Grand Junction Sentinel (op-ed): Proposed GMUG forest plan ignores community input

By JONATHAN HOUCK

The heart of Colorado’s public lands lies in Gunnison County. Here, you can discover trails for hiking, running, or biking, crystal-clear rivers and lakes for fishing, stand-up paddleboarding, or kayaking, an array of wildlife species for viewing or hunting, countless spots for dirt biking or snowmobiling during the winter, the sources of our precious water supply, and forage that our ranchers depend on.

These two million acres of public lands in Gunnison County include much of the Gunnison National Forest and a portion of the Uncompahgre National Forest. Currently, the Forest Service is in the process of revising the land management plan for these areas — collectively managed as the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forest. Unfortunately, in significant ways, I’m afraid they’ve gotten it wrong.

Community members and local groups in Gunnison County have collaborated on the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative (GPLI) for more than a decade, the goal of which is to protect local public lands, enhance a strong and sustainable economy, and support historic uses of public lands. To accomplish this, the GPLI stakeholders seek federal legislation that enjoys broad support, is technically sound, and truly represents community values and consensus.

After a decade of consensus-based decision-making, Sen. Michael Bennet unveiled the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection (GORP) Act in the summer of 2022 as a discussion draft, affectionately named after the famous trail snack. I participated in this process every step of the way and am proud of the product that our community and stakeholder groups created.

Gunnison County has made clear that we expect the recommendations of the GPLI to be reflected in the final GMUG plan. Unfortunately, the proposed final plan released by the GMUG on Aug. 30 misses the mark.

The proposed final plan seeks to substantially increase lands deemed “suitable” for timber production to 772,000 acres, an increase of 300,000 acres over the old plan. That means the Forest Service believes it would be appropriate to manage nearly 25% of the GMUG for “the purposeful growing, tending, harvesting, and regeneration of regulated crops of trees,” according to agency regulations. We all recognize the need to do wildfire mitigation and protect homes and critical infrastructure in the wildland urban interface, but the proposal in the plan to massively increase land allocated to grow and harvest logs, including in the backcountry, is a nonstarter.

The proposed forest plan ignores the community consensus to add prized public lands to the West Elk Wilderness and the Uncompahgre Wilderness, among several other proposed areas.

The widely-supported GPLI proposal includes extensively more recommended wilderness and other special designations for all types of recreation, wildlife, and watershed protection. These wilderness and other protected areas form large, intact landscapes where wildlife can adapt to the changing climate, clean water can continue to flow, and recreation opportunities flourish.

The proposed final plan appears to backslide on protections for old growth and mature forests. These old trees are incredibly important carbon sinks, and the GMUG national forest has the highest carbon sequestration capacity of any forest in the Rocky Mountain Region. Yet, the proposed final plan contains only general, non-binding “management approaches” to consider old forests. This is inconsistent with federal policy to identify, protect and conserve old growth and mature forests.

On the bright side, the proposed forest plan proposes significant acreage — 834,000 acres — of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), to maintain intact habitats and migration corridors by capping trail density. But it’s not enough — the various proposed special management areas in the GPLI would go even farther, by protecting those lands from future mining and improving recreation management.

Every iteration of the Board of County Commissioners since the GPLI began — whether Republican or Democratic — has supported our proposal. The broad base of support in our community is worthy of action by the Forest Service to reflect the GPLI in their final plan. I hope the Forest Service will hear our voices and finalize a forest plan that works for our community.

Gunnison County Commissioner and Board Chair Jonathan Houck, a Western Colorado University alumni, has called Gunnison home for over 30 years. He has worked extensively on public lands and wildlife issues including Gunnison sage grouse recovery, the CORE Act, numerous USFS and BLM planning processes, the Gunnison Basin Water Roundtable as well as the forthcoming GORP Act.