Region Archives: United States

Since the 1970s, billions of dollars in federal contracts have gone to forestry work like replanting trees or fuels reduction. Oregon has long been a center for businesses getting those contracts. But that industry looked a lot different 50 years ago. On a December morning the hills above Ashland, like many forests in the West, are buzzing with the sound of chainsaws. Workers with the nonprofit Lomakatsi Restoration Project are busy working to protect the valley from wildfire. Crews are clearing understory, reducing fuel that can feed fire. But while Oregon has long been a center for these jobs, the industry has changed dramatically over time. …Thanks to the 1972 Oregon Forest Practices Act, Rust found that alternative. The law required land clear cut by loggers to be replanted, a win for early environmentalists. 

Hannah Downey

…This week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act to help overcome the legal and political hurdles that stand in the way of addressing the wildfire crisis. …the declining health of our nation’s forests is the primary cause [of the wildfire crisis]. …Red tape and unnecessary litigation hold up forest restoration projects for years, consuming time and money that should instead be spent on the ground. Research from the Property and Environment Research Center—found that federal permitting and litigation can delay needed projects from five to nine years. …Co-sponsored by Rep. Scott Peters and Rep. Bruce Westerman, the legislation received broad bipartisan support. The Senate and President Donald Trump should move quickly to pass the legislation and empower agencies and partners with needed forest restoration tools.

Five Northwest conservation groups have joined the federal government in defending a program to kill barred owls in the Pacific Northwest to protect the threatened northern spotted owl. These environmental groups have joined the government’s side, in opposition to animal rights groups. Tom Wheeler of Arcata, a California-based conservation nonprofit EPIC, said that like animal rights groups, they also believe that individual lives of wild animals are precious, but, “We also hold that ecosystems are real and important and that species are real and important. And that the preservation of ecosystems and species are really important and worth protecting.” …Wheeler said it’s necessary to remove invasive barred owls from the region to give researchers more time to come up with a long-term solution to the growing threat of extinction for northern spotted owls. …The animals rights groups say the government is violating federal environmental law.

Bruce Westerman

WASHINGTON — One of the first bills to pass the lower chamber of Congress in Donald Trump’s presidency, the Fix Our Forests Act would increase the pace and scale of forest management projects by speeding up environmental reviews, deterring frivolous lawsuits. It was reintroduced after passing the House of Representatives last September with overwhelming bipartisan support but did not make it through the Senate, and will need to compete for floor space in the upper chamber before it can be signed into law. It passed the House comfortably in a 279-141 vote but environmental groups said the bill had been “misleadingly” named and would open public lands to massive logging projects under the guise of preventing wildfires. …Robert Dewey, at Defenders of Wildlife said the bill would remove science from land management decisions and weaken protections for endangered species. 

NAHB Press Release: NAHB Commends House Passage of Forestry Bill

The Hill, by Rachel Frazin: Amid raging fires, House passes contentious forestry bill

COLORADO — To create a society in balance with fire, we need to be able to imagine it. Unfortunately, for the last century, we’ve been saturated with news and stories about the worst aspects of fire. We need new stories about fire, stories that depict us as more than helpless victims or warriors against it. We need to see ourselves as stewards of the land so that we can coexist with fire. For the last four years, I poured my heart and soul into telling a story that demonstrates this. In 2020, the Cameron Peak Fire was racing uncontrollably towards communities in northern Colorado. When it reached the footprints of a prescribed burn and forest thinning treatment, a near miracle occurred. When I heard what happened, I knew that it needed to be shared far and wide. After four years of filming and editing, that film, Fireforest, is now freely available online.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been cleaning up the state’s forests since President Donald Trump told him to the last time he visited a big California wildfire in 2020. But as Trump touches down in Los Angeles on Friday to view the latest damage, forest management remains a political vulnerability for Newsom that Republicans have capitalized on since the wildfires started — and that Democrats have struggled to defend against. Trump’s repeated chastisements of Newsom to “manage your forests” echoes in-state Republicans’ longstanding argument that Newsom and Democrats aren’t doing enough to clear overgrown flammable brush and trees from the state’s forests. Some Republicans have taken up Trump’s idea of holding disaster aid hostage for policy concessions… Trump himself has repeated the familiar cudgel, telling Fox News, “Remember, I took criticism when I said, ‘You have to manage your forests.’ … Look at what happened in Los Angeles. It’s like a nuclear weapon went off.”

In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years. Found in my home state of Utah, “Pando” is a 106-acre stand of quaking aspen clones. Although it looks like a woodland of individual trees with striking white bark and small leaves that flutter in the slightest breeze, Pando (Latin for “I spread”) is actually 47,000 genetically identical stems that arise from an interconnected root network. This single genetic individual weighs around 6,000 metric tons. By mass, it is the largest single organism on Earth. Although Pando is protected by the US National Forest Service and is not in danger of being cut down, it is in danger of disappearing due to several other factors.

The Northwest Forest Plan is undergoing a once-in-a-generation amendment process and a symposium held on Wednesday afternoon on the University of Oregon campus worked to make sure that vital voices are included in the process. The symposium brought together multiple groups to make sure that the voices of indigenous communities, environmental justice advocates, and others are included in the forest plan’s amendment process. The goal is to educate the community about the critical importance of including indigenous perspectives and indigenous leadership in solving the climate and wildfire crisis affecting northwest forests… Nearly 280 people attended the symposium that was held in the Redwood Auditorium at the Erb Memorial Union. More details on the symposium can be found on the University of Oregon’s website.

Yana Valachovic

Wildfires are a fact of life in California. As the flames die down and residents return, this moment presents an opportunity to think more holistically about reducing wildfire risk in Los Angeles and other fire-prone regions. “There’s a lot that we can do as residents and homeowners to really change that trajectory and make small, often inexpensive actions that can make a big difference in changing the outcome when our buildings are exposed to the pathways of wildfire,” said Yana Valachovic, a fire scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network… “I’m a licensed professional forester, so I will share my bias that I do like wood. We grow a lot of trees in California. It is our available natural resource, and I think it’s important to be able to use what you have in your community. The wood itself is combustible, but there are treatments that can make it fire-resistant.”