Logging Starts in Robinson Forest

For the last few months protesters on the University of Kentucky campus have disrupted several board of trustees meetings, incapacitated the university's president's office, and held rallies of support. The cause was Robinson forest, the issue was a research proposal for logging about 15% of the 15,000 acre forest.

Last month under the calm of the summer season, The University of Kentucky began logging 800 acres of Robinson forest. Protests from student groups and local activists reduced the original plan of logging close to 2,000 acres, but could not stop the plan entirely. The board of trustees at UK originally supported the logging plan in 2004, with little expectancy of community disapproval. But as the plan came into the public light much community generated disapproval surfaced, leading to protests and sit-ins at several events on campus last year. The lack of a student voice is primarily responsible for the protests. As my fellow protesters and I experienced, when we tried the proper channels, our voices were completely ignored. This resulted in more drastic measures the likes of which have not been seen on UK's campus in the last 15 years.

Robinson forest is a 15,000 acre research forest held in trust by the University of Kentucky. In 1923 it was completely clear cut and UK took it over in trust in order to study sustainable reforestation practices. Some 85 years later the forest is practically considered an old growth forest and is seen as Kentucky's most diverse ecosystem.

Fast forward to 1982, the University of Kentucky proposed and successfully implemented a plan to strip-mine a portion of the forest in order to make a little capital. For any of us who disagree with destroying carbon banks in order to make desolation row, this plan was horrible. But UK republican bureaucracy reigned supreme and the plan went through. Now fast forward to 2007-08. Today we find that UK has clear-cut 1,000 acres of the 15,000 acre forest. The new plan is to clear-cut an additional 800 acres in order to research the effects of deforestation on streams and the sedimentation of such streams. Basically when you have a stream running between two hills and you remove all of the tress from the sides of those two hills, the hills themselves begin to fragment off and all of the sediment and dirt falls into the stream, destroying the ability of people and animals to drink from the stream and causing flash flooding and other such disastrous consequences.

UK's green thumb club, which serves as an environmentally minded progressive organization, adamantly objected to the logging in Robinson forest and was primarily responsible for holding the protests and sit-ins which sparked much of the controversy. UK Appalachian Studies professor Eric Reece stated his objections to the plan last march at a community forum, "I think this science could have potential and could be legitimate, but I just don't think it should take place in a place as diverse as Robinson Forest," Reece said. Reece speaks particularly about the stream systems within Robinson forest. The streams are in fact the benchmark for clean water within Kentucky, and if disturbed Kentuckians would lose their most pure source of water, one which is used in countless other eco-system studies, and water tests.

UK has redundantly stated that this project is not being advanced due to potential for capital gain, but rather scientific research. Community activists are not buying these excuses however, especially after the strip mining which occurred in 1982 in combination with a lack of reasonable scientific evidence that this logging will prove anything which is not already known.

Unfortunately the battle for Robinson Forest seems to have been lost, with logging having started last June. For now UK's sustainability groups have lost a battle, but as we have seen in the past twenty years, as long as Robinson forest contains timber and coal, there will be a war to retain the sanctity of the forest, or rip out everything valuable.