PRESS STATEMENT: VT ANR fails to respond to climate and extinction reality with final Worcester Range plan

In the face of repeated floods, dwindling habitat for imperiled species, and a worsening water quality crisis in Lake Champlain, VT ANR has released a management plan that endangers downstream communities and habitat for brook trout, bats, and other species on the brink

The unbroken, mature forests of the Worcester Range stretch across 16,000 contiguous acres, making it the largest block of (presently) wild public land in northern Vermont. VT ANR's new plan puts half of this vast area on a path to future logging.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Zack Porter, Standing Trees, (802) 552-0160, zporter@standingtrees.org

MONTPELIER, Vermont (Oct 1, 2024) — On Monday, Sept 30th the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (VT ANR) released a final plan for the Worcester Range Management Unit, which includes treasured Vermont public lands like CC Putnam State Forest and Elmore State Park.

Despite significant public outcry, two years of extreme flooding, and ample evidence of legal violations, VT ANR's final plan remains largely unchanged from previous versions. The final plan puts half of the Worcester Range Management Unit, including most lower elevation forests and half of beloved Elmore State Park into lands that are open to future timber harvest. Nearly 2,000-acres are proposed for timber harvest over the next 20 years.

Although planning for the Worcester Range has been on hold for several decades, VT ANR rushed the Worcester Range plan to completion this year before legislatively-mandated state land rulemaking goes into effect, and before the finalization of Vermont's Act 59 conservation planning process in 2025.

Standing Trees' Executive Director, Zack Porter, released the following statement:

"Over the past century, Vermont's Worcester Range benefited from a textbook case of accidental rewilding and benign neglect. Unlike heavily-logged private lands nearby, the CC Putnam State Forest and Elmore State Park are islands of biodiversity and reservoirs of clean, cold water. Today, this remarkable and unfinished story of forest recovery comes to a pause with a shortsighted management plan that fails to rise up to the climate and extinction crises facing Vermont.

"The Worcester Range planning process represented an opportunity for VT ANR to shift its management into the modern era, protecting what could have been one of Vermont's largest wildlands for the benefit of present and future generations and our other than human kin. Instead, the final Worcester Range plan looks like a document from 1954, not 2024. Vermont deserves bold, visionary leadership that responds to the flooding, water quality, and biodiversity crises facing our state and region. The final Worcester Range plan fails to deliver, but the campaign to protect this important landscape is far from over. Standing Trees will continue to work with partners to ensure permanent protection for the Wild Worcester Range, Camel's Hump, and other lands owned in common by all Vermonters."

About Standing Trees: Standing Trees is a grassroots membership organization that works to protect and restore Vermont and New England’s forests for the benefit of the climate, clean water, and biodiversity. To overcome the climate and extinction crises, Standing Trees envisions a future where New England’s federal and state public lands are managed to restore the natural, old growth forests that evolved over millennia alongside the region’s indigenous people. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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