Region Archives: United States

Vancouver Audubon Society and several other environmental groups are suing the state for failing to protect habitat for the endangered western gray squirrel. “The western gray squirrel is an indicator species for the health of rare oak woodland habitat in Washington. Given the lack of protective regulations, the species’ numbers have continued to decline statewide for decades,” the lawsuit says. “Today, it is widely believed fewer than 1,500 western gray squirrels are left in Washington.” …The western gray squirrel is not to be confused with the prolific eastern gray squirrel common in urban areas. The western variety — also known as Sciurus griseus and in some areas as the Columbian squirrel, Oregon squirrel or silver-gray squirrel — is the largest tree squirrel in the Northwest. It primarily lives in forests and has a range that stretches from northern Mexico through California, Oregon and Washington.

SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Board of Forestry voted 4-3 to approve the Habitat Conservation Plan on Thursday in Salem, moving it forward for federal approval. Before the meeting, log trucks loaded with logs from Oregon state forests, as well as loggers, legislators, mill workers and others, rallied outside the state’s Department of Forestry headquarters, calling on the board to reject the plan. They say the recommended conservation plan would shut down 57% of harvesting on the state’s forests for the next 70 years, which would lead to a loss of $35-$53 million in annual state revenue. Tasha Webb with Oregon Natural Resource Industries said that lost money would have gone to counties and smaller tax districts to pay for services like emergency response, school districts and law enforcement. …The Association Of Western Pulp And Paper Workers say the plan disregards the livelihoods of thousands of Oregonians and overlooks the sustainable forest management and economic stability in rural communities.

Additional coverage in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle, by Alex Baumhardt: Plan to reduce logging, protect habitat in Oregon’s western state forests passes on split vote

The Oregon Board of Forestry voted Thursday to move forward with a controversial plan that would scale back logging on 640,000 acres of state forests while seeking to protect endangered wildlife. Surrounded by a protest that included lines of logging trucks parked in downtown Salem, a divided board voted 4-3 to send the Western Oregon State Forests Habitat Conservation Plan to federal officials for approval.

Late last year, the Sequoia National Forest released its plans to address impacts of the 2020 Castle and 2021 Windy fires. A lawsuit filed by three environmental organizations on Feb. 22 said the plans amount to logging. A Porterville resident, Carla Cloer — who has successfully challenged Forest Service actions in the past — suggested in January the plans were influenced by the timber industry. Cloer has been a significant force behind the Sierra Club’s Giant Sequoia activism for decades. In 2001, she was awarded the club’s prestigious John Muir Award for her many efforts culminating in the 2000 presidential proclamation establishing Giant Sequoia National Monument. …But Jeff Gletne — a registered professional forester said, “the fuel remaining on site is very frightening. …they will require heavy equipment and lots of material being cut and hauled down the hill.” But he doesn’t see that the timber industry will benefit. “Very little will be going to sawmills,” he said.

The landscape of corporate environmental responsibility is evolving beyond a focus on climate issues to more holistically account for nature-related risks, such as biodiversity loss. Recognizing the threat to global economies and ecosystems posed by biodiversity loss, prominent global corporations are venturing beyond the atmosphere and into the biosphere. As one executive said, “climate action is non-negotiable, but the race to outpace biodiversity loss is even more crucial. Our planet, and our profits, hinge on it.” Corporations are starting to make pledges to fight biodiversity and nature loss, but the path forward remains murky. Metrics are hazy, and linking individual actions to broader jurisdictional biodiversity goals and commitments remains a challenge. Clearing this fog is crucial for companies to confidently take decisive steps and communicate their impact. Enter the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). In January 2024, over 300 organizations committed to nature-related disclosures based on TNFD’s recommendations.

The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) has never addressed Native claims. ANCSA is an industrial-rooted tool of Congress, created to exterminate Indigenous land use and streamline the liquidation of “natural resources” in our ancient ancestral homelands. The word “Native” in the law is a misnomer. In December, Lisa Murkowski’s “Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act” Senate Bill S.1889 (also a misnomer) advanced out of committee. If passed by the U.S. Congress, the bill would remove 115,200 acres of public land from the Tongass National Forest and deed them to five new Native “urban” corporations. According to the Forest Service, nearly every cherry-picked parcel contains old-growth forests, and 52% contains inventoried roadless acres — areas currently protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule. If Murkowski’s bill succeeds the consequences would be catastrophic for all Tongass communities. …Our protective fierceness for this land is an asset that will benefit all Alaskans for generations to come.

Lawmakers began the short session in February hoping to fill gaps in wildfire funding, with three bills to address landowner wildfire protection fees, home hardening, wildfire prevention and response, and survivor compensation. But those proposals failed. Only one proposal, Senate Bill 1520, which ensures wildfire survivors do not need to pay state income tax on compensation and settlements from losses, passed the Legislature this week in the Senate and House. Experts say the lack of more, sustained funding means the state will continue to face larger, more expensive fires without reliable funding, including the 2024 wildfire season. …The proposals aimed at reducing landowner wildfire fees and finding new sources of wildfire funding from Oregon taxpayers or the timber industry and came in response to the Legislature in 2023 cutting funding to state fire agencies by 40%. The state’s general fund, which had been drawn on heavily for wildfire agency funding, had too many competing priorities, lawmakers said. 

Oregon is on the verge of major changes to the rules that govern how state, federal and privately owned forestlands are logged. Those changes have been years in the making, and many are coming to a head this year, all with their own complicated backstories and varying timelines for public input. Many of these policies will be compromises hard fought between conservation and timber interests, bringing more environmental protections in some places and more timber harvesting in others. “All of these things are layered on top of each other and they all have their unique consequences to communities, the timber industry, the mills, the manufacturers,” said Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber trade association based in Portland.

Cal Mukumoto

Oregon’s state forester will recommend moving forward with a controversial logging plan for 634,000 acres of state forest, but a final decision will come down to a vote from Oregon’s Board of Forestry at a meeting on Thursday in Salem. Cal Mukumoto said he would recommend the current Habitat Conservation Plan, which prioritizes protecting wildlife habitat while scaling back logging for the next 70 years. Mukumoto, who was hired in November 2021, held a series of “listening sessions” last month as officials sought to finally pass a plan that’s been worked on and debated for years. The plan, known as the HCP, has become a lightning rod for anger in rural Oregon over fears it will mean lost jobs and reduced county services. Concern has only been heightened after the closure of three sawmills in the last two months and predictions that “more pain is coming.”