Environmental groups upset by logging in an Indiana state forest are asking state officials to allow nature to take its course in back-country forest areas.

About 900 trees in the back country portion of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest are being felled by Hamilton Logging, a Martinsville company that purchased the trees for $51,556 in a July timber sale, along with another 287 pole trees.

That logging is expected to generate nearly 200,000 board feet of sawtimber — wood that’s suitable for cutting into lumber. The current logging is the second time the area about 35 miles south of Indianapolis has been logged since it was designated a back country area in 1981 by then-Gov. Robert Orr.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry calls the tree removals an example of timber management, a practice that’s been around for about a century which generates revenue, removes dead or dying trees and opens up space for young trees.

“We know that the forest will regenerate itself with or without us. We just think we’ve been able to apply some good science and technology to manage that forest for the long-term good,” Jack Seifert, director of the DNR’s Division of Forestry, told The Herald-Times.

From The Republic: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/77aa50d44564478db863110962165aff/IN–State-Forests-Logging