Region Archives: US West

ROSEBURG, Ore. — Timber organizations are calling for action on the Northwest Forest Plan after President Donald Trump issued an executive order for the immediate expansion of American lumber production. This comes as the U.S. Forest Service considers an amendment to the plan that aims to address fire resilience, economic opportunities, and updated guidance on conserving old growth, with a public comment period that ended in March. Following the executive order from the president, Douglas Timber Operators, a local forest products organization, issued a letter to the U.S. Forest Service calling for a full revision of the Northwest Forest Plan that was initially written in 1994. …According to the U.S. Forest Service, the forest plan covers 24.5 million acres of federally-managed lands found in western Oregon, Washington, and northwestern California. According to DTO’s letter, the plan provided an annual allowable sale quantity of 78 million board feet that has never been met on the Umpqua National Forest…

An insect known for turning entire mountainsides the color of rust could be making a resurgence in Colorado.  The pest is none other than the mountain pine beetle. After a roughly decade-long period of relatively lower populations, the bugs are rebuilding their numbers along the Front Range and in southwest Colorado, according to an annual forest health report published by the Colorado State Forest Service in late March. “I’m a little concerned moving in this summer because we really haven’t had any precipitation,” said Dan West, the forest entomologist for the Colorado State Forest Service. “I’m worried bark beetles are going to increase their populations in these drought-stricken trees.” Few bugs have had a more visible impact on forests across the western U.S.

The U.S. Forest Service has imposed the maximum penalty of $16,000 on the logging company it holds responsible for starting last autumn’s Yellow Lake Fire. The penalty comes after a three-month-long investigation conducted by fire investigators with the U.S. Forest Service. At about 11 a.m. on Sept. 28, 2024, the only person on shift at the Duchesne Ridge Fuelwood Sale Site in the Uinta Mountains left for the day. Just over four hours later, dispatch received the first report of smoke in the area. According to the report, the fire was most likely started by friction from the logging company’s equipment. Despite having officials on the scene early, the fire grew to 150 acres overnight. The fire eventually became Utah’s largest wildfire in 2024, growing to over 33,000 acres.

Firefighters in central California were working Tuesday to contain a wildfire near the Nevada border threatening a forest home to the oldest trees in the world, after making good progress on Monday, officials said. The Silver Fire broke out Sunday near Bishop, California, in Inyo County and has burned ‎1,589 acres. It was 50% contained as of Tuesday morning. “The fire still threatens structures, critical infrastructure, watersheds, endangered species, and cultural resources,” the Cal Fire San Bernardino Unit said in a post to social media on Tuesday. Less than 15 miles from the fire, the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest contains trees that are more than 4,000 years old. The Patriarch Tree is the world’s largest bristlecone pine tree.

EUGENE, Ore. — Conservation groups across Oregon have won a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management’s logging plans. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the BLM had illegally authorized the logging of old-growth forest lands within protected areas called late successional reserves. Those are reserves specifically created to protect old-growth forest ecosystems. The court pointed out that logging in these reserves would increase fire hazards and harm nearby habitats. The Cascadia Wildlands Group, alongside other conservation groups, add that they’re hoping to get BLM forest managers on board with fire resiliency projects and fire fuel reduction rather than further timber sales.

There are a number of ecological incentives for keeping the West forested. Trees stabilize soil, preventing flooding and landslides. They keep sediment out of rivers and streams, protecting aquatic habitats and drinking water. Forests help preserve mountain snowpack, replenishing groundwater reserves. They provide a home for wildlife, from bugs and birds to elk and black bears. And trees sequester carbon, a crucial tool in the fight against climate change. Beyond science, though, the desire to preserve forests feels deeply personal. “Forests are like Colorado’s DNA,” says Catherine Schloegel, watershed forest manager for the Colorado branch of the national nonprofit the Nature Conservancy. “We love to hike in them, bike in them, ski through the trees. They’re a huge reason why we live here. The legacy of Colorado is our forests.”

Lawmakers have moved forward a controversial logging bill that could open the state up to lawsuits if Oregon doesn’t log enough timber in a given year. Representatives in the House Committee on Natural Resources unanimously advanced House Bill 3103 early Monday. The bill would allow counties and the timber industry to sue the state forester if Oregon logs less than the Department of Forestry forecasts in its once-a-decade estimates. There are exceptions if a large mass of trees are destroyed by wildfires, diseases or storms… Every decade, the Oregon Department of Forestry estimates how much timber it could log from state land for the next 10 years. Timber industry representatives and county officials say the department tends to over-promise and under deliver, making it difficult for them to plan ahead.

The sometimes controversial permit system meant to limit crowds in three of Oregon’s most popular wilderness areas will return this summer, despite questions about who will enforce the system following widespread layoffs and another round of anticipated cuts to the U.S. Forest Service… The agency stated: “For the Deschutes, we will still have a wilderness ranger presence this summer. We also have a dedicated cadre of trained volunteer wilderness backcountry rangers who focus on education and mitigating impacts as well as a robust volunteer group that staffs wilderness trailheads to ensure awareness of and to gain compliance with the permit system (including redirecting people who do not have permits to other opportunities within the 60 available self-issued permit wilderness trailheads).”

SEATTLE — Budget woes, combined with cuts to the federal wildfire-fighting workforce and President Donald Trump’s tariff and sovereignty threats against Canada, have made it more difficult for state officials to plan for the upcoming wildfire season. In Washington, a $12 billion budget shortfall prompted majority Democrats in the Legislature this week to propose slicing spending on wildfire prevention and fighting by one-third to two-thirds. “These massive cuts are putting lives and homes at greater risk,” said state Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dave Upthegrove. …Meanwhile, tensions between the U.S. and Canada over Trump’s proposed tariffs and calls to make the country the U.S.’s 51st state have also complicated wildfire planning, especially in border states, Geissler said. Washington state has maintained a solid relationship with British Columbia for decades, but it’s unclear how firefighting will work if the borders are closed due to federal tensions, he said.

The annual forest health report, released today by the Colorado State Forest Service, assesses the condition of Colorado’s forests during another warm, dry year for the state. Following a wet and cool year in 2023, the shift back to near-record temperatures and below-average precipitation in Colorado last year stressed trees needing several years of mild conditions to build defenses against attack from forest pests. Bark beetles and other insects are building populations in forests across the state and changing fuel dynamics for wildfire as they leave dead and dying trees in their wake. “Trees in Colorado can’t catch a break as our climate becomes warmer and dryer in Colorado,” said Matt McCombs, state forester and director of the CSFS. …The 2024 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests details what insects and diseases remain the most prevalent forest health issues and where they are increasing their footprints, as well as the science behind the management actions taken to promote wildfire-resilient forests and healthy watersheds.

A recent study published by the Colorado State Forest Service took a deeper look into the impact of Colorado’s trees and how they store carbon. The findings reported that some of Colorado’s forests release more carbon than they draw due to dying trees that are actively decomposing. …it should be kept in mind that this data applies to recent years, and results fluctuate and can be nuanced. “(The) bigger picture of this report found that Colorado’s forests hold a lot of carbon, and that continues to this day, and it’s just in recent years that it’s releasing slightly more carbon than it adds,” Vorster said. “But when you just put it in perspective, if you were to compare the amount of carbon that it holds compared to what it releases, it’s like 0.06%, so a very tiny fraction of it at least every year. … It’s pretty close to a balance.”

IDAHO — The Western Pine may be Idaho’s state tree – but… the Whitebark Pine survives harsh weather conditions and can live over 1,000 years and grow over 90 feet tall. …In addition to feeding several birds and mammals, the tree provides shelter and nest sites for many animals including deer and elk. It is also key to helping with Idaho’s water supply. …Another interesting fact about the Whitebark Pine is that it relies solely on the bird – the Clark’s nutcracker – to reproduce. “Carrying the seeds in a pouch under its tongue, the bird buries them in shallow soil caches, sometimes up to 10 km away,” the National Park Service notes on its website. “Nutcrackers are known to cache up to 90,000+ seeds in a good seed crop year!” These trees are very slow-growing. …In 2022, the Whitebark Pine was officially listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. 

The State of Oregon’s Wildfire Risk Explorer map was finalized in January, along with new defensible-space standards. A home-hardening building code (regulations designed to make homes more resilient to wildfire) is in draft form. …One Oregon lawmaker has proposed revising the map so risk levels apply broad areas rather than indicating the risk on individual properties. I’m sympathetic to the opposition to the map, etc., but scrapping it would be a mistake. …All tax lots in the state are assigned one of three wildfire hazard classes: Low, Moderate, or High; US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other public lands also are rated. …Despite the sharp criticism, this effort is a much-needed and well-intentioned project. …However, there’s a big problem: The owners of the other 94 percent of tax lots—roughly 1,786,000—rated at Low or Moderate hazard will not be required to take any action to create defensible-space around their homes or businesses.

The Pacific Northwest is fortunate to have vast forests and ideal conditions for growing trees quickly. These forests have long been a cornerstone of our rural economies while also protecting streams, sequestering carbon and supporting wildlife. However, we face a troubling trend: a decline in local timber production and a growing reliance on imported lumber. We use science for active forest management with the toughest regulations in the world, we do forestry the best here. It’s time to prioritize local timber and rebuild a robust, sustainable industry right here in Washington… Prioritizing local wood production is a win-win for the Pacific Northwest. Wood is good, but local wood is best if we want to restore a vital, create economic stability and protect our environment.

It’s a cold day at Sun Mountain Lumber in Deer Lodge, Montana. Outreach Forester Sean Steinebach walks toward the mill’s massive kiln where freshly cut two-by-fours are dried. You can feel the heat radiating off the fresh boards. He stops and inhales. “It smells fresh and it smells bright and it smells wild,” he says. The mill’s lumber yard is filled with stacks of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine logs that will soon become lumber. Having a steady and reliable supply of logs is crucial to keeping the mill in business, says Steinebach. “We drive the economics of Powell County for sure, Anaconda, Deer Lodge County. We’ve got a lot of employees that live there. Granite County, we’ve got employees there. We’re a big impact in the whole state, I think. Forest products in general is a huge impact in the state of Montana.”

A warm and dry 2024 wasn’t great for Colorado’s forests, according to the Colorado State Forest Service.  The agency’s annual forest health report released Wednesday found that after a wet and cool year in 2023, near-record-breaking temperatures and below-average precipitation stressed trees trying to build a defense from forest pests. The insects can create fuel for wildfires by filling forests with dead and dying trees… The report details how wildfires in Colorado’s forests impact the state’s watersheds. Colorado’s mountain watersheds are vital to the nation’s freshwater supply. The report recommends protecting the state’s watersheds through “ongoing collaboration among landowners, contractors and partners at the local, state and federal level.” Lastly, the report explains the importance of wildfire mitigation saying, “Active management is critical to help keep wildfires at a low severity and protect the many benefits that forests provide.”

Amy Harding

The Pacific Northwest is fortunate to have vast forests and ideal conditions for growing trees quickly. …However, we face a troubling trend: a decline in local timber production and a growing reliance on imported lumber. We use science for active forest management with the toughest regulations in the world, we do forestry the best here. It’s time to prioritize local timber and rebuild a robust, sustainable industry right here in Washington. …Fifty percent of our state timberlands have already been placed into conservation. …The recent move to place some timber sales on hold jeopardizes the Department of Natural Resources’ capacity to do this in the future and maintain a steady pace. …Our Pacific Northwest forests are managed under some of the strongest science-based forest protections in the world, ensuring sustainable harvesting practices and safeguarding water quality for people and fish.

MISSOULA, Montana — Kristin Bail is being named acting regional forester for the Northern Region on March 31. Bail will temporarily succeed Regional Forester Leanne Marten who has planned to retire after 34 years of service. In her role, Bail will oversee management of nine national forests and one national grassland within Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. The USDA Forest Service sent out the following: USDA Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz today announced Kristin Bail will serve as acting regional forester for the Northern Region, effective March 31, 2025.Bail will temporarily succeed Regional Forester Leanne Marten as she reaches her long-planned retirement date after 34 years of service. …As acting regional forester, Bail will oversee management of nine national forests and one national grassland within Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota.

OREGON — A timber sale near Roseburg and an accompanying protest have been pushed back to April 22, or Earth Day. The protest against the Yellow Panther timber sale was originally set for Tuesday, March 25, but the auction was postponed till late April. This timber sale is part of the Blue and Gold project, a controversial timber harvest plan by the federal Bureau of Land Management approved last year. Madeline Cowen from the environmental non-profit Cascadia Wildlands said this timber harvest was pushed through during the Biden Administration. …She said that this project is particularly important because of how much logging is planned for old-growth forests. …Cowen’s group filed a lawsuit against the BLM regarding this project, and just last month, the BLM agreed to notify the conservation group 30 days in advance of any logging on future projects before a court hearing set for the fall.

President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ramping up logging on federal lands. The directives prompted polar and predictable reactions from timber industry advocates and environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest. The former have been advocating for more aggressive “management” of federal forests for decades to increase log supplies for local mills and combat increasing wildfire risks. The latter say the orders will prioritize commercial logging over all other uses of public lands and will inevitably result in protracted litigation. …Somewhere in the middle, however, is a group of organizations who say the executive orders could provide an opportunity to go much bigger on necessary forest restoration projects. But, ironically, they say the potential to make that happen likely will be significantly undermined by Trump’s separate push to slash the federal workforce that would oversee the work.

In August 2002 during one of the worst fire seasons to that point in recent history, President George W. Bush launched the Healthy Forests Initiative aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. It was a solid, common-sense plan intended to remove wood debris which fuels infernos and rehabilitate diseased, dying, and dead forests. It would generate revenue from wood sales to pay for healthier timberlands. …Bush ran into a buzz saw of well-financed opposition which branded it as front for logging in the public forests. It got scorched by endless bureaucratic federal, state, and local appeals and lawsuits. Little happened while wildfire dangers mounted. Then along came the January’s deadly L.A. fires … where 29 people died and more than 12,000 … structures were destroyed. …Hopefully, President Trump will dust off Bush’s blueprint, cut the bureaucratic red tape and reign in lawsuits. It made sense then and is ready to go now.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ramping up logging on federal lands. The directives prompted polar and predictable reactions from timber industry advocates and environmental groups in Oregon. The former have been advocating for more aggressive “management” of federal forests for decades to increase log supplies for local mills and combat increasing wildfire risks in forests choked with flammable fuels. The latter say the orders will prioritize commercial logging over all other uses of public lands and will inevitably result in protracted litigation if federal agencies look to fast-track projects by eliminating existing protections for habitat, clean water and endangered species. [A subscription to the Oregonian is required to read full article]

Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is one of the last great wild places. Spanning nearly 17 million acres, it is the largest national forest in the United States and one of the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforests. …And yet, despite its immense ecological and economic value, the Tongass remains under threat. For decades, the logging industry and its political backers have tried to chip away at the Roadless Rule [claiming] cutting down these ancient trees is an economic necessity. …The timber industry in the Tongass is not only economically unsustainable, it is a drain on the American taxpayer. …on his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order to repeal the Roadless Rule protections for the Tongass National Forest. Nothing has happened yet, but we should expect it. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration is taking a wrecking ball to the Forest Service, which could make administration oversight of any logging and roadbuilding even more difficult. 

President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order calling for “immediate expansion of American timber production” generated lots of enthusiasm in the Northwest wood products world. But analysts added equal amounts of concern that Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency-driven federal cuts might keep the woods quiet. “It’s going to be a good thing in terms of helping stimulate activity on national forests,” the University of Montana’s Todd Morgan said… but also recognizes the uncertainty spiraling around Washington, D.C. “A lot is going to depend on who’s left in federal agencies at the end of the day, the week, the next four years,” he said. “All this funding- and budget-cutting is going to interfere with the stated goals.” …Trump’s order also calls for timber production targets. That’s something that has been missing from federal land management for a long time, according to Montana Wood Products Association Director Julia Altemus.

Silver City, NM — On March 1, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “The Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” seeking to rapidly expand domestic timber production. The order was announced before President Trump’s tariffs on Canada took effect under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. …Many public land advocates and conservationists are sounding the alarm on the order’s potential consequences on decades of conservation efforts. Randi Spivak, who serves as the public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said this order will have long-term consequences on the health of public lands. …Those within the logging industry see the executive order as an opportunity to boost local economies and revive an industry that has struggled for the last few decades. American Loggers Council Executive Director Scott Dane spoke on the order and what it means for the domestic logging industry.

King County foresters are planting native tree seedlings acquired from warmer, drier climates for a long-term study designed to promote healthy, resilient, and productive local forests. Based on climate modeling that predicts conditions at the end of the century, the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks secured tree seedlings from Southwest Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Forest specialists selected four planting locations throughout King County that have different site conditions and will monitor the trees’ survival and health multiple times over the next decade. The climate-adaptive tree planting trials are one of the strategies included in King County’s 30-Year Forest Plan launched by Executive Dow Constantine to promote urban and rural tree canopy and improve forest health and productivity for current and future generations.

Wildland firefighters will keep a four-year-old pay hike under a GOP-led spending bill signed by President Donald Trump, but many worry that mass federal worker firings will leave the nation more vulnerable to wildfires. …The permanent pay raise comes as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has cut about 3,400 workers at the U.S. Forest Service… Many of those workers kept trails free of debris, oversaw prescribed burns, thinned forests and were specially trained to work with firefighters. They say staffing cuts threaten public safety, especially in the West, where drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change have increased the intensity of wildfires. …Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees warned that continued efforts by the Trump administration to cut firefighters and their support personnel “will cripple the workforce and make Americans less safe.”

President Donald Trump’s orders direct federal agencies to set aggressive targets for timber harvests. …State officials and forestry experts say Trump’s plan relies heavily on state land management agencies to carry it out. Most states say they’ll cooperate to some extent — especially to boost wildfire prevention projects. But most states also are concerned that federal workforce cuts will undermine their goals, and some worry about loosening environmental standards. …Leaders in liberal-leaning states say they’ve invested heavily in wildfire resilience work on federal forests. They’re cautiously optimistic that Trump’s orders could allow them to expand such projects. But they oppose efforts to slash environmental regulations. Meanwhile, foresters in conservative-leaning states say they welcome the chance to increase domestic timber production and help a struggling industry. …The Forest Service is poised to shed another 7,000 employees in the coming months. The cuts are likely to increase the feds’ reliance on state partners.

…thousands of federal employees across the country lost their jobs as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s initiative for large-scale reduction and grant freezing. …Layoffs included essential employees whose responsibilities were to respond to wildfires, provide wildland fire safety education… Dustin Tetrault, Big Sky Fire Department’s fire chief said the state is well-equipped at the local government level has been gradually filling more roles to have large-scale incident response. …Many tenured forest service employees are being fired or accepting a leave with promised pay because the state of the forest service remains so uncertain. This takes away years of knowledge of the land and relationships built with local services like BSFD, making future collaboration more difficult. …Despite uncertainty, there are two potential bills in the Montana legislature that, if passed, could have a major effect on the reorganization of how the U.S. deals with emergency fire services, Tetrault explained.

Lombard and Stanley are two co-founders of Rising Appalachia. The nonprofit is revitalizing 45 acres of former mine land, once owned by the Sugar Creek Coal Company… But the space won’t exist solely for recreation and education; they want to make it economically productive for the community again. The Sugar Creek Coal Company still owns 900 acres surrounding Rising Appalachia’s project. Lombard, Stanley and other community members are trying to raise approximately $4 million to purchase the rest of it and establish a community forest. “People can hunt on the land, they can gather food on the land, they can be involved in submitting public comments for projects and management proposals,” Stanley said. “But it’s not exactly managed by the community. A community forest in contrast, is designed by and managed by the people who live here and depend on the forest.”

It might be time to treat your trees to prevent pine beetle infestations in the Black Hills. That’s according to US Forest Service Entomologist Kurt Allen, and Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Forest Health Specialist John Ball. The pair have been hosting talks and information sessions on mountain pine beetle outbreaks since 1999. Last week, they stopped in Spearfish with a handful of clear messages. For one thing, the Black Hills is not necessarily on the verge of a mountain pine beetle epidemic — at least not on the scale last seen a decade ago… “Between the larvae feeding and a blue stain fungus they introduce, they kill trees very quickly,” Ball said.

An annual wildfire briefing between staffers for Southwestern members of Congress and Forest Service officials was unusual for two reasons, according to a congressional aide in attendance. First, the private briefing was a month earlier than is typical, a sign of the acute risk of wildfires this season in New Mexico and Arizona amid years of climate change-caused drought and especially low snowpack this spring. Second, Forest Service officials … refused more than 10 times in the meeting to say how many Forest Service employees had been fired, how many resigned and what might come of wildfire dispatch centers if the Trump administration terminates their leases. “We’ll have to send this to Washington and they will get back to you,” was the standard response, according to a Congressional aide… The meeting embodied how fraught the relationship has become between Forest Service and congressional staff amid President Donald Trump’s blunt efforts to slash federal spending.

…For millennia, Indigenous peoples nurtured the land with stewardship practices that sustained their communities and promoted resilient ecosystems based on a rich diversity of habitats and species. The forced removal of Indigenous peoples and the criminalization of their fire stewardship practices – replaced by industrial forestry practices that centered on commodity timber extraction and aggressive fire suppression – has caused a decline in landscape and biological diversity along with a loss of resilience to wildfires and climate change. Proposed amendments to the plan would work to better incorporate tribal co-stewardship and facilitate a more beneficial role for fire. …The inclusion of tribal co-stewardship and Indigenous knowledge represents a profound change that goes beyond undoing past wrongs to Indigenous peoples—it will help restore species, habitats and landscape diversity. …The Trump administration now threatens to subvert the progressive prospects of the Northwest Forest amendment by its effort to banish the words “diversity” and “inclusion.”

IDAHO, USA — The U.S. Forest Service has identified Southwest Idaho as one of the nation’s most at-risk regions for wildfires as organizations prepare for the upcoming wildfire season. The Southwest Idaho All-Lands Partnership is working on wildfire mitigation across public and private lands to reduce damage from wildfires. “Southwest Idaho is, for lack of jargon, one of the riskiest places in the U.S. for wildfire,” said Ford Van Fossan, who is the Conservation Connect program manager at the National Forest Foundation and oversees the partnership. “We have a lot of folks that are in harm’s way potentially when fires come through our landscape.” Wildfires scorched over 800,000 acres of Idaho’s land in 2024… The National Forest Foundation said it aims to use a mix of “public funding, including federal grants and private funding,” to support these efforts amid federal funding cuts.

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources says it’s coming up with backup plans to address the growing threat of serious wildfires in the state. The typically close working relationship with federal forest managers has frayed under the Trump Administration. It started in mid-February, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut thousands of probationary employees at the U.S. Forest Service. The USDA is in charge of stewarding places like the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest. Altogether, about 2,000 employees across the country were fired. The USDA emphasized that no “operational firefighters” had been let go, and argued the critical work of responding to wildfires would not be interrupted. …Grassroots Wildland Firefighters estimated that three-quarters of the employees laid off had secondary wildland firefighting duties, meaning firefighting wasn’t their primary job, but they were pulled in to fight fires as needed.

The Alaska Forest Association and two of its members have taken legal action against the US Forest Service. The lawsuit … seeks to compel the federal agency to comply with the Tongass Timber Reform Act’s mandate for timber sales, a move that could help revive the struggling timber industry in southeast Alaska. “Federal law requires the Forest Service to sell enough timber every year to meet market demand,” said Frank Garrison, attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs that include Viking Lumber and Alcan Timber. “…the agency has violated federal law three times over.” The dispute stems from the US Forest Service’s 2016 Management Plan, which outlined a gradual transition from selling old-growth timber to younger trees over a ten-year period. … However, the plaintiffs argue that the agency abandoned the plan, ceasing old-growth timber sales immediately and failing to provide sufficient young-growth timber as promised.

Time is running out for those wanting to offer feedback on proposed changes to the U.S. Forest Service’s Northwest Forest Plan. The public comment period closes Monday. The plan includes four management alternatives for 24.5 million acres of federal forest lands in Western Oregon, Washington and Northwestern California. It covers 17 national forests, seven Bureau of Land Management districts, six national parks, and 165,000 acres of national wildlife refuges and Department of Defense lands. Locally, this includes parts of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. …First put into effect in 1994, the plan includes standards and guidelines for management activities for each of the agency’s various land use and aquatic conservation categories. The proposed alternatives are intended to reduce the risk of wildfires, address climate change and — perhaps most controversially — expand logging.

It’s now clear that some moves President Trump has authorized his pal Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to make will thwart at least a few of Trump’s own often-repeated priorities. …Then there are two moves that figure to make the next fire season, coming up in late spring or early summer, as bad as or worse than recent ones. Trump legitimately repeats the conviction that cleaning forest floors can reduce the intensity and frequency of wildfires. He consistently and falsely blames California’s government for not doing this. …With Musk’s aid, though, he fired 3,400 Forest Service workers in mid-February who were still on probation in their first year of employment, many of whom had been hired to do the job Trump calls critical to stopping fires. …If he knew these firings completely contradict priorities he has trumpeted, why would he have approved them?

Decades of industrial logging left deep scars on the Tongass – and on the people and communities of Southeast Alaska. Many Alaskans do not want to return to large-scale old-growth logging. Instead, they support projects that uplift Indigenous cultures and community uses of the forest and benefit the region’s current economic drivers—fishing and the visitor and recreation economies—if done responsibly and sustainably. The timber industry is no longer an important economic force in Southeast Alaska. Far from it. According to a regional economic report, the timber industry makes up less than four percent of Southeast Alaska jobs while the visitor and seafood industries combined make up nearly a quarter of the region’s workforce, with only government providing a similar share of employment. The economic impact of subsistence, sport, and commercial fishing within the region is estimated at nearly $1 billion annually, according to the Forest Service.

Businesses, communities, and wildlife across a vast portion of western Washington, western Oregon, and northwestern California rely on healthy national forests. Since 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has guided conservation, recreation, timber production, and other uses of these 19.2 million acres of species-rich and economically important lands and rivers, and now, as it does periodically, the U.S. Forest Service is updating the NWFP… The scientists and land managers who authored the original NWFP recognized the importance of drawing on the best available science. They also had the foresight to incorporate ways to monitor the forests and adjust management if their assumptions—for example, about the plan’s impact on nature and communities—proved wrong… The Forest Service is accepting public comment on the DEIS through March 17.

PORTLAND, Ore.– Amid efforts by the Trump administration to purge the federal workforce, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington state are voicing concerns that recent firings are “devastating” ahead of wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest. According to the lawmakers, nearly 10% of the United States Forest Service workforce was impacted by recent federal firings, including roughly 260 workers across Washington and Oregon. …The coalition said even though the Trump administration previously noted public safety positions would be exempt from the firings, the lawmakers are seeing reports that Forest Service staffers supporting wildfire mitigation and response were still terminated. …Some USFS stations in Washington state are also seeing higher proportions of firings, the lawmakers said, including the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, where 46 USFS employees were terminated, along with at least 15 staffers working in the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest.

A new study using the largest network of microphones to track birds in the United States is providing crucial insights for managing and restoring fire-prone forests across California’s Sierra Nevada region. The research, published March 11 in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, demonstrates how emerging bioacoustics technology can enhance wildlife monitoring and forest management… The team focused on 10 important bird species, including spotted owls and woodpeckers, that can provide information about the forest’s health… This information is particularly valuable now, as forest managers face tough decisions about preventing destructive wildfires while protecting wildlife. The study creates detailed maps showing where different birds are likely to live, helping managers make better-informed decisions about where to thin forests or conduct controlled burns.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday urged the Trump administration to scrap plans to kill more than 450,000 invasive barred owls in West Coast forests as part of efforts to stop the birds from crowding out a smaller type of owl that’s facing potential extinction. The 19 lawmakers claimed the killings would be “grossly expensive” and cost $3,000 per bird. They questioned if the shootings would help native populations of northern spotted owls, which have long been controversial because of logging restrictions in the birds’ forest habitat beginning in the 1990s, and the closely related California spotted owl. Barred owls are native to eastern North America and started appearing in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. They’ve quickly displaced many spotted owls, which are smaller birds that need larger territories to breed.

Federal officials are preparing to disband an advisory committee tasked with guiding policies for millions of acres of national forests in the Pacific Northwest. …The 21 members of the Northwest Forest Plan federal advisory committee… have been meeting since summer 2023, hashing out how to tackle wildfires, pests and diseases across nearly 25 million acres of national forests in Oregon, Washington and Northern California. On Thursday, officials with the US Forest Service told committee members the agency was likely to dissolve the group in the coming weeks. Some members said they had been expecting this news. …The Forest Service pulled the committee together to help amend the decades-old Northwest Forest Plan, a set of policies that came out of the timber wars of the 1980s and ’90s. …The committee delivered its recommendations to the Forest Service last year.

…in the early 2000s, a group of scientists and businessmen began arguing that forest thinning was too much for the government to take on. If Arizona had any hope of decreasing the risk of catastrophic forest fire, private industry would have to play a part. From this debate emerged Arizona Forest Restoration Products, a company that had planned to make oriented strand board from the low-dollar trees. …But …the Forest Service unexpectedly awarded the contract in 2012 to Pioneer Associates, a group it favored, even if they were arguably less qualified and had gathered almost no funding for their proposal. …Pioneer quickly went defunct, and the company that took over its contract, Good Earth, only thinned a fraction of what it promised. …And a cautionary tale as we fall into a pattern of on-again, off-again federal infrastructure funding cuts and threatened tariffs, which were enacted and then delayed on Canada and Mexico until April.

SALEM — Annual logging targets would be established for Oregon’s state forests under a bill meant to provide more certainty for timber companies and county governments. However, opponents of House Bill 3103 argue the proposal would constrain the authority of state forestry officials and undermine environmental protections. The bill’s supporters counter that state and federal regulations would be factored into the “sustainable timber harvest level” calculated by the Oregon Department of Forestry. …Under the latest version of HB 3103, the ODF would estimate the volume of planned timber harvest from state forests at least once a decade, separated into annual increments. If the actual amount of logging falls below those targets, the ODF would have to make up that volume later, unless the shortfall is due to wildfires, diseases or winter storms. …The bill would also allow lawsuits seeking to compel the agency to establish logging targets and abide by harvest volumes if it doesn’t comply with those requirements.

Republican-led policy directives could rewrite forest policies that affect public lands in Oregon and the rest of the West. New executive orders from the Trump administration call on federal agencies to fast-track logging projects by circumventing endangered species laws, and to investigate whether lumber imports threaten national security. …Some experts say it’s too soon to tell how these directives will affect Oregon’s timber market, particularly Trump’s order on fast-tracking timber sales to benefit logging companies and mills. Mindy Crandall, associate professor of forest policy at Oregon State University, said Canadian imports make up a large chunk of the U.S.‘s softwood lumber supply. Oregon also leads the nation as the top softwood lumber-producing state — so in some ways, limiting Canadian imports could benefit Oregon softwood growers. Still, Crandall suspects any policy changes will likely result in only short-term windfalls for Oregon mills and forest owners.

The Northwest Forest Plan lays out how to manage millions of acres across Washington, Oregon and Northern California. But the scientists behind the plan say it hasn’t been very successful. It cost thousands of timber industry jobs and failed to protect vulnerable species. Now that the government is reconsidering it, the scientists reflect on what was considered the best option 31 years ago. In the early 20th century, clearcutting huge swaths of ancient trees in the Pacific Northwest was routine. That was great for loggers, but it wasn’t great for biodiversity. In the 1990s, the northern spotted owl took center stage in a looming fight over old-growth forests. After researchers began studying the owl, they realized it could pose a challenge to the timber industry. …Norm Johnson, who worked for the College of Forestry at Oregon State University during the plan’s development and the other scientists agree that the plan wasn’t very successful. 

The Trump administration’s executive orders calling for the “immediate expansion” of timber production on federal lands appear poised to kick off a new chapter in how Oregon’s vast forests are managed — but what that will actually look like remains to be seen. Trump issued two executive orders last Saturday: the first to boost timber production and the second to address wood product imports. …The order gives public lands agencies 30 days to issue guidance on ways to increase timber production, reduce delivery times and “decrease timber supply uncertainty.” Timber groups back Trump’s plan, environmental groups call it ‘reckless’. …Timber groups and rural lawmakers said that in addition to increased harvests of board feet, the orders could help manage overstocked forests and reduce the threat of wildfire. …The threat of lawsuits, and how the orders will be implemented, weighted heavy on the mind of Oregon’s sole Republican member of Congress.