The Forest Service is proposing to amend the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP was created to protect old-growth forests and wildlife.
The new plan proposals would weaken the protection of public forests.
The NWFP was implemented in response to excessive logging ravaging many acres of public patrimony with massive clearcuts that turned public forests into industrial tree farms.
By the 1980s, it was obvious that old-growth forests and other natural would soon be extirpated, along with the numerous species that depended on them, like the spotted owl.
In 1994, in response to public outrage over the carnage, the Clinton Administration implemented the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) to slow the destruction of our national forest heritage.
The 1994 NWFP prioritized ecosystem recovery and required protections for mature (80+ years old) and old-growth forests.
These changes have turned some of our public forest lands into carbon sinks, reducing GHG emissions and contributing to climate warming. The NWFP also protected many forested watersheds, which are the spring wells of many municipalities. Forest protection has slowed the extinction of numerous species that depend on these old-growth forests.
The Forest Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has four alternatives. Its preferred action, Alt B, would be a disaster for our forests.
Logging under Alternatives B could exceed one billion board feet annually, doubling 2023 logging levels and tripling the most recent 10-year average.
It raises the age class of “mature” or late successional stage forests from 80 to 120 years, effectively opening up 824,000 acres to logging. Post-fire logging of large old snags—the most essential biological legacy from wildfires—would be subject to logging.
In matric stands of 200-year-old “old-growth” forests, logging to preclude fire would be permitted, even though such logging has been shown to INCREASE wildfire spread.
It advocates logging up to a third of dry, east-side Oregon forests for “forest health” and fire hazard reduction—both questionable logging outcomes. Without going into the weeds, logging often opens forests to greater wind penetration and drying, which have been shown to increase fire spread, not reduce it.
Furthermore, the FS has broad discretion in determining a “dry forest,” meaning it could log other forest types.
The plan calls for logging up to 964,000 acres of dry forest landscape in the next 15 years.
The preferred alternative of the NWFP revision will be a disaster for public forests.
While the status quo has numerous problems, the proposed alternatives are more problematic. Interested citizens can write the FS and ask them to choose Alt-A, which maintains the current NWFP regulations. Send copies of your comments to Senator Merkley and Senator Wyden.
Comments
The USFWS plans to kill nearly 500,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest in the next 30 years, claiming it will benefit spotted owls. Meanwhile, Forest Service proposes to destroy more of the old-growth forests required by spotted owls. Doesn’t seem to make much sense. Are these agencies talking to one another? What is the strategy? Is the barred owl plan the cover story for the logging plan?
These timber companies ,subversive gangsters destroy our atmosphere mass murder doing this. We want them arrested,Richard S. Meyers,John B. Nance Peters and WOU taken to the International Court of Justice for mass murdering dictatorship attacking Scientists also causing the plotted murder of a million Americans with diseases I can cure! Barack and Michelle Obama Arrested for Federal Copyright violations,Terrorism and High Treason. Robert Wheeler
To allow additional clear cutting for the benefit of lumber companies only will cause irreparable harm to our ecosystems. The science is clear, we are at a very dangerous tipping point of no return. Please stop these dominionistic policies of ravaging our wilderness for financial gain. Our very survival depends on every move we make moving forward.
Much of your opinions on forest health and what you call”old growth ” forests is based on cult based opinions which have no support in reality.