AMC Outdoors, June 2008
Land conservation projects at risk
Eddie Deardorff ticks off the types of trees on the 2,500 acres of forestland in south-central Pennsylvania that are known as Tree Farm Number One. “Let’s see…there’s red and white pine, a total of eight different oaks, and there is white ash, walnut, locust, American elm, dogwood….
“It is just a beautiful area,” says Deardorff, 52, whose home is near the Tree Farm that once belonged to Glatfelter Paper Co. The forest, in the rolling Appalachians, was purchased this spring by The Conservation Fund, a national organization. The Fund soon hopes to turn it over to the state.
Deardorff is one of many area residents who in the fall of 2007 fought to save Tree Farm Number One. Development, spilling in from Maryland, was beginning to threaten the forest. The Fund was enlisted to buy the land; but before it can hand the land over to the state, the Fund must be reimbursed. And the bad news is that the Fund may come up short thanks to federal budget cuts.
The president’s 2009 budget proposes significant cutbacks in three federal land-preservation programs, including the Forest Legacy Program, cut to $12.5 million from $52.3 million; the Land and Water Conservation Fund, cut to $42.5 million from $130 million; and the Highlands Conservation Act, cut to zero, even though Congress in 2004 authorized $100 million in spending over 10 years.
The cuts may affect dozens of projects in the Northeast–from the relatively small Tree Farm project to the 19,600-acre Katahdin Forest Expansion in northern Maine. Many of the projects would keep land open by buying easements or purchasing land outright. Without federal funding, or with a delay because of funding negotiations, some of these land deals may collapse.
The $6.8 million Katahdin project, for example, had envisioned $5.1 million from the Forest Legacy program, and that may not be forthcoming. Among the Katahdin project’s goals are efforts to preserve wetlands, safeguard bald eagles’ habitat, and promote sustainable forestry.
Supporters of the $13 million Tree Farm Number One initiative in Pennsylvania also are asking for $3.5 million from the Forest Legacy program. “Legacy funding is key,” says Colleen Reamer, a member of the Hamiltonban Township local governing body, which supports the land deal. She says she worries that if Forest Legacy money is unavailable, the Fund may have to sell some of the acreage to private interests.
Like other environmental organizations, AMC has urged its members to write Congress in support of the funding programs. Susan Arnold, AMC’s conservation director, says that over the years, the Bush administration has established a pattern of proposing less funding for most land conservation programs, yet Congress has often chosen to restore some of the funds. “That’s why it’s imperative we encourage our representatives to keep conservation funding a top priority,” she adds.
“We are fighting over crumbs,” says Kathy DeCoster of the Trust for Public Land, which lobbies for land preservation. “You just keep talking to Congress about the values of the projects, and you hope for the best.”
The author of the Forest Legacy program, who managed to put the measure into the 1990 Farm Bill, is U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee and remains a strong supporter of land preservation.
Asked if Congress might restore full funding for the three programs, he says it is “doable, probably, but it is going to be very, very difficult” given the current level of defense spending. “Congress is on a treadmill trying to find things to cut.
“When you lose your chance to preserve land, you never get it back,” Leahy adds.
-By Dirk Van Susteren
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