Over 112 million acres of once-protected forests are opening for business, mostly in Western states. An emergency order issued this month will allow logging companies to operate on nearly 60% of National Forest System lands, as USA Today reported.
What's happening?
The Secretary of Agriculture's memorandum, which followed up on previous executive orders, rolls back federal environmental protections, claiming that it will help manage wildfires, increase timber supply, and create jobs.
Geopolitical uncertainties may have at least partly motivated the move, as USA Today said tariffs on Canada, the top exporter of timber to the United States, could impact the lumber supply. In 2021, Canada sent $28 billion worth of lumber to the U.S., per The New York Times. With deteriorating relations caused by tariffs and annexation threats, the administration appears to be turning to domestic sources for lumber.
While this is a win for the logging industry, which made Donald Trump the biggest recipient of political donations in the 2024 election cycle, per the research group OpenSecrets, scientists and environmental groups have reacted to the order with dismay.
The Sierra Club decried the perceived motivations behind the order, calling it "a giveaway to logging" and stating, "Again and again, the Trump administration has shown it's more interested in boosting the bottom lines of corporate polluters than protecting our national forests and public lands."
Why is the removal of forest protections concerning?
The benefits of forest lands to people and the planet go beyond the value of their lumber. As the U.S. Forest Service itself has noted, healthy forests help supply clean air and water as well as recreational opportunities that are invaluable to communities.
Trees also store heat-trapping carbon pollution, but the effects are most apparent in mature trees around 70-125 years old, according to Yale Environment 360. Unfortunately, those older, larger trees are exactly the type that are most valuable to logging companies. Planting new trees is helpful, but keeping mature forests intact is a much better move.
Opening up the nation's forests to logging to reduce forest fires is a debated strategy, as USA Today pointed out. The John Muir Project has argued that wildfire suppression and logging has actually been part of the problem. "Land managers have requested, and received, increasingly more money for forest 'thinning' operations under the guise of 'fuel reduction,'" the organization noted, adding that "the discredited policies of the past, including fire suppression and removal of mature, fire-resistant trees, has continued — even increased in many cases."
As USA Today also noted: "Many U.S. forests are considered to be at high wildfire risk, due to climate change and almost a century of wildfire suppression policies that have resulted in overgrown, fire-prone land. Neither are mentioned in the memorandum."
Additionally, removing protections in national forests places endangered species at risk of habitat loss.
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Definitely 👍 What's being done about the removal of forest protections?
The first laws to protect land as national forests began with Benjamin Harrison, a Republican president, in 1891. These were expanded by Teddy Roosevelt, another politician who started as a Republican, with the creation of the Forest Service in 1905. Yet another Republican, Richard Nixon, signed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 into law.
Experts hope existing laws such as these will provide the framework for legal challenges against the changes to forest protections. "The federal government still has to comply with federal law even if the president doesn't want to," Washington state Commissioner of Public Lands David Upthegrove told Fox 13 Seattle.
Polling indicates the majority of Americans want to protect public land. Local and individual acts can make a big impact on conservation efforts. Contacting your local representative is easy with the right tools for using your voice, too.
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