Conecuh National Forest is for Protecting, Not Oil and Gas Production
By Lathram Berry
Berry is a land steward, organizer, and facilitator living in Wetumpka, who comes from a long line of forest peoples in south Alabama.
This letter was written and sent to Linwood Butler, Forest Supervisor for the National Forests in Alabama, in consideration of the Conecuh Oil and Gas Leasing Analysis. This analysis is a federal process that was initiated in December of 2024 to update the management guidelines that impact all future oil and gas leasing in the 81,300 acres of the Conecuh National Forest, with a decision projected in February of 2026. This letter was released as an op-ed in the Mobile Real-Time News with AL.com.
Attn: Forest Supervisor for the National Forests in Alabama
Dear Mr. Linwood Butler,
Before I can see the trees of the 81,300 acres of Conecuh National Forest, I can smell them. My lungs sense this purified air, my body reaching to take a deeper breath. Because you are a person of the forest, I imagine you know this feeling too. Or the way our feet bounce as they move across the land on supple, but solid, ground covered in longleaf needles, as they wait for good fire to come.
When I reach the longleaf here, I know I am home. Of the 90 million acres of longleaf ecosystem that stretched from Virginia to Texas, there are 5 million left.* Alabama was – could still be – the heart of this forest. But, we are not protecting this heart.
Representing 1% of the state’s acreage, Conecuh National Forest was put into federal protection in 1936, after years of being cut for commercial production. Today, this land is cared for by many: hunters in the winter months, families camping along the ponds in the summer, hikers moving through the woods in the spring. It is the home of many: the gopher tortoise, the Eastern indigo snake, the red cockaded-woodpecker, and the mature longleaf itself. It used to be home of others: the buffalo and their Mvskokvlke kin, widespread canebrakes worked with for building and basketry, gulf sturgeon coming back to the Conecuh River to spawn from the Gulf of Mexico. Keeping this land protected means there is a pathway for return, and for continued flourishing beyond both of our lifetimes.
Somewhere along the way, my people forgot this was a place to protect too. Beginning in the 1970s, my great-grandfather John Richard Miller with T.R. Miller and Cedar Creek Land and Timber pursued oil and gas production in these woods in the upper left corner of the forest. Now, the wells are plugged and abandoned, but the ghosts are still there, along with many others. Over time, wells have been dug up to 15,000 feet in the ground near Blackwater Creek, crucial to the Conecuh River Watershed, or right in the center of the forest, like the Hickory Branch oil field. As you know, hydrocarbon extraction in these protected woods has continued, with two oil wells producing right now, according to the State of Alabama Oil and Gas Board.
Oil and gas production does not belong in protected, endangered forests. And, you have the window of opportunity to shut down the future of all oil and gas leasing in Conecuh National Forest, as we near the final decision of the Conecuh Oil and Gas Leasing Analysis. To not be bothered by oil wells and gas flares amongst the forest means we have forgotten what it feels like for our lungs to fill with this oxygenated air, for our feet to move across the earth with ease, and for our eyes to see this land as what humbly offers us life.
Right now, this extraction is set to continue, based on the Draft Decision of the Conecuh Oil and Gas Leasing Analysis, despite the majority of the 777 public comments asking for “Alternative C: approximately 81,300 acres of the decision area would be unavailable for new oil and gas leasing. There would be no new oil and gas leasing in the Conecuh National Forest.”**
To be a supervisor of this forest, means to be one who watches over. An invitation to protect, to adapt as time, knowledge, and priorities evolve. Shutting down the future of all oil and gas leasing in Conecuh National Forest with Alternative C is a commitment to watch over this land, for now and for many years to come – to help us all remember that this land is for protecting, not producing.
With gratitude,
Lathram Berry
*https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs-initiatives/longleaf-pine-initiative