President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to eliminate environmental safeguards on more than half of the nation’s national forests, opening up 59% of the land for logging.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the action Friday, citing danger from wildfires as the reason for the change.
What does the new national forests directive say?
What we know:
It exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized. It also narrows the number of alternatives federal officials can consider when weighing logging projects.
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Logging projects are routinely contested by conservation groups, both at the administrative level and in court, which can drag out the approval process for years.
Rollins did not mention climate change in Friday’s directive, which called on her staff to speed up environmental reviews.
By the numbers:
Forest Service officials at the regional level were told to come up with plans to increase the volume of timber offered by 25% over the next four to five years.
The emergency designation covers 176,000 square miles (455,000 square kilometers) of terrain primarily in the West but also in the South, around the Great Lakes and in New England. Combined, it is an area larger than California and amounts to 59% of Forest Service lands.
Local perspective:
In Washington state, 517,000 acres of forested land showed some level of tree death, defoliation, infestation or disease in the latest statewide survey. Rollins' memo did not name which National Forests will be opened up for emergency logging, but comparing the map referenced in the memo with the USDA map of Forest Service land in the Pacific Northwest, it appears the Trump administration has targeted areas for harvesting in every National Forest in Washington state. This includes trees in the Olympic National Forest, large swaths of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie and Gifford Pinchot National Forests, and seemingly all of the Okanogan-Wenatchee, Colville and Umatilla National Forests.
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What they're saying:
"National Forests are in crisis due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species and other stressors," Rollins said in her directive, echoing concerns raised by her predecessor under Biden, Tom Vilsack.
Will the order boost US lumber production?
What we don't know:
Whether the move will boost lumber supplies as Trump envisioned in an executive order last month remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden’s administration also sought more logging in public forests to combat fires, which are worsening as the world gets hotter, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales stayed relatively flat under his tenure.
What do environmentalists say?
The other side:
Environmentalists rejected the claim that wildfire protection was driving the changes to forest policy.
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"This is all about helping the timber industry," said Blaine Miller-McFeeley of the environmental group Earthjustice. "It’s not looking at what will protect communities. It’s about the number of board feet, the number of trees you are pulling down."
How much timber does the Forest Service sell?
The backstory:
The Forest Service has sold about 3 billion board feet of timber annually for the past decade. Timber sales peaked several decades ago at about 12 billion board feet amid widespread clearcutting of forests. Volumes dropped sharply in the 1980s and 1990s as environmental protections were tightened and more areas were put off limits to logging. Most timber is harvested from private lands.
Federal law allows for the harvest of about 6 billion board feet annually — about twice the level that’s now logged, said Travis Joseph, president of the Oregon-based American Forest Resource Council, an industry group.
Under Biden, the Forest Service sought to more intensively manage national forests in the West, by speeding up wildfire protection work including logging in so-called "priority landscapes" covering about 70,000 square miles (180,000 square kilometers).
Much of that work involved smaller trees and younger forests that add fuel to wildfires but are less profitable for loggers.
What's next:
Timber industry representatives said they hope the Trump administration’s actions will result in the sales of more full-grown stands of trees that are desired by sawmills.
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press.
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