
Note: Standing Trees is one of GJEP’s Fiscal Sponsored Projects.
The Rutland Herald reported that approximately 100 people gathered on Saturday January 11th outside the Forest Supervisor’s Office in Mendon, Vermont to protest the Telephone Gap Integrated Resource Project, a logging proposal for the Green Mountain National Forest. The Forest Service, after years of planning, had chosen to move forward with Option C, one of 4 alternatives.
Standing Trees, an environmental group that is opposed to logging in older, mature sections of public land organized the protest. The Rutland Herald reported that Standing Trees’ executive director Zack Porter stated that the Forest Service has a broken and outdated system to make decisions, the forest plan doesn’t deal with climate change, and the plan would needlessly cut some of the rarest types of growth in Vermont.
You can read the entire article in the Rutland Herald: https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/protesters-gather-outside-green-mountain-national-forest-office-in-mendon-to-call-for-telephone-gap/article_57dacff0-d064-11ef-867d-9fe8f32789d5.html

LAST CHANCE TO TAKE ACTION!
Standing Trees has posted official actions that can be taken before January 17th, 2024 to weigh in on the disastrous telephone gap project.

Background Information
Standing Trees Vermont works to protect, preserve and restore forests on Vermont’s federal and state public lands. Standing Trees Vermont envisions a future where forests on Vermont’s federal and state public lands are allowed to grow free from active management and logging. The forests will be free to continue recovering from decades of logging and other detrimental activities. The forests will be allowed to grow strong and old. The forests will be allowed to re-wild.
The following information about the logging project was taken from Standing Trees’ website:
Telephone Gap is the latest in a series of significant logging projects in the Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF). Thanks to a groundswell of public support for mature and old-growth forests, there has been unprecedented public engagement on the Telephone Gap project. Over 13,000 individuals signed a petition calling for the project to be canceled, and there were more unique comments submitted to the Forest Service for Telephone Gap than any other project in GMNF history. We have already won a more detailed environmental analysis, a first-of-its-kind carbon assessment, and have delayed the Telephone Gap project by more than a year. Despite the delays and increased scrutiny, the Forest Service is still pushing a reckless plan at Telephone Gap, which would, among other things:
- Cut nearly 11 thousand acres of public forest, 91% of which is classified by the Forest Service as mature or old.
- Cut 817 stand acres of old-growth, according to the USFS’s Region 9 definition.
- Degrade habitat for some of Vermont’s most imperiled animal species, including Northern Long-Eared Bat, Brook Trout, and Canada Lynx.
- Release a whopping 254 thousand tons CO2e, equal to driving more than 60,000 average passenger vehicles for a year.
- Log 1,800 acres of the 16,000-acre Pittenden Roadless area, one of the largest unprotected tracts of wild land in the state. The Forest Service argues on absurd technicalities that building logging roads and cutting 11% of the area, in addition to damage already caused by the Robinson Project in Pittenden’s northern half, will not substantially alter the “character” of the roadless area.
Whether or not the Forest Service chooses to listen to public input during this objection period, we will continue to fight back against the Telephone Gap project. Outreach to Vermont’s congressional delegation and (especially!) widespread public pressure are each part of the movement coming together to cancel the Telephone Gap project and ensure lasting protections for our public forests.