To the editor:

Recent local newspaper apologists for the Indiana DNR Division of Forestry have not, to my knowledge, engaged any of their detractors in face-to-face public discussions concerning the efficacy of current forestry management efforts. Their Purdue “flat earth” commercial forestry training from the 1960s has been long superseded by newer science recognized in virtually all academic natural science disciplines other than Purdue’s commercial forestry degree program. For a glimpse of some of the newer science, read the recently published book, “The Hidden Life of Trees,” written by a world-recognized forest scientist, Peter Wohlleben.

Last year, 230-plus real scientists from universities all over Indiana and the U.S. unsuccessfully petitioned Gov. Holcomb to investigate current DNR management of our state forests, but public input into secret forestry machinations was completely stymied by him. We now see only creampuff, one-on-one TV and print interviews or unchallenged editorial grandstanding, but never any public give-and-take. Why?

There are two reasons those in forestry dare not encourage too much public scrutiny: 1.) Their science is old and invalid, and they cannot defend it on the ground, as they have failed to manage our state forests successfully in recent times. I can show anyone the evidence here all day long in Yellowwood State Forest.

2.) Current forestry officials also have not told the Hoosier public the truth about dangerous forest invasives that are lurking here right now. Doing so would showcase their ineptness and also add unwanted complications to their current salvage logging business. (Check out: Sudden Oak Death, Asian Longhorned Beetle, and Thousand Cankers Walnut Disease, all of them right here, right now.) The Director of Forestry has abrogated his responsibility to keep the public informed about invasives issues, and gave it to the overburdened IDNR Division of Entomology. Shouldn’t someone in forestry be the one standing on a rooftop somewhere in Indy, shouting a warning to us about the invasives that will soon consume our forests?

The previous forestry director, Bernie Fischer, stated upon leaving his position that the two most important issues facing forestry in the future were 1.) The loss of forest habitat and 2.) invasion of alien species. What happened? These topics are not even on the official forestry radar now. Without a sea-change in the current Division of Forestry philosophy and focus, our Indiana forests are surely doomed. Without immediate invasives interdiction, the highly-touted Forestry 100-year hardwood management experiment will most likely become a fool’s errand.The withholding of valuable invasive species information from the Hoosier public may not technically constitute a criminal act, but by all other standard human measures, it is very, very wrong.

Let’s talk about Thousand Cankers Walnut Disease (Geosmithia morbidia) to illustrate my concerns. This walnut tree-killing fungal disease was first identified in Colorado in 2007. Forestry officials in 2014 and 2016 told Monroe Countians (in two interviews published in the H-T) essentially that Thousand Cankers Walnut Disease was not a current threat to the walnut industry here, and for tree farmers to not panic and prematurely sell their walnut timber. In reality, Purdue and U.S. Forest Service researchers had already found TCD bacteria in a walnut plantation in Yellowwood State Forest in 2011 and at a sawmill in southeastern Indiana in 2013. Forestry did not immediately report either infestation to the public. The 2011 and 2013 infestations and the new TCD definition were finally announced to the public by forestry three years later, in 2014.

An outbreak of TCD was officially defined as needing to have three essential characteristics: 1.) the presence of the TCD fungus carried ONLY only on one primary vector, 2.) the Walnut Twig Beetle (upltyopthous juglandis) 3.) ONLY on a living walnut tree. The Yellowwood State Forest fungus was found on an entirely different beetle species on a living walnut tree. The southeastern Indiana sawmill infestation investigation found the right fungus carried by the right beetle, but it was on a dead walnut tree, so they could officially claim TCD was not here yet, according to the hair-splitting definition.

Official recognition of an outbreak of a forest invasive such as TCD immediately prompts other state and then federal sanctions on interstate transportation of walnut wood from Indiana. Michigan and Missouri have already sanctioned Indiana black walnut exports, despite the lack of official Indiana Forestry recognition and certification of the recent TCD invasion. The feds eventually will step in and sanction all interstate walnut sales from Indiana. The issue will soon become a question not of WHEN private forest owners should sell their walnut trees, but IF they can sell them at all.

Someone in our state government must hold current forestry brass responsible for their major role in hiding the secret, percolating destruction of our state forests and the accompanying losses of hardwood forests by unknowing private woodlot owners.

We need for forestry to uniformly enforce and evolve their current BMPs (best management practices) and also to implement new invasives BMPs to slow the spread of forest invasives already present here in Indiana, but still officially unrecognized by forestry.

We need a united response from all government and private forest stakeholders to form an invasive species council not chaired by the DNR Director of Forestry, but rather a voting partnership among equal stakeholders (See: the Missouri Invasive Species Council).

So, go on. Give our famous Indiana economist Morton Marcus an occasional public tongue lashing by your so-called “experts,” but remember to do so from a safe intellectual distance. No face-to-face public conversations. He knows way too much.

Remember also to never volunteer any information about the true nature of Mr. Marcus’ hitherto publicly-unchallenged forestry economic examination, from which I garner that the Division of Forestry is now selling our state forest timber to a small handful of large companies at well below private market prices!

I bet that either the Monroe County or the Brown County League of Women Voters would be willing to facilitate a fair public discussion of forestry’s role in dealing with these invasives issues, but I suspect forestry won’t participate. I would be extremely surprised to see any public acknowledgement of the information presented in this article. That’s the recent pattern: duck and cover.

There’s so much more. You soon will be hearing more about the presence of other officially unrecognized dangerous Indiana forest invasives. Thank you.

From the heart of Yellowwood,

Charlie Cole, Brown County

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