Against the dominant trend of clearcutting, high-grading, other "cut-and-run" logging, are a number of successful models of forest management that truly can sustain both landowner and forest. Below you will find links to some some resources to help you along this path.

Pioneer Forest

Comments are due by May 16 on the Southwest Project in the Cedar Creek District of the Mark Twain National Forest. This project includes heavy logging, cattle grazing, road development, building two parking areas, fence building, and other activities in the proposed Smith Creek Wilderness. Read more about it here.

Send comments from here.

Forest Service Plans Logging and Development in Proposed Smith Creek Wilderness: Your Comments Needed Now!

Situated in the midst of mid-Missouri’s population centers of Columbia, Fulton, and Jefferson City, the Cedar Creek District of the Mark Twain National Forest is much-used and much-beloved. And no portion of the Cedar Creek District is mor e special or better loved than the beautiful and still surprisingly remote Smith Creek proposed Wilderness Area above and below the old Rutherford Bridge connecting Boone and Callaway Counties. For more than 25 years, conservationists have worked with the Forest Service to respect and protect the authentic wilderness character of Smith Creek’s streams, bluffs, pinnacles, forests, wildlife, and solitude. In 2007, Smith Creek was included in a statewide proposal along with six other Missouri areas for designation as a federal Wilderness Area.

The Daily Green By Dan Shapley

Friday 11 April 2008

Defied once by courts, Forest Service tries a new tack.

We have probably all viewed and printed out pdf or PDF files, pdf being an abbreviation for "Portable Document Format" file. Has anyone else experienced the same exasperation as I, though, at seeing page after page printing with huge margins, sometimes 3" on both sides, and often even larger on top and bottom margins?

Forests For Bio Fuel

It sounds like the production of bio fuels from forest products is coming to the Ozarks. How this will impact our forests is uncertain, but I believe there is cause for concern.

What are your thoughts about commercial logging on public land?

The recent effort to protect seven of the last roadless areas in Missouri as Wilderness Areas has received a lot of press and controversy over the past two months. You can read an essay about why we need more Wilderness protection in Missouri here and at www.mowild.org. What are your thoughts?

The Forest Service is approving about 10,000 acres of salvage logging a year on the Mark Twain. Nearly the entire forest is open to this type of management for "forest health." Unlike protected Wilderness Areas, each of the seven newly proposed Wilderness Areas are open to this type of management. The pictures here are from the Henderson Creek sale near Bixby, part of a 27,000 acre salvage logging project the Forest Service approved and completed across the Salem and Potosi Ranger Districts.

This editorial by Tom Kruzen was printed in the Springfield News-Leader and other newspapers.

Wilderness status is crucial for national forest's protection
By Tom Kruzen