Hochul’s DEC set to Clear-Cut Zoar Old-Growth Forest

Several years ago, I attended a hike through the wild and majestic Zoar Valley, located a half hour’s drive south of Buffalo, led by forestry expert Bruce Kershner.

A living legend among the local environmental community, Kershner was an acknowledged expert and the “go to” guy when it came to identifying old growth tree stands. Old growth refers to forests that are estimated to be aged 150 to 300 years and older.

Kershner sadly passed away a few years later, but not before authoring several books about the local nature scene, including “Secret Places: A Guide to 25 Little Known Treasures of the New York’s Niagara-Allegheny Region.”

Back on that lovely autumn day, Bruce Kershner led scores of bird watchers and nature fans on a much-anticipated hike through Zoar. He had mapped out the route over the previous weeks, along the way identifying and labeling no fewer than three dozen species of trees in Zoar that had attained “old growth” status, marking it as a singularly unique natural phenomenon, possibly unrivaled even on an international scale.

Zoar Valley is, therefore, an unbelievable time capsule of our natural world, located nearby for our wonder and enjoyment. Some of the trees living in Zoar were saplings before the United States was a country. They are believed to have survived because the gorge is too deep and terrain too rough for the logging that effectively stripped the rest of Western New York of its ancient forests.

Zoar is exceptional for another reason. It isn’t classified as some kind of state park, nor is it maintained by Erie County or a nearby town or village.

Rather, it’s ponderously termed a “Multiple Use Area/Unique Area” or MUA/UA, administered by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which normally concerns itself with enforcing laws on hunting and fishing, toxic waste dumping, industrial pollution and wetlands regulation.

For many decades the DEC was content to leave Zoar Valley alone. It actually served as a mecca for counter-culture hippies back in the ’60’s, who pitched tents in the valley, indulged in substances, had nude swim parties and otherwise cavorted in nature while the authorities looked the other way.

That kind of benign neglect now appears to be a thing of the past. The DEC has teamed up with the Connecticut/New York Chapter of the Audubon Society to propose clear-cut logging at Zoar. Their rational is that there are too many mature forests in New York State and Zoar must be “harvested” so that successional forest more conducive to certain bird species is fostered. But this misguided plan is gathering a growing opposition.

An on-line petition at Change.org states, “… the 92-acre deforestation… would harm the adjoining Old Growth Forest ecosystem and would destroy a significant, healthy and biodiverse Eastern Hardwood forest that contains endangered species and globally rare habitats that are protected by law.”

According to Conservation Chair Larry Beahan of the Niagara Group of the Sierra Club, in his piece in the Buffalo News, “There may be a case to be made for thinning some of New York’s forest cover to enhance bird habitat. But not the wonderful old forests of Zoar Valley.”

Beahan references some of the valuable hardwoods that are possibly the true reason for the ill-advised logging proposal, comprising black cherry, black walnut and maple trees, all ripe for clear cutting and shipping to the furniture factories of China and southeast Asia.

Conservation Biologist John Terborgh is even more brutal in his assessment of the DEC/Audubon logging scheme, asserting that there is “no conservation reason for creating more early successional habitat,” and therefore “is a bogus argument, ginned up as an excuse for more logging.”

Disappointment in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s performance on environmental policy matters is growing more pervasive as the state has fallen short on a variety of initiatives such as congestion pricing, the NY HEAT Act, and delays in the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Much of this lies within the purview of Hochul’s DEC, which may soon add the clear-cutting of Zoar to its list of ignominious accomplishments.

You can find more information, and ways you can act to save Zoar from the DEC, at Zoarvalley.org.