Ecology Fight in New England Forests : Conservation: Periled woodlands stretch from Adirondacks to most of Maine.

Not since the timber barons ripped through the White Mountains at the turn of the century has there been such debate about the future of the region’s forests.

Fueled by greed, the timber companies stripped whole mountains to feed the industrial revolution, creating a wasteland and destroying a way of life for local loggers who had harvested the forest for generations.

Congress came to the rescue, creating the White Mountain National Forest and an Eastern park system that has grown to 25 million acres.

Once again, Congress is being asked to intervene in the region--this time on behalf of the 26-million-acre northern forest. Next June, the congressionally created Northern Forest Lands Council will recommend future uses for the forest.

The swath of woodlands stretches from New York’s Adirondack Mountains across the top quarter of Vermont and through the dense timber forests of New Hampshire. It includes two-thirds of Maine.

Seventy million people live within an 8-hour drive of the forest, which contains 250 species of wildlife, rivers and lakes, and provides the economic base for hundreds of communities.

Environmentalists say the council’s recommendations could lead to the largest regulatory change in the region since Congress created the White Mountain National Forest in 1917.

“We’re looking at something that will do that for the 21st Century,” said Stephen Blackmer, director of conservation programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club.

But the solutions of the past--massive government purchases--no longer are appropriate. The council is considering a plan to meet both economic and environmental interests.

That coexistence is essential, because 86% of the northern forest is privately owned and is the lifeblood of logging and paper communities.

“If we can’t agree, we’re all doomed,” said Kelly Short, communications director for Appalachian club.

Business and environmental groups are trying to influence the council, made up of four representatives from each state and a federal wildlife official.

In September, the council released an overview of the assets and importance of the forest to the region’s economy. The report also outlined the risks posed by timbering, tax policies and other economic forces.

The council listed possible means of protecting the forest, including instituting recreational taxes to pay the bill. Council members now are analyzing comments they received.

“They’ve almost got to pull a rabbit out of a hat,” said Blackmer, who shares a fear among environmentalists that the council’s recommendations will be too weak.

Others fear that the council will go too far.

“Shouldn’t the right of earning a living and providing for one’s family come before that of recreation?” officials from three northern New Hampshire communities asked in a letter to the council.

Environmental groups hope to minimize that divisiveness and avoid mistakes made in the Pacific Northwest--which remains sharply divided over limiting logging to preserve the endangered spotted owl.

Despite that spirit of compromise, the region likely will become the nation’s next battleground over environmental and economic concerns.

The Appalachian club and a coalition of more than a dozen organizations including the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and Conservation Law Foundation want the public debate to focus on three objectives.

First, they want environmentally sensitive forest management to replace timbering practices such as clear-cutting, herbicide use and other problems brought about by mechanization of the timber industry.

Blackmer uses an ocean analogy to describe the effect of unsound logging practices on the timber industry. Fishermen once hauled huge cod out of the Atlantic, but “now get junk fish and turn them into fake crab.”

Similarly, the glorious white pines once harvested in the forest are gone, leaving large amounts of junk wood that must be pressed into particle board, he said.

Encouraging sound forestry through selective cutting--”basically like weeding a garden”--will ensure that the northern forest remains productive, Blackmer said. He said the government can encourage this through tax incentives.

The second focus of the council’s report should be on the dangers of unchecked development, according to the coalition. The sale of nearly one million acres in the northern forest in 1988--much of it to developers--provided a “wake-up call” for safeguards, Blackmer said.

The government could do things such as buy development rights from timber companies, making it impossible for them to sell the land to speculators and encouraging them to maintain it. This was done in areas like the Lake Umbagog reserve, where timber companies can cut interior sections but must be aesthetically friendly near shorelines.

Third, the coalition recommends permanently protecting core wilderness areas, maybe through trade-offs.

“If the public is going to lose this, then they should have a protected area elsewhere,” said Kenneth Kimball, the Appalachian club’s research director, as he stood by a section of the Androscoggin River in Berlin, N.H.

Sections of the river once known for their white-water canoeing have been reduced to a trickle because of hydroelectric dams used to power the James River paper mill in Berlin.

But with every trade-off or change there will be a public cost, whether in the form of economic incentives, tax changes or loans to diversify the region’s economy and lead it away from its heavy reliance on timbering.

“It’s not a free lunch,” Blackmer said.