Despite promises from the Biden Administration and more than half-a-million public comments in support of the strongest possible protections, the US Forest Service is on the verge of finalizing a nationwide old-growth logging plan instead of an old-growth protection policy. The public has one last chance to weigh in - don't miss this critical opportunity
BACKGROUND:
Mature and old-growth trees and forests are lifeboats for native biodiversity, reduce the risk of flooding, protect our climate by absorbing and storing carbon, help regulate temperatures, clean our air, filter drinking water, and support mental and physical health. Logging them deprives us of the benefits and beauty of our largest, oldest, and rarest trees and forests.
President Biden initiated a process to conserve mature and old-growth forests on federal lands in 2022 when he signed Executive Order 14072. Earlier this year, the Forest Service completed an inventory of old-growth in National Forests across the US. The inventory found that just one-quarter of one percent of the White Mountain National Forest is in an old-growth condition, and just one-half of one percent of the Green Mountain National Forest, putting New England's two National Forests towards the very bottom of the list, nationwide. This is unacceptable in a region where old-growth forests once blanketed the landscape. We must put our National Forests on a different path.
The Forest Service is currently developing policies to manage old-growth forests in response to President Biden's direction. Instead of protecting and expanding old-growth forests on federal lands, the US Forest Service's proposed National Old Growth Amendment encourages logging in old-growth forests and provides no protection for mature (or future old-growth) forests.
TAKE ACTION:
The public has until 11:59pm on Friday, September 20th to comment on the National Old Growth Amendment Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
Want to submit a more personal comment letter? Use the list of key points below to send a unique comment through the Forest Service's comment portal at this link. You can access all of the Forest Service's supporting documents here.
Instead of protecting and expanding old-growth forests for the benefit of present and future generations, the National Old-Growth Amendment (NOGA) encourages logging within America's scarce old-growth forests, failing to uphold President Biden's Executive Order 14072. Under the manufactured title of "proactive stewardship," the NOGA would allow the Forest Service to log old-growth forests for almost any reason.
Would the new policies contemplated by the US Forest Service have stopped the destructive Telephone Gap, Tarleton, Peabody West, or Sandwich logging projects? No. The same can be said for two dozen logging projects highlighted in reports by the Climate Forests Coalition, as well as many others. Between December 2023 and April 2024, while this policy-making process was ongoing, the US Forest Service approved more than 115,000-acres of old-growth logging. The National Old Growth Amendment, as currently proposed, would allow these reckless logging practices to continue.
As we highlighted in a recent letter with 35 other organizations based across the Eastern US, the NOGA is especially egregious in its failure to protect and restore old-growth in Forest Service Regions 8 and 9 (including all USFS lands east of the Mississippi River), where old-growth forests are rarer than in any other part of the US. The Forest Service's Draft Environmental Impact Statement admits that less than one-half of one percent of both the White and Green Mountain National Forests is old-growth. Nevertheless, the NOGA fails to move the needle for either existing or future old-growth.
There is no ecological justification for logging in old-growth (or mature) stands in moist forests across the US. The US Forest Service suggests that mature and old-growth forests need to be logged for their own benefit, but science says otherwise. Old and wild forests are more resilient to disturbances that are likely to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change; they store several times more carbon than younger forests; they are more effective at reducing the impacts of flooding; and they provide a full range of habitat niches, from early to late successional conditions, required by native species. Logging to preemptively remove trees that could become infected by insects (such as emerald ash borer or hemlock wooly adelgid) or disease (such as beech bark or beech leaf disease), as well as salvage harvesting of dead trees, is often far more destructive to forest health and carbon storage than the perceived "threat" or "ailment."
The final record of decision should: a) End the cutting of old-growth trees in all national forests and forest types and end the cutting of any trees in old-growth stands in moist forest types (including all of the forest types here in New England's two National Forests); b) End any commercial exchange of old-growth trees. Even in the rare circumstances where an old-growth tree is cut (e.g. public safety), that tree should not be sent to the mill.
Thanks for taking a stand for public forests!
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