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Conservation groups ask for revision to Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan after Helene

A crew member stands assessing damage from Helene in the Pisgah National Forest in November 2024.
Kristian Jackson
/
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
A crew member stands assessing damage from Helene in the Pisgah National Forest in November 2024.

A coalition of conservation groups is asking the U.S. Forest Service to amend the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan after Helene's catastrophic damage in western North Carolina.

In November, the Forest Service estimated Helene damaged more than 187,000 acres in both national forests - losses that could lead to increased threats of wildfire and impacts on watershed health.

Conservation groups argue the current Forest Plan drastically underestimates how much natural disturbances would impact the forests.

“The Plan downplays the harm from hurricanes and underestimates the landslide risks of roads. Helene just exposed the Plan’s fundamental flaws,” said Will Harlan, southeast director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

In an emailed statement, Forest Service spokesperson Adam Rondeau said "it's premature to discuss amending the plan" until immediate priorities are met, such as mitigating the risk of wildfires and removing debris from trails and roads.

"It’s important to note that we worked with our partners to design the plan to be adaptive and factor in increased threats from extreme weather," Rondeau said. "Hurricane Helene heavily impacted the national forests in western North Carolina, and we remain fully focused on the ongoing response effort."

The Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan guides the long-term future of the forests. It was most recently updated in March 2023.

In a letter sent to the Forest Service in December, conservation groups point to the National Forest Management Act, which states forest plans can be amended if there are any significant changes.

"When adopting the Plan in 2023, the Forest Service assumed that natural disturbance would impact only 280 acres... per year on average. Rarely has an agency decision been shown so quickly and decisively wrong," the letter reads. "Relative to the Forest Service’s diminutive predictions... Helene caused 418 years’ worth of natural disturbance in a single day."

This type of requested revision is not unprecedented. Hurricane Hugo hit the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina in September 1989, shortly after the forest's management plan had been finalized in 1985.

According to a 2013 draft forest plan assessment from the Forest Service, "it became obvious that the 1985 plan was no longer going to be effective guidance. The 1996 Francis Marion Forest Plan focused on recovery efforts from Hurricane Hugo."

Harlan, with the Center for Biological Diversity, says an updated plan for the Nantahala and Pisgah Forests can similarly incorporate recovery efforts.

"The plan that was finalized (in 2023) no longer applies to the forest that we have on the ground. The forest has been completely transformed," Harlan said. "An amendment or revision would enable the Forest Service to be more proactive in (their) recovery rather than trying to fit this new forest to an outdated plan."

The conservation groups asking for this change include the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, MountainTrue, and Sierra Club.

Celeste Gracia covers the environment for WUNC. She has been at the station since September 2019 and started off as morning producer.
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