Region Archives: US West

President Biden plans to add another national monument, this one near Joshua Tree National Park, and is making plans to travel to California in the coming days to dedicate the Chuckwalla National Monument, according to people familiar with the matter. Some Native American tribes, environmentalists and members of Congress have been pushing Mr. Biden to set aside land for the proposed Chuckwalla monument, which lies between the Colorado River and Coachella Valley in Southern California. The designation will add a large new chunk of land to the area next to the Joshua Tree National Park — making it the biggest contiguous protected area in the country. …The designation will bolster the Biden administration’s efforts to protect at least 30% of lands and waters by 2030, and will block the Chuckwalla from mining, drilling and logging, sources said. …Biden has created six monuments and expanded two others officials have said.

If you go to a tree nursery, they will often tell you that the best time to plant a tree is today. For one West Seattle family, the best time started 70 years ago, when their grandfather began purchasing regenerating timberland with an eye to the future. Just this month, Robert Wise’s vision and his family’s work stewarding that land led to his grandchildren and their spouses being named National Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year by the American Forest Foundation… While the Wises were raising their two sons and daughter in the city, Robert wasn’t initially able to realize the dream of owning his own timberland. But in 1954, he had the opportunity.

Just days after Christmas in 1973 President Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act, establishing one of the strongest conservation laws in history. …The Northern Spotted Owl has proven to be the most controversial of animal species listed. Its “threatened” designation in the late 1980s sparked legal battles between logging companies and environmental groups later named the Timber Wars. …The Northwest Forest Plan was amended in a monumental compromise between environmental groups and the timber industry in 2022 when Governor Kate Brown singed into law the Private Forest Accord. …The Forest Service has proposed additional amendments to the Northwest Forest Plan that may open up millions of acres of western lands to logging. The final environmental impact statement of that plan will be released in 2025 under the Trump administration, which has promised extensive deregulation. The Northern Spotted Owl remains listed as endangered.

When Oregon’s 2024 fire season ended in late October, over 1.9 million acres had burned across the state. For Tyler McCarty, district manager at the Coos Forest Protective Association, fires today are a “night and day difference” from what they were 20 years ago. …“When I first started, a two or three thousand acre fire was a big fire,” McCarty said. “One of the fires that my instant management team was on this year was 180,000 acres.” As the Oregon fire season trends longer and fires burn larger, McCarty and others who work with Oregon’s remaining few forest protective associations are grappling with questions about how they will retain personnel and secure enough funding to fight the fires of the future. “Right now we’re operating in a system with a funding model that doesn’t support the fires that we’re seeing today.”

PORT GAMBLE, Washington — Over 450 acres of forest land has been acquired by Great Peninsula Conservancy, completing a major piece of the historic Kitsap Forest & Bay preservation effort near the North Kitsap community of Port Gamble. The Bremerton-based nonprofit announced the purchase of North Kitsap Divide Community Forest on Monday. Procuring this land parcel now ensures the forest is protected and managed by GPC as a conservation and recreational resource for Kitsap residents. …This marks the final accumulation in the Kitsap Forest & Bay Project, creating a more than 5,000-acre wildlife corridor stretching from the Hood Canal to Puget Sound’s Central Basin. Also including a portion of the future route of the Puget Sound to Olympics Trail, which will bridge the Olympic Mountains to Sound Greenway.

State officials have announced that Darren Goodding will serve as the first manager of the Elliot State Research Forest. … Most recently, he oversaw planning, science application, and communications for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Goodding earned a master’s degree in sustainable forest management from Oregon State University, with additional study in natural resources and recreation resource management at OSU, advanced silviculture at Colorado State University and forest carbon management at Michigan State University. He will begin his new role on January 13th. …Goodding currently serves on the boards of the Oregon Tree Farm System and the Washington State Society of American Foresters, the steering committee of the Northern Blues Forest Collaborative, and is the federal liaison to the Northeast Oregon Forests Resource Advisory Committee.

…Dead and dying trees — referred to as snags — pose severe risks to public safety, firefighter effectiveness and long-term forest health. Yet, contrary to claims, post-fire removal of dead and dying trees on state and federal lands is minimal, hindered by relentless litigation that threatens lives, compromises recovery efforts and delays the natural regrowth of our treasured forests. …Snags are far from benign. They fall unpredictably, endangering those working in or passing through these areas. When ignited, these dead trees burn intensely, creating spot fires and releasing embers that exacerbate the spread of wildfires. As they decay, snags create dense brush fields — a dangerous cocktail of highly flammable fuels. …By supporting post-fire salvage operations, we can ensure our forests recover more quickly, safely and sustainably. This is not just about restoring the land — it is about protecting lives, preserving our natural heritage and preventing the next catastrophic fire.

Logging would be allowed in millions of acres of national forest in Washington, Oregon and California, including older trees currently off-limits to cutting, under proposed amendments to the Northwest Forest Plan. The conservation plan was enacted in 1994 and includes 24 million acres across federal land. It was intended to preserve mature and old-growth forests and protect species, including the marbled murrelet, threatened and endangered salmon and the northern spotted owl. Now the Biden administration has embarked on an update of the plan to address changes, including a loss of nearly 7% of protected old-growth forest within the plan area because of wildfire. The loss has eliminated gains of old growth achieved during the first 25 years of the plan. The Forest Service intends to issue a final environmental impact statement on the proposed amendments in 2025, under the incoming Trump administration. What that will mean for the outcome is unclear.

Mike Dunleavy

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking President-elect Donald Trump to immediately reverse the Biden administration’s Alaska environmental and tribal lands policies, claiming those policies hurt the state’s economy. “Your election will hail in a new era of optimism and opportunity, and Alaska stands ready to and is eager to work with you to repair this damage wrought by the previous administration, and to set both Alaska and America on a course to prosperity,” Dunleavy said in a cover letter… Dunleavy’s policy document said that Trump, as soon as he returns to the White House, should issue an Alaska-focused executive order that removes restrictions on oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve. …Dunleavy wants the new Trump administration to abandon the current Interior policy in favor of putting some lands into trust for the benefit of Native tribes.  

A proposal to put nearly 33,000 acres of working forestland in northwest Montana into a conservation easement has cleared its last major hurdle. In a 3-1 vote on Monday, the Montana Land Board adopted language amending an agreement between timber company Green Diamond and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks that closes the book on a conservation project that took four years and nearly $40 million to finalize. The Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement is located between Kalispell and Libby and encompasses parts of the Salish and Cabinet mountains. The roughly 33,000 acres of land will be protected from development to support wildlife habitat and “key landscape connectivity,” according to Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP). …The easement is perpetual, meaning the terms of the agreement will remain in effect indefinitely, even if Green Diamond later sells the land.