• Identify Old Growth and preserve it .
• Questions: What does "recovery" mean? What are "desired future conditions?" Do we want an aging forest? What are "our" goals? What consensus is there about goals? Do we need them now if we manage our forests conservatively, keeping our options open?

Is aggressive management needed to repair degrading values?

• Recognize the value of "no development."

• Harmonize recreational use and recreational development particularly with it.

• Recognize that muddy water from October to April can smother trout eggs. Control it. Permit only gravel ridge roads where trout reproduction potential exists. Permit no clearcuts on reproducing trout streams. Nutrient infertility may not permit a tree harvest of perhaps 1/10 of available nutrients. An impoverishment of the site and then the stream with "fish loss" may occur.
• Recognize that acid rain has already leached away nutrients equal to a clear cut harvest (250 lbs/acre) of West Virginia’s forests. It is a harvest foregone. It would have been of great value itself, but it may also prohibit future harvests from vast areas because of low nutrient supplies. We must stop acid rain. It acidifies forest and stream. "Fish-loss" has occurred. It endangers our spruce ecosystem. Most sediment may come from channel erosion rather than surface disturbance and erosion. Recognize it, and realize there are no Best Management Practices for it.
• Quantify sources - channel/surface.
• Recognize off-site channel destruction below deforestation. Recognize respon- sibility to prevent it, first on public land then on private. Recognize deforestation (surely clearcuts) increase stream flows for 5 years and then in-channel erosion. The channel can be destroyed in years. Quantify it carefully to devise the responsible allowable extent of canopy reduction -- recognizing the present destabilized condition of stream channels.

• Recognize that roads for selective timber cuts may occupy 1/10 of surface and reduce the canopy. A canopy reduction of 1/10 or more can cause a measurable increase in flow. Recognize development can additionally reduce the canopy and cause impervious surfaces that increase flooding and in-channel erosion.

• Recognize how little we do know about forest workings and manage conser- vatively. We may know more later.
• Recognize citizens care about the forests, valuing particularly restoration and recreational aesthetics. They will not simply trust foresters who "know everything" and say "trust me." Citizens ask questions that are not replied to by foresters; Citizens conclude foresters do not know. Unless citizen confidence can be restored they will not allow aggressive management.
• Join the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy in more such deliberations about our forests. Write the WVHC Public Lands Management Chairs (currently Sayre Rodman and Bill Ragette). Find our next meeting.