say they are interested in biodiversity when in fact they log native forests and this prevents the return of the species' forest. Also, WOODLANDS is just another name for a tree plantation. "Best practices" is just another name for forest management, yet a species' forest does not need to be managed.

When you see a list of forest organizations find out what is their history.  Don't trust their printed mission statement. See http://speciesforest.blogspot.com/ .

A species' forest is of, by and for all the other plants, animals, fungi and soil microbes that occupy their forest. A species' forest is not managed by or for people.

Join our friends group this spring and summer  2015. All welcome. Our sole purpose is to protect.

Best wishes,

Richard (Dick) Stafursky

802 258 7845 ( c e l l )

Friends of Buckland State Forest, Ashfield, MA (US)

Buckland State Forest Friends, Buckland, MA (US) Fall 2014 Report

Buckland State Forest Friends, Buckland, MA (US)

Fall 2014 Report

It is almost October 2014 and the Buckland State species' forest will soon be in harm's way by people going there to kill native species. About this time we have seen people carrying in shooting blinds to be installed in trees. During this "season" people will go into the State Forest to kill the local native mega-fauna. Obviously, this will discourage other people from walking in this State species' forest.

The few marked foot trails here are fairly neglected. Most of them are actually old coach roads with stone walls on each side of the ways. Just after Flagg Mountain was purchased by Mass Fish & Game one of these ways was used as access by vehicle to get to the Flagg Mountain boundaries deep in the woods. This way also was used in the recent past by the owner of Flagg Mountain to mark his twenty-four unit ill-fated subdivision plan for Flagg Mountain. Unfortunately, now that Flagg Mountain and Buckland State Forest are State controlled people seeking to kill mega-fauna will no doubt access both species' forests by this one way.

People walking in the woods in the Fall should wear day-glow yellow. Blue and orange are also part of wild turkey colors and might actually put you in gun sights.

Unlike the now dedicated State Flagg Mountain with its invasive infested ghost subdivision the Buckland State Forest has fewer invasive plants. We hope that next year we will walk this species' forest to see the extent of the old tree plantation containing non-native trees. We probably will need help in identifying the non-natives. We have learned that non-native trees can self re-populate especially after trees are cut. We have spoken to State foresters and they have said that the State does not normally kill non-native tree saplings after a forest cut. Reversing the plantation damage will be difficult. If the State removes mature non-native tree species the Buckland State Forest Friends and the State can brain storm to find a way to kill the plantation foolishness of the past.

To be continued . . .