An environmental group rates the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in the top ten most endangered national forests. Vanessa Feltes reports.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center working to reverse what they call a trend for over-logging.

“We’re getting out of whack when it comes to the balance between logging, protecting natural resources, and the outdoor recreation values that make it a wonderful place for people to live and visit and enjoy.”

Environmental Law and Policy Center Director Howard Learner.

“What’s happening here is the forest service is proposing too much logging and too many timber sales too fast and in too many of the wrong places and the result of that is we’re putting clean water, threatened species, and other important natural resource’s values at risk.”

Forest Ecologist Don Waller says the Chequamegon National Forest is among the most endangered in the country in part because of what he calls excessive logging.

“I’m concerned because the national forests are at a turning point. We are heavily logged right now, yet we have several sensitive species there.”

Zaber says the Chequamegon-Nicolet Forest excessive logging began long ago.

“The whole area was logged extensively starting around 1850, by about 1920 virtually all of the merchantable timber had been removed from the upper-Midwest.”

Zaber says now they want those areas to grow back…but Zaber says their efforts come both the positive and the negative.

“There’s higher valued timber, there’s some extensive forests that are now ripe in the eyes of those who would exploit those forests for cutting again. It’s the second round of cutting and we haven’t even recovered from the first round yet.”

Although Chequamegon-Nicolet is on their top ten most logged national forests, they say it doesn’t mean no more cutting of timber can be done…there’s just a better way to do it.

“We have to do it in a way that doesn’t violate the law and protects the values that we all care about.”

The Environmental Law and Policy Center will take a guided flight over the Chequamegon-Nicolet Forest Wednesday.

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