Forest lands for sale in Rabun?

Local residents have expressed questions and concerns about the National Forest Service’s (USFS) proposition to sale National Forest System land located in Rabun County and the surrounding Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests.

This potential sale includes 30 tracts, or 3,841 acres, of National Forest System land in the state of Georgia, according to Steven Bekkerus, public affairs officer for the Forest Service, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, in a phone interview Monday.

Approximately 1,229 acres of that is located in Rabun County.

“There are seven tracts in Rabun County identified for potential conveyance from national forest system ownership,” Bekkerus said in an email Tuesday.

He said that these tracts are identified on the map as CRRD 02, CRRD 03, CRRD 07, CRRD 09, CRRD 10, CRRD 11 and CRRD 12.

“We [Chattooga Conservancy] are not in favor of selling public land as a rule because of the values it [the land] provides to citizens and wildlife,” said Nicole Hayler, executive director of Chattooga Conservancy, in a phone interview Tuesday.

She argued that selling the land sets a “very dangerous precedent.”

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