Pennsylvania Forests Certified As Well-Managed

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

April 2, 2012 | 1:26 PM

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A drilling rig in the Tioga State Forest

Environmental advocates have worried natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania’s state forests could harm their status as “well-managed,” but as the Post-Gazette reports, the forest have been certified for the fourteenth-straight year.

An independent audit report by the Rainforest Alliance, released last week by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, confers the coveted certification, while also noting special challenges posed by development of Marcellus Shale gas wells in the forests.
…”This continued certification of our state forests is a reaffirmation of the pride we take in managing our state forest system for many values and uses, while maintaining its long-term health and viability,” said DCNR secretary Richard Allen. “Today, there are many threats and challenges in forest management, including fragmentation and disturbance, invasive plants, destructive exotic insects and insufficient regeneration.”

This certification has a financial impact: it allows the state to market timber and other products harvested from the forests as environmentally-friendly. This green certification opens the door to millions of dollars in potential revenue.