This loss of woodlands to development and urban sprawl is the result of population growth and people wanting to move from cities to rural areas. Our population grows because we still cling to the concept that growth equals progress and we have not yet realized the serious environmental long range consequences that our current level of population has and will continue to cause. In addition to population growth, urban sprawl is the result of an increasing number of people wanting to leave our cities and to build new homes in the country. The reasons for this are quite complicated but they include, wealth, crime, taxes, pollution, cheap gas, good roads, land cost, and a perceived desire of wanting to get back to nature. Many social and environmental conflicts and problems are created when people take their urban way of life and try to transplant it into a rural environment. The loss of woodlands and the impairment of water quality, air quality, wildlife, recreation, economics, and plant diversity that are associated with the Joss of woodlands are among the many problems being created by this urban sprawl.

This loss of woodlands to urban sprawl should not be confused with or equated to timber harvesting. Harvesting changes the current makeup of a woodland. The woods is changed but it is still there after a timber harvest and it still provides the many environmental advantages of woodlands. What destroys a woodland is conversion to a different use such as housing, agriculture, roads or other building.

The Arrow Head Country RC&D Forestry Committee includes volunteer members from north central Indiana. The committee feels that education about the urban sprawl problem and incentives to slow the number of homes being built in woodlands are the best answer to this loss of woodlands. The sooner steps are taken to slow urban sprawl the better for our remaining woodlands. Accordingly, our committee has written three related articles about home owner, wildlife, and forestry problems associated with homes in the woods. In addition, members of our committee will speak to interested groups, planning commissions, and media about the loss of woodlands to urban sprawl. Our forestry committee feels that reasonable alternatives should be found to encourage people to live in existing developments. New developments should be carefully planned to be convenient, environmentally friendly, and clustered with small lot sizes to prevent the enormous acreage of land currently being consumed for home sites. Incentives could include better property tax rates for cities and planned small lot communities, higher gas taxes to discourage commuting, reduction of crime in cities, and the redevelopment of run down areas in cities.

Our committee also feels that county planning commissioners will need to play an important role if this current high rate of loss of our woodlands is to be reduced. First planning commissions need to recognize the value of woodlands as woodlands and to understand the problems being created by urban sprawl. Then they need to look at their county’s situation and take appropriate steps. Actions could include the adoption of a method to compensate landowners for development value of their land if they do not develop it. Commissions may need to change and enforce zoning rules to prevent the loss of prime woodlands and agriculture lands to random development.