An Opportunity for Lasting Old-Growth Protections
The federal government wants to hear from all of us about how they should manage our old-growth and mature forests. This is our chance to speak out for lasting protections for these magnificent forests! Keep reading to find out how you can add your comment.
Background
On Earth Day of 2022, President Biden released an Executive Order (EO 14072) committing the US to identify, inventory, and protect mature and old-growth forests on federal lands. Last summer, many of you participated in the first public comment period that resulted in 500,000+ public comments calling for the protection of mature and old-growth trees, in addition to dozens of letters to the US Forest Service from Tribes, elected officials, stakeholder groups, and scientists, supporting the same.
Your call was heard! But this is not the end of the story.
2024 UPDATE
In late 2023, the US Forest Service announced a proposed policy to amend all 128 Forest Plans to restrict logging of old-growth forests and begin guiding stewardship of future old-growth forests. We once again need your participation in two public comment periods this year to help bring these amendments to the finish line and make sure they adequately protect our forests.
How to Comment
To quickly submit a comment to the Forest Service, click the button above or go to https://www.climate-forests.org/take-action. These comments will be compiled and submitted by the Climate-Forests Coalition, which OGFN is a member of.
You can also submit a comment (without the template), directly to The Forest Service.
You are welcome to copy the language of the Old-Growth Forest Network’s comment, but we also encourage you to personalize aspects of the comment. Unique comments are important during this process.
The Proposed Policy
At the point in time there is a preliminary proposal available that will be further developed over the next 6 months.
Here is a brief overview of what the policy proposes:
Vegetation management in old-growth areas should only be on ecological grounds, where economic factors cannot be the primary purpose for the management activities. There are exceptions to this restriction, such as reducing wildfire fuel hazards in certain areas or for culturally significant uses.
Each national forest unit must create a strategy for old-growth forest conservation that identifies areas prioritized for old-growth retention and promotion.
A National Old-Growth Monitoring Network will be established to track trends in old-growth conditions.
A goal of these proposals is to respect tribal sovereignty, treaties, Indigenous Knowledge, and enable co-stewardship.
We are excited about these steps being put into place, but want to make sure that as these policies are further developed, the rationales and exceptions outlined for management activities and possibly cutting within old-growth forest stands do not undermine our ability to keep these forests intact. You can review OGFN’s organizational comment for detailed suggestions, but broadly our comments emphasize the need for the policy to eliminate commercial logging in old-growth stands, highly limit exceptions to non-commercial cutting, and expand our recruitment of future old-growth forests by protecting more mature forests now from logging.
Public Comment Opportunities
This year there are two comment opportunities inviting the public to weigh in on what the Forest Service should be included in these old-growth and mature forest protection measures. While there is an opportunity to weigh in on the Scoping Period right now, we will be more focused on the second comment period that will respond to the full proposal released this summer.
The initial Scoping Period gives you a chance to share what major points should be considered as the agency works to develop the full proposal and draft environmental impact statement over the next few months. The Department is requesting comments on the “proposed action, including any modifications or additional language, potential alternatives, and identification of any relevant information, studies, or analyses concerning impacts that may affect the quality of the environment.“
The Scoping Period comment opportunity closes on February 2nd, 2024. Once the more developed proposal and draft environmental impact statements are released, we will encourage you to provide input one more time during a longer, 90-day comment period. Shown by our successes last summer, these comments matter.