The Park Service is removing trees downed by Helene. Conservationists are asking them to stop.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

The National Park Service is beginning this month to haul downed trees out of the forest lands adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway. But a new petition circulating online asks the National Park Service to stop the work out of concern for the impact of the aerial spraying and heavy machinery employed in the process.

“Driving through, you might spot a bobcat – not the kind you’d hope to see on a family vacation, but the kind with a diesel engine,” reads the petition, which currently has 1,377 signatures.

According to the National Park Service, the process is intended to reduce fire risk by removing logs and other vegetation that is drying out and reducing the safety of the area for staff and visitors; The Parkway is beginning this work in August or September, and aims to complete it by spring 2027.

Salvage logging, removing downed trees and selling the wood commercially, is a common practice in some public lands after hurricanes or fires. Some scientists object to the practice, saying it can be harmful if not carefully monitored. Other studies have shown the ecological costs of salvaging can depend on how much tree canopy and soil is disturbed, and it can even make room for more tree biodiversity if done correctly. In addition to Park Service land, portions of Forest Service land have been closed and reopened for salvage logging work. nearly two years since Helene

The National Park Service and the Blue Ridge Parkway have not responded to BPR’s request for comment.

“Fuel reduction treatments will be followed by targeted native revegetation of storm-impacted landscapes and invasive plant control on NPS-managed lands,” according to the Park Service website.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in western North Carolina, including the Parkway, were battered by Helene, sustaining wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour and 14-30 inches of rain on fragile slopes and deep valleys. According to the project website, removal is hapening in areas that present increased fire risk and present hazards to staff and visitors. The agency is targeting 3,000 acres in North Carolina and Virginia for the work, including:

•  72 acres of mechanical treatment between milepost 280 and 300 in Boone
•  77 acres of mechanical treatment between milepost 310 and 319 in Linville Falls
• 110 acres of mechanical treatment between milepost 324 and 341 in Little Switzerland
• 208 acres of mechanical and 428 acres of aerial treatments between milepost 374 and 396 in Asheville
  

The Parkway maintains the process part of protocol, but forest ecologist Josh Kelly, who monitors logging and public lands with the environmental nonprofit, MountainTrue, worries that the work blurs the line between commercial salvage logging typically prohibited on Park Service land, and normal disaster recovery work. Kelly is concerned that there was no environmental impact statement process before the project began, and said this type of wildfire mitigation could cause more harm than good.

“The short story on why so many conservation groups are skeptical of this, or even opposed, is that scientific study after scientific studies show that salvage logging does not reduce wildfire risk,” Kelly said. “It takes the big wood and leaves the small wood.”

Small wood and branches are more flammable than large logs, he said. The larger logs can often serve as nurseries for younger trees, food for decomposer organisms, or shelter for animals. The work can also compact the soil and increase the intrusion of invasive species, he said. Some researchers have found that salvage logging can decrease biodiversity in a forest.

As the Asheville Watchdog first reported, the Southern Environmental Law Center sent a letter to the Park Service in April, questioning why the agency is operating in emergency mode despite waiting nearly two years to begin the work. “An agency cannot sit on its hands for nearly two years then complain that it doesn’t have time to consult the public or other federal, tribal, and state agencies,” the letter read.

Kelly attended open houses for the project. Representatives from MountainTrue and other organizations expressed concerns that the usual public input processes, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, were not being followed.

“Beyond that, there's been vanishingly little communication,” Kelly said. “The Parkway refuses to meet with conservation groups about the project.”