White Mountain National Forest hosts plan primer, tour Saturday [06/24/2006]

By Dena Libner

A White Mountain National Forest informational meeting will introduce the agency's newly updated forest management plan to the public. The informational meeting will run from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, June 24 at Russell Colbath Homestead (located on Route 112, the Kancamagus Highway). The 15-year management plan was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in February 2006. The plan emphasizes increasing the accessibility of the forest to the casual outdoor enthusiast, calling for more campgrounds, recreation sites and designated wilderness areas.The plan also reaffirms that all-terrain vehicless are not welcome in the forest. Forest management had originally toyed with the idea of granting ATVs trail access in the summertime, but public opinion encouraged them to to keep the existing provision that bans summertime ATV use on trails. The purpose of the upcoming informational meeting is to explain to the public how the plan will be implemented in each district, according to White Mountain National Forest representative Alexis Jackson. "The districts will be implementing the plan indivisually," Jackson explained. "They will make decisions on anything from timber sales to improving a recreation site's parking lot to trail construction."But discussion of specific projects will not be included, Jackson added. The purpose of the meeting is more general than that."That conversation will be had when the district is in the process of beginning a specific project," Jackson said.The challenges facing the White Mountain National Forest have changed since the last management plan was adopted in 1986, according to Forest Supervisor Tom Wagner.Booming recreational use of the forest now requires as much planning as the practice of sustainable harvesting. The forest receives 4 to 6 million visitors each year, and areas like Tuckerman's Ravine have, over time, grown in popularity as a wintertime destination. "If recreation continues to increase in the forest, it's going to have an effect on resources and the experience visitors to the forest have," Wagner has cautioned.Besides reaffirming the summertime ban on ATVs and encouraging the development of campgrounds and recreation sites, the 2006 plan designates 34,000 acres of the forest as wilderness area.One new wilderness area will be established near Wild River; the other comes from the expansion of Sandwich Range wilderness area. "Wilderness" denotes areas on public lands that have been officially designated, by U.S. Congress, to be managed for their wild character. Non-motorized recreation (like hunting, hiking, fishing, camping and snowshoeing) are allowed in these areas. The new plan also reduces the permitted annual logging from 3,500 to 3,400 acres.After the meeting, guests are invited to picnic and attend a field tour of the Bartlett Experimental Forest and Rocky Gorge improvements.The meeting and tour will be be run by Wagner and Saco District Ranger Terry Miller.