Parts of national forests along the Sierra and near Lake Tahoe are also highlighted as priorities for logging activities.
A memo from the secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture released last week outlines the Trump administration’s plans to quickly expand logging operations in the country’s national forests, which could dramatically reshape the landscape of popular recreation areas in California.
A month after President Donald Trump released an executive order calling for the “immediate expansion of American Timber Production,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins has laid out what steps the U.S. Forest Service will take to do so. This includes lifting protections on more than half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service, expediting the process for logging in these areas.
“The United States has an abundance of timber resources that are more than adequate to meet our domestic timber production needs, but heavy-handed federal policies have prevented full utilization of these resources,” Rollins wrote in the memo, dated April 3.
The memo serves as an emergency situation declaration that designates 112,646,000 acres, or 59% of all national forest lands, as a priority for immediate logging. The memo indicates wildfire risk, declining forest health and the risk of increased tree mortality from insects or disease as some of the reasons for the new emergency declaration. The memo notably does not list climate change among the risks facing the nation’s forests.
The declaration exempts the designated forest areas from an environmental review step that allows for objections from outside groups and limits the number of alternative actions that the agency can review when considering logging projects. The declaration also directs the Forest Service to streamline “all processes related to timber production” and “issue new or updated guidance to increase timber production.”
Trump’s March executive order called for a 25% increase in timber production from the nation’s forest, and a map released by the USDA last week suggests that much of this might come from California and elsewhere in the West. The majority of Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests in Southern California are highlighted in blue as priority landscapes for logging on the map, as is much of Los Padres National Forest, which stretches from near Ojai up the Central Coast and also encompasses the mountains along Big Sur. Parts of national forests along the Sierra and near Lake Tahoe are also highlighted as priorities for logging activities.
“More logging will cause widespread devastation of our public forests locally and across the country,” said ForestWatch executive director Jeff Kuyper in a news release.
“Trump’s order won’t protect us from wildfire, but it will most certainly line the pockets of timber industry executives, undermine science and environmental protection laws, and bring us one step closer to privatizing our public lands.”
Opening up California’s national forests for commercial logging in the immediate future is just the latest change to public lands in the state during the Trump administration. National parks like Channel Islands and Yosemite are in a state of chaos and crisis due to federal funding cuts and job terminations, and the future of two national monuments designated at the end of the Biden administration also seems uncertain.
To see the complete article and photos in SF Gate, click here.
www.sfgate.com/la/article/california-national-forests-logging-20263873.php
A memo from the secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture released last week outlines the Trump administration’s plans to quickly expand logging operations in the country’s national forests, which could dramatically reshape the landscape of popular recreation areas in California.
A month after President Donald Trump released an executive order calling for the “immediate expansion of American Timber Production,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins has laid out what steps the U.S. Forest Service will take to do so. This includes lifting protections on more than half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service, expediting the process for logging in these areas.
“The United States has an abundance of timber resources that are more than adequate to meet our domestic timber production needs, but heavy-handed federal policies have prevented full utilization of these resources,” Rollins wrote in the memo, dated April 3.
The memo serves as an emergency situation declaration that designates 112,646,000 acres, or 59% of all national forest lands, as a priority for immediate logging. The memo indicates wildfire risk, declining forest health and the risk of increased tree mortality from insects or disease as some of the reasons for the new emergency declaration. The memo notably does not list climate change among the risks facing the nation’s forests.
The declaration exempts the designated forest areas from an environmental review step that allows for objections from outside groups and limits the number of alternative actions that the agency can review when considering logging projects. The declaration also directs the Forest Service to streamline “all processes related to timber production” and “issue new or updated guidance to increase timber production.”
Trump’s March executive order called for a 25% increase in timber production from the nation’s forest, and a map released by the USDA last week suggests that much of this might come from California and elsewhere in the West. The majority of Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests in Southern California are highlighted in blue as priority landscapes for logging on the map, as is much of Los Padres National Forest, which stretches from near Ojai up the Central Coast and also encompasses the mountains along Big Sur. Parts of national forests along the Sierra and near Lake Tahoe are also highlighted as priorities for logging activities.
“More logging will cause widespread devastation of our public forests locally and across the country,” said ForestWatch executive director Jeff Kuyper in a news release.
“Trump’s order won’t protect us from wildfire, but it will most certainly line the pockets of timber industry executives, undermine science and environmental protection laws, and bring us one step closer to privatizing our public lands.”
Opening up California’s national forests for commercial logging in the immediate future is just the latest change to public lands in the state during the Trump administration. National parks like Channel Islands and Yosemite are in a state of chaos and crisis due to federal funding cuts and job terminations, and the future of two national monuments designated at the end of the Biden administration also seems uncertain.
To see the complete article and photos in SF Gate, click here.
www.sfgate.com/la/article/california-national-forests-logging-20263873.php
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