Controversy over Midwest Forest Management

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring

Zack Williams

Outdoors, Wilderness, Sports, Fishing, Outdoor, Hunting, Sports & Recreation

4.6 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 114 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A controversy over public lands’ management in Indiana’s 204,000-acre Hoosier National Forest turns out to be a microcosm of a burning (pun intended) national debate over using fire and targeted logging operations to create habitat for wildlife and a healthier, more diverse and more resilient forest.

From the 1960s to 80s, The U.S. Forest Service, in the grip of the so-called “timber beast” style of management, clear-cut millions of acres of publicly owned forestland, leading to widespread loss of wildlife, sediment-filled streams, and a furious backlash from conservationists. A barrage of successful lawsuits from environmental and conservation groups radically changed public land management, often for the good of the land, water and wildlife. But that same backlash, and the habit of filing lawsuits to block or guide public lands management, have posed extreme challenges in the decades since—critically-needed projects to restore native ecosystems and wildlife habitats have been blocked, management has in some cases been brought to a standstill, and a growing body of evidence shows that we have gone too far on certain parts of our public lands in simply “letting nature take its course.” It’s not a debate over “wilderness versus logging and roads” as it is sometimes framed. It’s not about the fallibility of human-directed land management versus the eternal wisdom of nature. It’s about a lot more than that, and it has national implications.

Join us for a conversation with three Hoosier hunters and conservation leaders who’ve found themselves on the frontline of this controversy—BHA Chapter Coordinator Jameson Hibbs, BHA Indiana chapter board member Brian Stone, and Michael Spalding, of the Conservation Law Center, a professional forester from a multi-generation Indiana farming family who has worked in 55 of Indiana’s 92 counties over the course of his career.

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The Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring is brought you by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and presented by Silencer Central, with additional support from Decked and Dometic.

Join Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the voice for your wild public lands, waters, and wildlife to be part of a passionate community of hunter-angler-conservationists.

BHA. THE VOICE FOR OUR WILD PUBLIC LANDS, WATERS AND WILDLIFE.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's a real crisis that, you know, on a day-to-day hike might not be obvious, but if you look at it in a five, ten, multiple-decade scale, we're in crisis mode now.
0:17.0	Y'all are in a place where the good and the bad of a lot of people passionately interested in what happens to those lands.
0:26.9	So you kind of got to bring your egg game.
0:29.7	And so the challenges are already there for the folks managing these.
0:32.6	And there was actually an attempt just this last year to set aside another 10% of each state forest
0:40.4	from management. So to remove even more of it. We tend to say quite a bit, it's all, you know,
0:46.5	we're science-based, North American model wildlife conservation, absolutely, right? But we saw in the
0:51.0	recent battles over our public lands, it is emotional. Yeah. And that's what did it, right? That's what got us to where we are. It's like,
0:59.5	we're emotional about this. Like, this is something we care about. We're passionate about.
1:03.3	And so how do we maintain that?
1:06.6	Hey, everybody. It's Hal Herring, Back Country Hunters and Anglers Podcast and Blast. Thanks for being here.
1:13.2	Hey, I am proud to announce we have a new sponsor for our podcast, and that is Silencer Central.
1:20.0	If you are involved in hunting and shooting or both, you are probably looking at owning or dreaming of owning a silencer suppressor, the same thing
1:31.1	for your firearm.
1:33.8	I've got my first one a couple years ago.
1:36.5	It's been a complete game changer for me.
1:39.1	I'm just looking at another one right now for another rifle.
1:43.2	I will never go back to where I was.
1:47.7	So one of the things, Silencer Central is, has been around since 2005, founded as South Dakota
1:57.1	Silencer.
1:58.6	And it is simply the easiest way to get a suppressor right now.
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	...

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