
          The North Georgia Forty
          By Jones, GreggGregg Jones
          Vol. 5, No. 6, 1983, p. 13
          
          Their rallying cry is "Keep public lands in public hands," and
Dr. Phillip Greear hopes it will help save national forest land from
the auction block.
          An ecologist at North Georgia's Shorter College, Greear takes
credit for coining the phrase that is appearing on bumpers around the
United_States in protet of the federal_government's talk of selling
national forest lands.
          In all, 856,000 acres of national forest are being considered for
sale in the fourteen state Southeast region--a little less than ten
percent of the region's twelve million forest land acres--sprawling
from Virginia's Potomac River to the Brazos River of Texas. Georgia
lands for possible sale include 95,000 acres in the Chattahoochie
National Forest and 34,000 acres in the Oconee National Forest.
          Greear has been joined by farmers, teachers, college students,
artists, labor leaders and even state senator Ed Hines, some forty
north Georgians in all, fighting the possible sale of parts of the
Chattahoochie and Oconee national forests in the state.
          Selling government land has been proposed by the Reagan
Administration as a means of reducing the national debt. Under the
Administration's directive, Secretary of Agriculture John Block is
drafting legislation that would allow the sale of forest lands,
according to Roy Gandy, director of lands and minerals for the
U.S. Forest Service Southeast Region. (National forest lands fall
under the control of the Department of Agriculture.)
          "We decided that since the proposal has to go before Congress, we
had to speak out and let congressmen and senators know that we object
to the plan," says Greear, a pipe-smoking environmental activist. He
has successfully fought potentially environmentally damaging federal
proposals before in the North Georgia mountains, and he views this as
yet another threat on forest land around the country.
          Greear grew up in the mountainous North Georgia forests. He saw the
government acquire depleted forest land from private lumber interests
and nurture it to a more pristine state as the Chattahoochie National
Forest.
          It wasn't long after he came into office that President Reagan
sowed the seeds for the forest land fight. In 1981 he created the
Property Review Board, which was instructed to study national forest,
park and wildlife lands for possible sale. In turn, regional federal
officials began reviewing public lands. Last spring, the Southeast
Region of the U.S. Forest Service released its list of lands that
might be sold.
          Greear and other opponents of the proposed sale banded together and
began raising funds. They rallied five hundred sympathizers in May and
began sending out newsletters to the media and the public. As a recent
move to underscore the importance and value of the Chattahoochie
National Forest, group members began work on a forty-seven mile trail
that will provide recreation benefits to thousands.
          The program to sell off "surplus federal property" already has
picked up steam this year in Georgia and other Southeastern states,
reports Barney Maltby, of the General Services Administration's
regional office in Atlanta. In 1982 only two small pieces of federal
land were sold in the state, fetching eight thousand dollars. As of
September, 258 acres of federal land in Georgia have been sold for
nearly one million dollars in 1983. Maltby said he expects the sales
in the Southeast to top twenty million dollars by the end of this
month.
          The proposal has resulted in environmentalists leveling yet another
broadside at the Reagan administration and its environmental
policies. Public reaction was harsh enough to prompt former Interior
Secretary James G. Watt to decide against selling his department's
refuge and national park lands.
          The issue of selling forest lands, however, remains very much alive
before the Agriculture Department. The sale question will likely be
decided by Congress, and Gandy says "just about anything" could
happen.
          Greear and the North Georgians, meanwhile, are whipping up support
and lobbying state and federal legislators. They vow to continue the
fight "until we get the government to drop the plan," says
Greear. "Our main goal is to keep the issue alive and keep pressure on
Congress, and hopefully prevent legislation from ever being
introduced.
          
            Gregg Jones is a reporter for the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
          
        
