Region Archives: United States

The U.S. Forest Service has released its long-awaited proposal to update the landmark Northwest Forest Plan, but many groups said they were unsure of its future with a new administration coming to power in 2025. The document, years in the making, lays out four alternatives for future management of national forests in Washington, Oregon and California by updating a 1994 law crafted by the Clinton administration. The 630,000-acre Siuslaw National Forest along the central Oregon coast would be heavily affected by any decisions laid out in a final plan. A 120-day public comment period begins now, which the agency says will help shape a final plan. “Much has changed in society and science since the Northwest Forest Plan was created nearly 30 years ago,” said Jacque Buchanan, regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region. “We’re amending the plan to address today’s challenges [honoring the] original goals, while enhancing wildfire resilience.”

PORT ANGELES — Tree advocates have been partially successful in postponing the logging of forests owned by the state Department of Natural Resources and located within the Elwha watershed region, and they plan to continue their efforts until they achieve full success. At the November Board of Natural Resources (BNR) meeting, Hilary Franz, state commissioner of public lands and chair of the board, placed a pause on the Elwha Watershed “Alley Cat” timber sale. Franz said she pulled the sale from the agenda due to a conversation she had with Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe chairwoman Frances Charles and the desire to have “government-to-government consideration.” Despite advocacy efforts that included a petition with more than 300 signatures and a letter-writing campaign that generated more than 6,165 letters, the six-person BNR approved two other Elwha watershed sales, “Tree Well” and “Parched.” Individuals against those sales said that the “legacy forests” were the “old growth forests of tomorrow.”

OREGON — The state’s in-house banker looked at the repayment promise that the Oregon Department of Forestry offered in exchange for a $60 million loan and said, “No.” …The ODF approached the treasury for a loan last month after a record-setting wildfire season left the agency with a stack of unpaid invoices. It is often the case that the department, which leads the state’s response to wildfires, hires contractors to do the work, then bills the federal agencies that own the land where many fires occur. This year’s fire season, which saw nearly 2 million acres burn, cost $133 million—more than twice the previous high and far more than the agency budgeted. …Treasury officials worried about the ODF’s reliance on future funding from the Legislature… as one legislature cannot obligate a subsequent legislature. …Forestry spokeswoman Joy Krawczyk says her agency will now ask lawmakers for the money instead.

Irvine, California — The severity of California’s wildfires has rapidly increased over the last several decades as a result of human-driven climate change, resulting in accelerated tree losses during more intense wildfires, a study from University of California, Irvine and the University of Utah reveals. “As California’s climate has become warmer and drier, the severity of the average wildfire increased by 30 percent between the 1980s and 2010s,” said Jon Wang, a professor at the University of Utah. This means that for every acre of forest scorched by fire, the damages to tree canopy are considerably higher than what they were several decades ago. …The team wanted to find out how much of the rising tree cover loss in California is due to increases in total area burned, how much of the loss is due to increasing wildfire severity and how much is due to fire moving into new areas with denser forests. 

The gophers were grumpy, but they understood the assignment. Brought by helicopter to a barren landscape with pumice stones the size of marbles and golf balls, the animals did what they’ve always done: They started digging. Just two years earlier, a cataclysm erased life in the landscape. The explosive eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 blew out the mountain’s northern flank and destroyed some 135 square miles of forest. …When scientists returned to the fenced plots six years later, they were stunned to find some 40,000 plants there, while nearby patches of land remained desolate. In the decades since, the effects have kept compounding. …So, why did it happen? Part of the credit goes to the gopher’s diligent digging, which cycled fertile materials back toward the surface. But they also left things behind — from their droppings to spores and fungi.

U.S. officials would allow increased logging on federal lands across the Pacific Northwest in the name of fighting wildfires and boosting rural economies under proposed changes to a sweeping forest management plan that’s been in place for three decades. The U.S. Forest Service proposal, released Friday, would overhaul the Northwest Forest Plan that governs about 38,000 square miles in Oregon, Washington and California. The plan was adopted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton amid pressure to curb logging that destroyed habitat used by spotted owls. …But federal officials now say worsening wildfires due to climate change mean forests must be more actively managed to increase their resiliency. Increased logging also would provide a more predictable supply of trees for timber companies, helping rural economies that have suffered after lumber mills shut down. The proposal could increase annual timber harvests by at least 33%, according to a draft environmental study.

A federal hiring freeze on seasonal U.S. Forest Service workers could mean fewer people putting out abandoned campfires, constructing trails and preventing wildfires across Colorado next year. The freeze is projected to impact 156 temporary seasonal positions across Colorado. Those employees cover a wide range of critical tasks: wildfire prevention and education, campsite management and biological fieldwork as well as trail construction and maintenance. Local government leaders said the staffing reductions would be felt hard in Colorado’s central mountains, where highly trafficked Forest Service land dominates much of the area and is the center of recreation tourism that fuel economies. Several counties pay to fund seasonal positions, but the hiring freeze means those paid-for positions could remain vacant, putting years-old agreements in jeopardy. …The hiring freeze, announced in September, is the result of a potential $500 million budget cut to the agency in the coming fiscal year.

California leaders are bracing for a clash with Donald Trump on most environmental issues when he returns to the White House, but they’re surprisingly aligned with him on forest management. Since his first term as president, Trump has blamed the state for its devastating wildfires, telling leaders to thin out its forest and clear out the forest floors to lower risk. Research shows he wasn’t entirely off base. Decades of fire suppression have California left forests overgrown, making them more vulnerable to severe wildfires intensified by climate change. In 2020, the state ramped up efforts to thin forests, setting a goal of treating one million acres of forest land a year. Now it may even support a controversial timber-based energy industry. …Wood pellet biomass is often marketed as renewable. But environmentalists criticize it for releasing significant carbon emissions like fossil fuels and say it incentivizes removal of mature trees from forests.

WASHINGTON — Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy called on superintendents from Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades national parks to resist a plan by a sister agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to participate in a scheme to kill almost half a million barred owls in the Pacific Northwest over the next 30 years. The USFWS filed a Record of Decision on barred owl management in late August, and last week, AWA and the Center filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle to block the overreaching and unworkable plan targeting a species protected for a century by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. …Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action said, “It has a zero percent chance of success, but it will produce an unheard-of body count of a long-protected owl species.”

The U.S. Forest Service is starting a public comment period today about proposed changes to its forest management plan for Northern California, Oregon and Washington. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service is taking public input about a proposed amendment to land management plans for national forests in the Northwest Forest Plan area. The draft Environmental Impact Statement for the amendment gets published today in the Federal Register, launching an 120-day comment period to allow the public to offer input about how these forests will be managed. …USFS says the draft EIS focuses on balancing economic needs, ecological health, and community safety across the Northwest Forest Plan area. …The Forest Service will review and incorporate feedback to develop a final environmental impact statement, anticipated in 2025.  Comments can be submitted here.

As part of a strategy to reduce wildland fire fuels on a densely timbered tract of land surrounding Tally Lake, about 13 miles west of Whitefish on the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the Flathead National Forest issued a draft decision approving a project to thin trees and conduct other treatments on more than 40,000 acres of mostly public land. Dubbed the Cyclone Bill Project, foresters say the aim is to reduce tree densities and fuel loading on the WUI, buffering residential communities from hazardous, fire-prone sections of the forest. The project would also improve diversity and resilience of the trees and “contribute to continued timber production and economic sustainability,” according to a U.S. Forest Service proposal. On Wednesday, Flathead National Forest officials released the draft decision notice for the Cyclone Bill Project, initiating an administrative review process and setting the stage for the public to submit objections for the next 45 calendar days.

California — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 12 declined to halt a logging and vegetation clearing project atop Pine Mountain and Reyes Peak in Ventura County’s Los Padres National Forest. Various environmental groups, plus Ventura County, Ojai and Patagonia Works, have sued the U.S. Forest Service to halt the project on grounds that it would violate environmental laws, harm vulnerable wildlife, and do irreparable damage to intact roadless areas of the forest. “We had hoped the court would rule in favor of the planet, biodiversity and the community,” said Hans Cole, head of Environmental Activism at outdoor apparel maker Patagonia. …The ruling comes four years after the Trump Administration first proposed the project, leading to significant opposition from conservation organizations, Indigenous groups, scientists, businesses and local governments, according to Los Padres ForestWatch, one of the plaintiffs. The project’s opponents are considering their next steps, including whether to seek a rehearing.