Vermont’s Green Mountain Forest is under threat

At 400,000 acres, the Green Mountain National Forest features dramatic mountains, enchanting forests, and rushing rivers. It supports recreational opportunities like the Long Trail, Appalachian National Scenic Trail, cross-country skiing, and wildlife viewing, which draw millions of visitors each year. In autumn, there’s nowhere more spectacular to see the display of fall foliage as the sugar maples, beech and birch are glowing with reds, oranges and yellows. 

The landscape targeted for logging includes a vast “Inventoried Roadless Area” and forests with major concentrations of mature and late-successional trees between 80 and 160 years old. Large roadless areas are rare in Vermont and New England and are especially important for biodiversity and clean water. The Green Mountain National Forest is a significant carbon sink and protects downstream communities from flooding, which is among the greatest threats to New England as the climate changes. The mature forests in the Telephone Gap project area are rapidly accumulating. Forests in New England could store 2-4 times more carbon if allowed to grow old. Logging can also exacerbate natural disasters, like the historic floods experienced by Vermont last summer.  

The Telephone Gap timber sale has been called one of the worst logging projects on federal lands by the Climate Forests Campaign, a national coalition of 120 environmental groups, including Earthjustice and our local partner in Vermont, Standing Trees. It would endanger the water quality of the White River and Otter Creek, put downstream communities in greater danger of flooding, risk introducing invasive species, and destroy habitat for threatened and endangered species. 

The climate, biodiversity, and the health of our communities are all at stake – please take action today by sending a letter and help us send a strong message to the US Forest Service: protect Green Mountain National Forest!