e GWNF stakeholders’ agreement—among the first of its kind in the easternUnited States—would protect 90,000 acresof Shenandoah Mountain as a combinationof National Scenic Area and Wilderness,Beech Lick Knob as Wilderness, and allow forseveral additions to existing Wilderness Areas.It espouses large-scale landscape planningusing a “tiers of management” approach. Pro -tected old growth wilderness and the uniqueflora and fauna that flourish there sits at thecenter of the map. As one moves toward theperimeter, more levels of active manage ment

are supported, including mountain bike trailsas well as commercial timber harvesting andprescribed burning—both of which increasewildlife habitat for many species.

e various groups see this collaborationas a win-win, helping each to achieve goalsthat are difficult or even impossible toaccomplish alone. But how did this all cometogether?

Several years ago a numberof forest users and activistsattended an event hosted by theGeorge Washington National

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 ◆ 19

agreement that recognizes the importance ofall that is special about Shenandoah Mountainand several other special wild areas. Groupsthat don’t ordinarily work together and that areoften in opposition were able to come together,compromise, and support each other’s goals forhow the larger GWNF should be managed. Itwas not easy, but the end result could serve asa model for the nation. is unusualcollaboration resulted in an agreement signedby 14 groups that was submitted to theGWNF as joint comments on the draftmanagement plan in October 2011.

search for more than 250 species and perchupon the mountain spine to watch the autumnraptor migration. Hunters tramp the steepslopes seeking black bear, turkey, grouse, andwhitetail, while fly fishermen wade thecoldwater streams that are among the lastbastions of native brook trout in Virginia.

But timber interests also find themountain alluring, as do wilderness advocateswho want to protect the integrity of the oldgrowth forest. Tourists enjoy walking the CivilWar breastworks educational trail along themountain top, while backpackers prefer theisolation of Ramsey’s Draft Wilderness. Andthousands of people in the Shenandoah Valley,many of whom have never set foot onShenandoah Mountain, turn on the tap eachmorning and drink the clean water that thisspecial area protects. e headwaters of boththe Shenandoah and the Potomac rivers arisehere.

Some might think that the sheer diver sitythat is Shenandoah Mountain might doom itto extinction, as groups with oppos ing interestsdraw battlelines to defend what is important tothem. e siren’s call is intoxicating for all thoseconstituents, includ ing the Ruffed GrouseSociety, the Wilderness Society, turkey hunters,mountain biker groups, nature and plantsocieties, roadless advocates, and the timberindustry.

But a few years ago, those groups foundcommon ground and forged an unprece dented

Citizens unite to protect

a spectacular forest.

by Nancy Sorrells

T he 72-mile-long Shenandoah Mountainsituated on the eastern front of theAllegheny Mountains in the 1.1-

million-acre George Washington National Forest(GWNF) ranks as one of the most biologicallydiverse places in the entire United States,including Hawaii. e moun tain, located inwestern Virginia between Routes 33 and 250,has five roadless areas, one of which is the largestroadless area on national forest land east of theMississippi—the Little River Roadless Area at29,000 acres. e North River Gorge, whichslices through the land, is eligible to be a NationalScenic River. It is a place so special that its diverseand sometimes seemingly incompatible usershave found common ground atop that place theycall Shenandoah Mountain, and together, theyhave created a unique plan to collectively cherishand protect it.

e mountain, rich in both human andnatural history, is a land of many faces. Mountainbikers love its single-track adven ture; birders

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Finding Common Ground

Augusta County farmer Dave Horn heads up asteep slope on Shenandoah Mountain to huntfor grouse.

Elkhorn Lake on the North River was built to provide municipal water for Staunton and serves as a popular fishing spot for warm- and cold-water angling.

Shenandoah Mountain offers some of the mostchallenging mountain biking in the East.

Above, cerulean warbler populations are declining faster than any other warbler species;the bird requires old growth forest habitat.Background photo ©Lynn Cameron

©David Wendelken

©Brad Striebig

©Nancy Sorrells

©Kyle Lawrence

In the end it came down to talking withand not at each other, and coming to therealization that on a forest of 1.1 million acresthere is plenty for all. e GWNF, within atwo-hour drive of ten million people, canmeet the needs of almost everyone. ere isthe ability to engage in permanent protectionthat creates wildlife habitat in old growthareas, as well as active management for timberharvesting and the wild animals and birds thatrequire early successional growth forests. It isworth noting that some 65 species of birdsand mammals are in significant decline due toan imbalance of forest age classes where olderforest currently dominates the Appalachians.

Finding common ground relies upontrust and compromise. On ShenandoahMountain, perimeter wilderness lines werepulled back slightly to allow mountain bikersand game carts access to the mountain. In thefinal proposal, no roads will be closed, and nonew roads created within sections that areproposed as wilderness areas, and more peri -meter areas are now designated as timbermanagement areas.

Once the stakeholder agreement hadbeen created and signed by all groups, it hadto be submitted. Despite 18 months of pro -gress, distrust sometimes crept into the act ofimplementation. Which would come first:protection and preservation, or timber man -agement? Each side worried that they mightsupport the other and then be left withoutsupport for their cause. Finally the wildernessadvocates stepped up and proffered to get theball rolling by publicly supporting timbermanagement and the creation of young forestif forestry groups would support expandedwilderness and scenic area legislation beforeCongress. Agreed!

“e most difficult thing for all of thegroups in this process was keeping our eye onthe prize, because we all sometimes fall backinto our shells and speak of our own needs,”Miller acknowledges. But the success in thisproject was the recognition by us that thereare many needs and the forest can meet mostof those needs.” In addition to the stakeholdersignatories, over 200 civic, religious, andbusiness groups have signed on to supportpermanent protection of Shenandoah Moun -tain.

A part of the collaborative process hasbeen the collective recognition that there aresome uses of the forest that will never becompatible with the stakeholders’ aims. Asthe Forest Service plan awaits approval, thereare still threats to Shenandoah Mountain andto the forest in general. At the top of the list isthe specter of hydraulic fracturing for naturalgas. Much of Shenandoah Mountain sits overMarcellus Shale deposits, where natural gasdeposits lie. Fracking, as the process is called,could destroy habitat in both the old and thenew growth forests, endanger wildlife, createerosion in streams, threaten ground water,and insert a non-traditional and harmful useinto the nation’s largest non-fragmentedEastern forest. Unfortunately, fracking is alsounder consideration by the Forest Service asa use alongside the Shenandoah Mountainpro posal in the soon-to-be released plan.

e content of the final GWNF planwill reveal whether the agency took thecollaborative work of the Shenandoah

Mountain stakeholders and other publicgroups seriously. Either way, the grassrootsmove ment has created a united citizen effortto protect and maintain a place that is univer -sally recognized as important and remarkable.Shenandoah Mountain is not a commonplace; in fact, it is a globally unique place. Assuch, it has provided common ground uponwhich citizens from all walks of life can rally.

Outdoor writer Nancy Sorrells lives on 10 acres in thebeautiful Shenandoah Valley with her husbandRandy, two dogs, and two cats.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 ◆ 21

Forest stake holders’ group. e Shenandoahplan is one of nine mega-projects that,together, form the overall GWNF manage -ment plan. In addi tion to forest users andactivists, the GWNF stakeholder processincluded review and comment by federal andstate natural resource agencies—including thisDepartment.

Each national forest is required to have amanagement plan outlining specific planneduses and unique places and situations of thatforest. Like all government planning docu -ments, the Forest Service plans are required tobe periodically updated based upon publicinput and research. To a number of forest usersalong all points of the spectrum, each iterationof the plan designed to appease certain usergroups contained “poison pills” for othergroups. e various plans, they thought,would divide, not unite, and the result wouldbe continuous argument with no solutions.

is lose-lose scenario became partic -ularly obvious to Mark Miller, field director forthe Virginia Wilderness Com mittee, and JohnHancock, a timber industry executive andVirginia Forestry Association board member.ey began talking with other forest users—mountain bikers, wildlife managers, wilder-ness advo cates, hunters and equestrians—anddecided they had enough in common to try towork together on some thing that was a win-win based on identifying shared goals.

And so they began meeting, and meeting,and meeting. “Nobody thought it wouldwork,” remembers Miller. “We met for 18months, poured over maps, hashed outagreements, wrote a draft that most of thegroup accepted with a minority report as well.e plan went through 16 different itera -tions!”

When they were finished, they had agroundbreaking landscape management planthat called for tiers of management rangingfrom hands-off roadless wilderness, to areasdesignated for commercial timber harvesting.It was unprecedented. When the diverse forestusers stepped back and looked at their fellowplanners, they realized that they were in aroom full of friends. “When we started, the airwas thick with tension,” remembers Miller.“Now when we meet we laugh and joke. Ithink part of the reason that we have beensuccessful is that people were committed tomaking this work. We are the most pragmaticpeople that I have ever worked with. Everyoneis willing to listen and admit that the othershave issues that are just as valued as their own.”

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The proposed National Scenic Area,with four embedded WildernessAreas, will protect core wild spaceswhile supporting active forest man-agement, timber harvest, andprescribed burning in other areas.The plan was crafted by stake holdersrepresenting diverse interests.

Shenandoah Mountain has 150 miles of trails, many with scenic vistas like this one at Cliff Trail onHone Quarry Recreation Area.

Hikers marvel at a waterfall near Hone QuarryRecreation Area.

Cow Knob salamander, at high risk for extinction,is found almost exclusively on Shenandoah Mtn.

Wake Robin trillium illustrates the greatbiodiversity found here.

©Richard Hottel

©Billy Flint

©Lynn Cameron

©Marek Smith

©Lynn Cameron