The Northwest Forest Plan’s draft environmental impact statement, released last Friday, lays out several possible strategies the U.S. Forest Service could adopt that could shape the way humans live and work in 24.5 million acres of Pacific Northwest forests for decades to come. The original plan, adopted in 1994, significantly reduced logging to protect old-growth forests and Northern spotted owl populations. A chunk of the land includes forests in Humboldt County.
“In recent years, large, high-severity wildland fires have resulted in losses of mature and old-growth forests, eliminating gains achieved in the first 25 years of implementation of the 1994 NWFP,” the statement said. “Communities surrounding these forests have experienced degraded air quality due to the smoke from frequent wildland fires.”
The statement goes on to identify research on climate change and forest management that point to additional severe impacts to old-growth forests and Northern spotted owls. To curb the potential devastation, the plan identified four alternatives the USFS could pursue: One where the agency makes no changes, and three others that aim to increase forest resiliency in the face of wildfires but could expand logging practices with limits placed on mature and old-growth forests.
The proposals could increase logging in the management area anywhere from 33% to over 200%, depending on the route the USFS ultimately pursues.
While government and private organizations have shifted to controlled burns, tribal ecological management practices involving controlled uses of fire and forest thinning projects to reduce the hazards of catastrophic wildfire — an attempt at reversing the record-breaking blazes of the past several years — the identification of logging as a salve invited trepidation from environmental groups.
“I’m concerned with a larger narrative that to to deal with the threat of climate change, to deal with increasing risks of wildfire that we need to broadly log significantly more, and that through commercial timber harvest, we will be able to reduce fire risk and do all these lovely things,” Tom Wheeler, executive director of Arcata-based Environmental Protection Information Center, said.
When the original NWFP was adopted in 1994 under the Clinton administration, it was in no small part due to the cratering population of Northern spotted owls due to logging. By allowing more timber harvesting, Wheeler worries the USFS might inadvertently dig the graves of Northern spotted owls and old-growth forests — though he emphasized that he sees much room in the Pacific Northwest to allow timber projects if properly managed.
Adding to Wheeler’s concerns, the incoming Trump Administration might further roll back environmental protections applied to timber harvesting. In 2021, the first Trump administration removed 3.4 million acres of land from the Northern spotted owl’s designated territory, a decision reversed by the Biden Administration.
The proposal has a 120-day comment period and a final decision deadline looms in 2026. Public comments can be submitted to fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD1215636.
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