2006.03.26: March 26, 2006: Headlines: COS - Liberia: Forestry: Parks: Rutland Herald: Liberia RPCV Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

Peace Corps Online: State: Alaska: February 8, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: Alaska : 2006.03.26: March 26, 2006: Headlines: COS - Liberia: Forestry: Parks: Rutland Herald: Liberia RPCV Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-188-104.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.188.104) on Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 9:56 pm: Edit Post

Liberia RPCV Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

Liberia RPCV Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

Brewster, 51, has been the top guy at Vermont's swath of the national forest for the past seven years, and he's leaving for the No. 2 job for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska, where he worked earlier in his career with the Forest Service. Brewster will be deputy regional forester, in charge of resources.

Liberia RPCV Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

Paul Brewster leaves Green Mountains, says he's ready for challenges in Alaska

March 26, 2006

By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer

Of all of the 400,000 acres in the Green Mountain National Forest, Paul Brewster's favorite spot is in the White Rocks National Recreation Area in Wallingford, south of Rutland.

He's hiked to a perch among the limestone rocks often with his family, and he says it's there that he can see what is so beautiful about Vermont.

"They call it, 'the Valley of Vermont,'" Brewster said in a recent interview as he prepared to finish packing up his office as forest supervisor at the Green Mountain National Forest, based in Rutland. "It's as everyone thinks of Vermont – the pastoral and the forest. There are falcons up there."

Brewster is leaving Vermont for Alaska this month. Brewster, 51, has been the top guy at Vermont's swath of the national forest for the past seven years, and he's leaving for the No. 2 job for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska, where he worked earlier in his career with the Forest Service. Brewster will be deputy regional forester, in charge of resources.

He's heading toward the Forest Service's crown jewel: the 17 million acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

The Tongass is the nation's largest forest and the site of an epic environmental battle: It has the most controversial management plan in the national forest system, he said.

Environmentalists want to ban logging on the entire forest, when only 700,000 acres of the 17 million are even appropriate for timber harvesting, Brewster said.

The Tongass battle was fought in court, and the Forest Service's management plan was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which cited a "faulty economic demand analysis," he said. According to news reports, the Forest Service overstated the demand for Tongass timber.

The Forest Service has been given until July 2007 to revisit its plans for Tongass and challenges are sure to be ahead.

"It's not to the level of ANWAR," he said, referring to the national debate over oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, long proposed by the Bush administration.

The second largest national forest in Alaska is the Chugach National Forest, at 6.5 million acres. It encompasses the Prince William Sound, site of the devastating 1989 oil spill of the Exxon Valdez.

Brewster's own seven-year tenure in Vermont has been marked by controversy surrounding a new management plan for the Green Mountain National Forest.

Another major source of conflict is a three-year ban on logging because of concerns that habitat of the Indiana bat, a federally protected species, could be adversely affected. The government launched an extensive series of studies and field surveys, and found that the small bat was found in many more locations of the forest and the state than originally thought.

Forest Watch, along with other environmental groups such as the Conservation Law Foundation, Friends of Wildlife and the Vermont Natural Resources Council, sued the Forest Service over several logging projects, most notably the Old Joe project in Rochester, and the Lamb Brook project in Readsboro-Searsburg. In both cases, the environmental groups prevailed in the federal appeals court.

"The Forest Service has two types of leaders: those who promote the interests of wild nature and future generations, and those who promote the interests of the agency. I hope for Alaska's and the nation's sake, that Paul's years in Vermont have helped him become the first type of leader. I wish him well," said James Northup, executive director of Forest Watch, an environmental group that has bird-dogged the Forest Service's every step in Vermont for the past decade.

William Sayre, an economist and consultant to A. Johnson & Co., a large lumber mill in Bristol, and chairman of the Associated Industries of Vermont forest policy task force, said he was impressed with Brewster's willingness to hear all sides in the debate over the use of the forest.

"I have the highest regard for Paul, he sincerely wants to hear the point of view from all people," Sayre said, adding that the new forest plan was a big disappointment to the timber industry.

Strongly held views on the forest are part of Vermont's heritage, Sayre said.

"Vermont is a good preparation for Paul, going to Tongass is going from the frying pan into the fire," he said.

Brewster's legacy is a new blueprint for the forest, which at 400,000 acres represents 5 percent of all the land in the state.

The Forest Plan, which will set down the guidelines on where snowmobilers can ride their machines, how many trees can be cut and what land should be off-limits to motorized recreation, was released earlier this week after years of study, and close to 100 community meetings.

Brewster came back from his new post in Alaska last week to introduce the final Forest Plan and its accompanying Environmental Impact Statement.

The final plan proposed a total of 27,000 new acres of wilderness within the forest, most of it on Glastenbury Mountain in southern Vermont. It was far short of the 80,000 acres sought by the Vermont Wilderness Association, a consortium of environmental groups.

The plan for the first time would allow the legal use of ATVs in the national forest, but in what Brewster says is a small and highly restricted way.

Under his aegis, the Green Mountain National Forest has added 28,375 acres, most of it in small parcels and all of it voluntary, he said. He says the forest will eventually encompass 500,000 acres, but that there were fewer large tracts of land available. The Green Mountain National Forest will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2007, he said.

The forest grew rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, when International Paper sold off huge holdings, often at $100 to $200 an acre. The price of land is now in the thousands, he said.

One large chunk of land, the conserved lands owned by TransCanada Corp., around the Harriman and Somerset reservoirs in southern Vermont, have long been discussed as the last big purchase. The land is surrounded by the Green Mountain National Forest.

But Brewster said that the Forest Service would only be interested in the land north of Route 9, or the land surrounding Somerset. He said that would represent about 9,000 to 10,000 acres.

Brewster, along with being the forest supervisor in Vermont, oversaw a small, 16,000-acre national forest in New York state, the Finger Lakes National Forest.

That forest wasn't without controversy, either, Brewster said, when he decided against allowing the extraction of natural gas, which is under the national forest. The decision, however, was interpreted as an open door for future drilling, but Brewster denies that was the case.

That decision "went national," Brewster said, attracting the attention of The New York Times and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who promised that no drilling would occur in New York State's only national forest by inserting a two-sentence rider in the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

Brewster is amazed by how strongly Vermonters feel about the national forest. He said that the staff of the Forest Service was inundated with public comments about the plan. They spent months going through the 10,000 letters or e-mails they received last summer.

He said 8,500 were form letters or e-mails. The predominant issue was how much wilderness protection would be proposed for the 400,000 acres, and whether ATVs would be allowed on the forest. There were also letters about the multiple uses of the forest, particularly how much logging would be allowed – and where – in the forest.

He said he and the staff paid particular attention to the 1,500 original letters written about their plan, and he said that several changes were adopted as a result of public comment.

Brewster, a native New Englander and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has worked for the Forest Service since he graduated from college, with the exception of two years he spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, a small African nation.

"I'm an idealistic person. But I say the biggest change in me in the past seven years has been focusing on what's achievable," he said.

"Will there ever be peace in the valley?" he asked rhetorically. "Vermonters have deeply held views and there is a deep division. I now have a more realistic view of reconciling deeply held views of the forest."

He said his tenure in Vermont has prepared him well for dealing with people who care about the land.

He decided to return to Alaska largely because of its lifestyle, a move that was supported by his wife and two sons, Ben, 18, a senior at Mount St. Joseph Academy in Rutland and Josh, 12, a 7th-grader in Pittsfield.

"The land is the big attraction, it's magnificent and wild," he said.

"These lands are for the public, for future generations. It sounds schmaltzy, but these are the things I cling to," Brewster said.

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.





When this story was posted in May 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:


Contact PCOLBulletin BoardRegisterSearch PCOLWhat's New?

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
Help Peace Corps get its full Appropriation Date: May 12 2006 No: 892 Help Peace Corps get its full Appropriation
Senators DeWine, Feinstein, Santorum, and Durbin are asking their colleagues to join them in signing a letter to Senate Appropriations leaders to fully fund the President's FY07 request for the International Affairs Budget, including a full appropriation for the Peace Corps. Forty-five Senators have already signed on. Here's how you can help. Please make your call by May 16.

Top Stories and Breaking News PCOL Magazine Peace Corps Library RPCV Directory Sign Up

The Peace Corps Library Date: February 24 2006 No: 798 The Peace Corps Library
The Peace Corps Library is now available online with over 40,000 index entries in 500 categories. Looking for a Returned Volunteer? Check our RPCV Directory. New: Sign up to receive PCOL Magazine, our free Monthly Magazine by email. Like to keep up with Peace Corps news as it happens? Sign up to recieve a daily summary of Peace Corps stories from around the world.

PC evacuates East Timor, hopes to return Date: May 9 2006 No: 890 PC evacuates East Timor, hopes to return
Volunteers serving in East Timor have safely left the country as a result of the recent civil unrest and government instability. Latest: The Peace Corps has informed us that they are monitoring the security situation on a daily basis and that it is the intention of the Peace Corps to return to East Timor if the security situation improves.

First Amendment Watch Date: May 4 2006 No: 883 First Amendment Watch
Maine Web Report hit with Federal Lawsuit
Website wins trademark suit against Jerry Falwell

It's Official: Vasquez nominated to FAO Date: April 25 2006 No: 881 It's Official: Vasquez nominated to FAO
Exactly one week ago we predicted that Director Vasquez would soon be receiving a major ambassadorship. Today the White House confirmed that Vasquez will be the new Representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture replacing Tony Hall.

PCOL Comment: Director Vasquez, let us be the first to thank you for your service to the Peace Corps, congratulate you on your new appointment, and wish you good luck in your future endeavors. Although we have had our differences over the years and we opposed your nomination in 2001, we think you are leaving a solid legacy of accomplishment and have served the Peace Corps well.

Initiatives and Accomplishments: Vasquez's major initiatives and accomplishments since becoming Peace Corps Director include: an agreement with Mexico in 2003 to host volunteers, sending RPCVs to work domestically in Hurricane relief after Katrina, emphasis on recruitment of minorities and of community college graduates, upgrading Peace Corps' infrastructure especially IT upgrades in the online application tracking process and the Volunteer Delivery System, an emphasis on safety and security of volunteers including the creation of a Situation Room at Peace Corps Headquarters, modifying Peace Corps' "Five Year Rule" for employment, and the expansion of the Peace Corps to its highest level in 30 years. He is the third longest serving Peace Corps Director after Loret Ruppe Miller and Sargent Shriver.

Interview with a Hit Man Date: April 25 2006 No: 880 Interview with a Hit Man
RPCV John Perkins says that for many years he was an "economic hit man" in the world of international finance whose primary job was to convince less developed countries to accept multibillion dollar loans for infrastructure projects that left the recipient countries wallowing in debt and highly vulnerable to outside political and commercial interests. In this exclusive interview for "Peace Corps Online," Colombia RPCV Joanne Roll, author of Remember with Honor, talks to Perkins about his Peace Corps service, his relation with the NSA, "colonization" in Ecuador, the consequences of his work, why he decided to speak out, and what his hopes are for change.

PC Program in Chad temporarily suspended Date: April 14 2006 No: 872 PC Program in Chad temporarily suspended
Director Vasquez announced the temporary suspension of the Peace Corps program in Chad on April 14 and that all 29 Peace Corps volunteers have left the country. With a program dating back forty years (See Page 4 of the April 1966 "Peace Corps Volunteer"), RPCVs hope that volunteers can return to Chad as soon as the situation has stabilized. Congratulations to the Peace Corps for handling the suspension quickly and professionally.

Peace Corps stonewalls on FOIA request Date: April 12 2006 No: 869 Peace Corps stonewalls on FOIA request
The Ashland Daily Tidings reports that Peace Corps has blocked their request for information on the Volkart case. "After the Tidings requested information pertaining to why Volkart was denied the position — on March 2 — the newspaper received a letter from the Peace Corps FOIA officer stating the requested information was protected under an exemption of the act." The Dayton Daily News had similar problems with FOIA requests for their award winning series on Volunteer Safety and Security.

PCOL readership increases 100% Date: April 3 2006 No: 853 PCOL readership increases 100%
Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

History of the Peace Corps Date: March 18 2006 No: 834 History of the Peace Corps
PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help.

PC announces new program in Cambodia Date: March 29 2006 No: 849 PC announces new program in Cambodia
Director Vasquez and Cambodia's Deputy Chief of Mission Meng Eang Nay announced a historic new partnership between the Peace Corps and the Kingdom of Cambodia that will bring volunteers to this Southeast Asian country for the first time. Under King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia has welcomed new partnerships with the U.S. government and other U.S. organizations.

Peace Corps suspends program in Bangladesh Date: March 16 2006 No: 827 Peace Corps suspends program in Bangladesh
Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez announced the suspension of the Peace Corps program in Bangladesh on March 15. The safety and security of volunteers is the number one priority of the Peace Corps. Therefore, all Peace Corps volunteers serving in Bangladesh have safely left the country. More than 280 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Bangladesh since the program opened in November 1998. Latest: What other newspapers say.

Invitee re-assigned after inflammatory remarks Date: March 21 2006 No: 839 Invitee re-assigned after inflammatory remarks
The Peace Corps has pulled the invitation to Derek Volkart to join the Morocco Training Program and offered him a position in the Pacific instead after officials read an article in which he stated that his decision to join the Peace Corps was in "response to our current fascist government." RPCV Lew Nash says that "If Derek Volkart spoke his mind as freely in Morocco about the Moroccan monarchy it could cause major problems for himself and other Peace Corps volunteers." Latest: Volkart reverses stance, takes new assignment in Paraguay.

RPCV admits to abuse while in Peace Corps Date: February 3 2006 No: 780 RPCV admits to abuse while in Peace Corps
Timothy Ronald Obert has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a minor in Costa Rica while serving there as a Peace Corps volunteer. "The Peace Corps has a zero tolerance policy for misconduct that violates the law or standards of conduct established by the Peace Corps," said Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez. Could inadequate screening have been partly to blame? Mr. Obert's resume, which he had submitted to the Peace Corps in support of his application to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, showed that he had repeatedly sought and obtained positions working with underprivileged children. Read what RPCVs have to say about this case.

Military Option sparks concerns Date: January 3 2006 No: 773 Military Option sparks concerns
The U.S. military, struggling to fill its voluntary ranks, is allowing recruits to meet part of their reserve military obligations after active duty by serving in the Peace Corps. Read why there is opposition to the program among RPCVs. Director Vasquez says the agency has a long history of accepting qualified applicants who are in inactive military status. John Coyne says "Not only no, but hell no!" and RPCV Chris Matthews leads the debate on "Hardball." Avi Spiegel says Peace Corps is not the place for soldiers while Coleman McCarthy says to Welcome Soldiers to the Peace Corps. Read our poll results. Latest: Congress passed a bill on December 22 including language to remove Peace Corps from the National Call to Service (NCS) military recruitment program

Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger Date: October 22 2005 No: 738 Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger
When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. Latest: Read the ongoing dialog on the subject.


Read the stories and leave your comments.






Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Rutland Herald

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Liberia; Forestry; Parks

PCOL32235
43


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: