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After spending more than two years drafting a plan to manage and protect our nation’s old-growth forests enduring the ravages of climate change, the Biden administration has suddenly abandoned the effort.
The U.S. Forest Service’s decision to shelve the National Old Growth Amendment ends, for now, any goal of creating a cohesive federal approach to managing the oldest trees on the 193 million acres of land it manages nationwide. Instead, these actions will be taken at the local level, Commissioner Randy Moore said.
“There is strong support and expectation for us to continue to conserve these forests based on the best scientific information available,” he wrote. letter sent on tuesday To local forest officers and forest supervisors informing them of this movement. “We have also received feedback that there are important place-based differences that need to be understood to ensure that old-growth forests are resilient and sustainable into the future, using the best scientific information based on key place-based ecological conditions. “On the ground.”
President Biden has launched a broad effort to strengthen the climate resilience of America’s forests. executive order He made the announcement on Earth Day in April 2022. Under the order, the Forest Service sought consistency in protecting mature and old trees in the 154 forests, 20 grasslands and other lands the Forest Service manages. The reason why this change is necessary is because ‘old-growth forests’ are defined differently in each country depending on the characteristics of the forests in the region, but forests are generally at least 100 years old.
Most of the remaining ancient forests in the United States are found in places like Alaska and California, where some trees in the Tongass National Forest are more than 800 years old. In the East, many older plants are concentrated in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. Of the land managed by the Forest Service, old-growth forests account for approximately 24 million acres, and mature forests account for approximately 67 million acres.
The plan would limit logging in old-growth forests, with some exceptions permitted to reduce fire risk. The Forest Service has been gathering public input on this proposal for several months. The Associated Press said It was scheduled to end at any moment now. Many scientists and advocates The amendment would have codified the loophole This allows you to log into old-growth forests. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and timber industry representatives who have introduced bills to block any rules have argued that logging is critical to many state economies and deserves more input and control over forest management, according to the AP. Those criticisms influenced the decision to cancel the plan, the AP reported.
Montana Republican Senator Ron Daines issued a statement Calling the Forest Service’s decision “a victory for common-sense local management of our forests,” he said, “Montana’s old-growth forests are already protected by each individual forest plan, so this proposal would have simply delayed work to protect them from wildfires.” “It is one of the threats facing old-growth forests.”
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Political disagreements over preserving old growth are not new. Jim Furnish, a former deputy director of the Forest Service who retired in 2002, said the agency has become more responsive to the need for old-growth protection over the years. Furnish said that in the 1950s and ’60s, “they generally viewed old-growth forests as the place where we could get the most of the highest value lumber.” Controversy surrounding spotted owl conservation Roadless Rule 2001More dedicated protection of primary forests and conservation of mature second-growth forests have paved the way for the creation of “new” old-growth forests.
Ultimately, Furnish said the amendment was doomed by the Forest Service’s failure to act quickly after Biden issued his executive order. Under the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to review and potentially overturn regulations issued by federal agencies, the new Republican-controlled Congress could repeal new regulations within 60 days, precluding any future efforts to adopt such amendments. .
Will Harlan, South East director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said scrapping the scheme may be for the best as it would continue to protect homeless people at a local level under current regulations, while also leaving room for future protections.
“There will probably be project-by-project fights over the next few years wherever the Forest Service selects logging projects,” he said. “Advocates and conservation groups will be closely monitoring any old plants that may be present in the project and will fight to protect them.”
