The debate on what the Allegheny National Forest should be used
for was brought to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford
Thursday night, when author Samuel MacDonald presented “The
Allegheny National Forest: Loggers, Environmentalists and the
Struggle for Control of a Forgotten Forest.”

The event was the first in a series sponsored by the
Pitt-Bradford Environmental Studies Program. MacDonald, a native of
Ridgway, authored 2005’s “The Agony of an American Wilderness,”
which investigates the ongoing debate over the use of the
forest.

MacDonald said the debate over the forest is not known outside
of the area. He said the culture of the forest is kind of quirky
and the debate is complex so people don’t understand it.

“It’s a weird mix of culture and economics, standoffishness and
come-to-us-ness,” MacDonald said. “It’s not a pristine forest.
People want it to be hippies in trees versus big corporate meanies,
but that’s not the case.”

MacDonald said the Pacific Northwest and the Spotted Owl debate
is one story people are familiar with because it does fit that
template. He said in that case there’s a “virgin forest” 500 years
old and the solution is simple – if you want to keep it, don’t cut
it down. He said the forest used to be a virgin forest but was
mowed down and grew back.

“The story is too complex,” MacDonald said. “People like it to
be simple – there’s a good guy and a bad guy. No one knows about
(the ANF). The people in (Washington) D.C. don’t know about it. The
people in Pittsburgh don’t know about it.”

One of the problems in the debate over the forest is what’s its
purpose. MacDonald opened his talk by admitting he was wrong in his
book. He said in the book, “a law passed on March 1, 1911: The
Weeks Law, legislation that specifically mentions timber as a
legitimate pursuit in the national forests.” He said though that’s
right today he was wrong since the law was amended afterwards to
say that.

At one point the purpose was to cultivate the forest, but later
people wanted the forest back to the way it was.

“In 100 years, it may have an entirely different purpose,”
MacDonald said.

Some people wanted the forest to be untouched. One of those
groups were the Allegheny Defense Project who had said they wanted
to limit timbering, but MacDonald said that wasn’t really the
case.

“They wanted to limit timbering the way your mom limits your
intake of crystal meth,” MacDonald said. “They weren’t limiting it;
they were trying to stop it. The question is whether or not that
worked, not whether or not it was right.”

He said the group’s policy was known as “zero cut” and resulted
in the group being cut out of the discussion over the use of the
forest, which MacDonald thought was a real loss of input in the
entire debate.

“I wished they had lied about it … instead of starting with
absolutely zero,” MacDonald said. “There’s not much collaboration
there when you come in with zero. Why go into the process
then?”

Timbering is not the only use of the forest under debate.
MacDonald said oil and gas drilling is a big problem today as
well.

“Loggers agreed with oil and gas destroying everything,”
MacDonald said. “They were clear cutting and said if you want to
see what’s really destroying everything (to look at the oil and gas
sites).”

Meanwhile, the Forest Service is caught in the middle of the
debate.

Bill Connelly of the Forest Service said at the event the final
revision of the Forest Plan will have some 2,000 pages and is so
extensive because it must deal with any lawsuits that may come from
it. He said the National Forest Management Plan from the 1960s to
1980s described the use of the forest as producing timber but later
plans instructed to leave the forest alone.

“The Forest Service is caught between views,” Connelly said.

MacDonald said the Forest Service also has to explain what
wilderness is. He said the real definition is huge tracts of
untouched and uncut forest, leaving about 100 acres of potential
wilderness on the forest. He said the Forest Service must redefine
wilderness. He said in Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which he
said has been known as a book about man conquering wilderness,
Thoreau describes the wilderness he lives in with a railroad
running near it.

“Trying to define wilderness is like trying to define love or
courage,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald said the U.S. Forest Service used to be a respected
authority but doesn’t know if that can exist anymore. He said
people want an authority to give them an answer or solution and
stick with it.

Dr. Steve Robar, associate professor of political science at
Pitt-Bradford and moderator for the event, said the problem with
that is that everyone has an opinion and the forest service is now
much less respected.

“We really don’t know what we want the forest to be,” MacDonald
said when an audience member asked his non-objective view.
“Actually, we do. We want it to be everything. We want it to be
economic and pristine. I think ‘zero cut’ is too far an extreme.
There’s a place for logging. The question is how much. I would
leave that up to someone that knows more about logging. I think we
need to come to an agreement and stick to it.”

MacDonald said the oil and gas problem is more complicated.

“We can buy all the subsurface rights,” MacDonald said. “The
problem is that it’s good oil, and it costs a lot. We’d have to
decide what schools do we want to close to get the 100 billions of
dollars we need to buy the oil and gas. We’re never going to have a
solution.”