<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3Qwngo_1GugascA00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3Qwngo_1GugascA00" width="1024" height="509" >A current Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management logging operation in the Big River Management Area along Sweet Sawmill Road. (Margaret Parsons/Rhode Island Old Growth Tree Society)There are good reasons to ask the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for a moratorium on the current plans for logging in the Arcadia Management Area near Breakheart Pond, and on similar plans. With weather becoming more extreme, insurance companies increasingly enforce removal of trees around buildings as a requirement for obtaining homeowners insurance. Also, more homeowners voluntarily cut trees around their homes, afraid of severe storms putting their homes at risk. This leads to a rapidly growing loss of residential trees and of their benefits for greenhouse gas reduction, biodiversity, and the environment. Consequently, protecting trees on public land has become even more important because they can compensate for the loss of residential trees and their benefits. Rhode Island is currently the only state in New England without protected wildlands on public land, especially lacking protection of forests in their natural state from logging. It appears that the current model of DEM’s “managing” our public forests and using them also as economic resources uses an extractive approach typical for the timber industries’ mechanized logging. One would wish that this model would gradually morph into a preservation-based stewardship approach typical for land conservation trusts, with the goal to return forest to their natural state, with minimal, if any invasion. The latter model is based on the understanding that forests, if left undisturbed, will return to a stable equilibrium and a “natural state” that the North American forests had for millennia, before the arrival of colonists and settlers who clear-cut for agriculture and for using trees as a resource for ship building and land-based construction. This is not a fantasy — countless natural forests around the globe are thriving with no human intervention, as they have been for ten thousands of years. Forests on public land, in this sense, offer the opportunity to become an invaluable natural resource for supporting biodiversity, a healthier environment, and a better climate — free from economic motives of growing trees to log and sell them. Getting there, of course, requires a paradigm shift in how DEM — and all of us — relate to public forests, and a move to a policy that preserves public forests and returns them to their natural state. Steps in this direction have been made over the past years by introducing public forest protection bills like the 2026 Natural Forest Protection Act (H7914) and its sister bill S3081. Both bills were broadly supported, but didn’t pass into law. It’s expected they will be reintroduced in 2027. It would be more than regretful if the current logging plans would be executed, followed by legislation that would have protected some or all impacted trees. Once these trees are gone, it will take decades to grow new trees to replace them and regain the benefits, which is why it’s not unreasonable to ask DEM for holding off with logging to wait for legislative clarity. Let’s keep, and even improve, our public forests over time, for the benefits of a livable climate and a biodiverse nature for the current and future generations of Rhode Islanders. Editor’s note: ecoRI News asked DEM about the logging project in the Arcadia Management Area. An agency spokesperson said the project wasn’t a logging operation but the “selective removal of diseased trees.” She said this “forest health project” is targeting the removal of diseased white pine trees affected by caliciopsis canker and needle cast disease. The work involves selectively removing diseased trees, along with groups of four to eight trees surrounding each diseased tree, to “improve forest health and make it more resilient against diseases and pests.”Hans Scholl is a member of the Barrington Resilience and Energy Committee, which advises the Barrington Town Council on energy efficiency, conservation, and environmental impact reduction.</div></body>

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A current Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management logging operation in the Big River Management Area along Sweet Sawmill Road. (Margaret Parsons/Rhode Island Old Growth Tree Society) There are good reasons to ask the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for a moratorium on the current plans for logging in...

Moratorium on Logging in Public Forests Needed

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A current Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management logging operation in the Big River Management Area along Sweet Sawmill Road. (Margaret Parson

Moratorium on Logging in Public Forests Needed

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