There was a public meeting last night at the Caroline Elementary School conducted by members of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The immediate purpose of the meeting is to receive public comment on the Tompkins-Tioga Uplands Management Unit, which consists of Danby State Forest, Fairfield State Forest, Jenksville State Forest and Shindagin Hollow State Forest. There were about a dozen NYS DEC officials there of all persuasions, from management to foresters. There were also about 100 of the general public. What the DEC wants is to get ideas from the public about what we want to see happen in these forest units. After some opening words the larger group broke into eight working groups headed by a DEC official or "facilitator". These "facilitators" tried to focus comments and write them down for later summation to the larger group. Most groups seemed to work well. The most suprising aspect of the meeting was that the motorized vehicle users were probably in the majority, that hikers only were probably the smallest group and that most groups of users overlap in their types of use. The second most surprising aspect was the overall agreement within each working group. Most people seemed very tolerant of other users interests. The summation of each group's suggestions at the end of the evening showed that each of the eight groups seemed to focus on the same issues. It seems to come down to sensible use of the forests, education in how to minimize impact and preservation of the wonderful assets that we have. If anyone is interested in more information concerning this evening, let me know or stop and talk to the folks at Cayuga Mountain Bike Shop who must have rented a bus to get everone there. In all it was certainly a succesful meeting in that the DEC planners heard from a diverse group of users and there was reasonable agreement as to uses. Dan Fravil |
