A warm sun burns overhead and a stretch of forest opens itself around Samuel Stearns, who could not be happier to be among the majestic hardwoods and the offending pines of Bell Smith Springs.

The U.S. Forest Service considers non-native short-leaf pines in the Shawnee National Forest to be a potentially invasive species, which might spill over into the surrounding hardwood forest and then gradually take over.

Here are the offending pines ahead, laughs Stearns, who is younger in mind than body, which is evident by the sweat on his brow after reaching the top of a ridge overlooking the crystal-clean stream 200 feet below.

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Stearns is the public education coordinator of Friends of Bell Smith Springs, a 150-member group of old friends and new acquaintances who share a common belief that short-leaf pines in Bell Smith Springs are best left untouched and unmanaged by the Forest Service.

Stearns moves about the stretching acres of short-leaf pine trees grabbing onto a poplar tree here or an oak tree there to prove that the hardwood forest will naturally restore itself. Within the Shawnee National Forest, 3,400 discontinuous acres of short-leaf pine trees rise from the earth and stretch hundreds of feet into the sky. The short-leaf pines are the source of continuous legal actions against and from the Forest Service.

The U.S. Forest Service claimed an exemption for the short-leaf pine tree as an Illinois Endangered Species as a result of local environmentalists challenging the agency’s timber sales program. After a March 20 U.S. District Court ruling, the Forest Service may now allow lumbering company Westvaco Inc. an entrance into the 3,400 scattered acres of short-leaf pines.

Stearns said successful Forest Service management of Bell Smith Springs is best when the agency does not interfere at all. The Forest Service is managing Bell Smith Springs under the theory of an ecological restoration, which includes the logging of nearly all of the 3,400 acres of short-leaf pines.

Ecological restoration might work from Monday to Friday, Stearns said, but Mother Nature is working 365 days a year and 24 hours a day, at no cost to the taxpayers.

The Bell Smith Springs and surrounding areas used to be owned by farmers, who by the end of the Great Depression and dust bowl, had sold much of the land to the federal government. Too much of the soil had been over-grazed and over-planted, and people had to sell, Stearns said. The Shawnee was designated as a national forest in the 1930s after a tremendous amount of land had been acquired from rural families by the government.

Stearns owns a plot of land that was used as an orchard a few miles from Bell Smith Springs and wants to preserve a natural way of life he believes is right for his young daughter.

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I’ve had some of the best times of my life here at Bell Smith. The reason why I live out here away from work and away from grocery stores is for my daughter, Stearns says while pointing to a natural water slide cut into the face of an enormous, sloping boulder. When the water gets so high you can slide from the top to the bottom without hitting your butt on the rocks.

Trying to preserve a certain way of life for his family has not been without its downsides for Stearns, who last week was vindicated of trespassing charges brought against him by the Forest Service.

Stearns was ticketed by the Forest Service in July and August for posting anti-logging stickers on Forest Service signs indicating which areas of Bell Smith Springs are-off limits because of logging.

An independent contractor who had seen Stearns enter a closed area of the forest reported Stearns to Forest Service officials, who later delivered a ticket to him. The Forest Service could not prove Stearns was in a closed area of the forest, and Stearns won the case.

Stearns defended himself in the case by researching prior cases and through self-educating himself in judicial and environmental matters.

It’s hard having to make time to go to court over things like this, Stearns said. The Forest Service is engaging in harassment techniques against logging protesters, and it’s working.

Monica Ross, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said signs are posted near short-leaf pine logging sites for the public safety.

There is a reason for the closure order, so no one gets hurt., Ross said. It is costly to go to court, but it would be more costly if someone got injured.

Stearns said he has received threatening and alarming threats over his phone, had his car illegally towed by the Forest Service and had his property invaded by unidentified assailants, but he continues his fight for the short-leaf pine trees in Bell Smith Springs.

When times have gotten tough and inconveniences appear too great, Stearns recalls a conversation he had with his friend Mark Donham, president of the Regional Association of Concerned Environmentalists.