As the presidential election looms and the odds of a 2020 rematch grow, natural resource management is just one of many issues at stake. The Trump administration emphasized logging<\/a>, thinning, and \u201craking<\/a>\u201d in the name of emboldening the timber and paper industry. Conversely, the Biden administration has reversed<\/a> most of Trump\u2019s forest policies in the name of climate resilience, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. In the months before the election, the Biden administration aims to bolster the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s conservation strategies around mature and old-growth forests.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In December, the USDA announced a proposal<\/a> to add a national plan for old-growth and mature forest conservation to each of the 128 documents that guide USFS operations on National Forest System lands. The proposal comes in response to Biden\u2019s 2022 executive order<\/a>, which directed the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management to strengthen, restore, and improve the climate resilience of America\u2019s forests. Both initiatives are part of the current administration\u2019s attempt to win on climate issues, particularly with nature-based solutions that are likely to appease an increasingly climate-focused voter base.<\/p>\n The amendment, which is still in draft form, wouldn\u2019t so much change<\/em> USFS policy, an agency representative tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. Instead, it would be a \u201cfurtherance of current policy to protect, maintain and improve old growth forest conditions.\u201d Logging old growth on USFS lands is already pretty restricted under the USFS\u2019 multiple-use framework, which essentially requires that any tree removal on USFS lands is done for ecological reasons first and foremost. Additionally, some 2,700 forest plan components already guide management activity on USFS old growth stands, according to Federal Forest Resource Coalition executive director Bill Imbergamo. <\/em>The amendment would take this existing policy a step further by prioritizing both old growth and<\/em> mature forests, the combination of which comprise some 64 percent<\/a> or 92.8 million out of 144.3 million USFS acres nationwide.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that the Biden Administration is attempting to walk a fine line between top-down management and allowing USFS district managers the freedom to manage forests locally. As a result, the proposal is being met with a mixed bag of responses from the larger conservation community. Critics remain concerned that the proposal will lock more land away from what they consider necessary active management strategies. Proponents are optimistic that the proposal could help address the greatest risks to America\u2019s forests head-on.\u00a0<\/p>\n The USFS has made numerous attempts at defining \u201cold growth forest\u201d and \u201cmature forest\u201d in recent decades, even asking for public comment<\/a> on the subject in July 2022 shortly after the executive order. The USFS completed an initial draft report<\/a> in April 2023 that included working definitions for both age classes. (These \u201cdefinitions\u201d aren\u2019t easy reading. Instead, they\u2019re giant, pages-long charts split up by regions that are full of measurements, abbreviations, and figures.)<\/p>\n As clunky as they are for non-scientists, the working definitions were used to inventory the old growth and mature forests of the U.S. This map<\/a> shows where those forests remain.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of the nation\u2019s remaining old growth forest is in southeastern Alaska, the Cascades of Washington and Oregon, the Sierra Nevadas of California, the Sawtooths of Idaho, eastern Utah, and western Colorado. Other smaller pockets exist in western Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Appalachia.\u00a0<\/p>\n What the USFS classifies as mature forests are more widespread. In addition to huge swaths in the Mountain West, the Northwoods of the Upper Midwest, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, western Arkansas, northern New Mexico, and much of Pennsylvania\u2019s Allegheny National Forest are all ripe with mature forest too.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Between the working definitions, the inventory, and the map, the USFS has met some of the demands of the president\u2019s executive order. But the next step seems to be using this inventory to influence agency activity. That\u2019s the part that has people talking.\u00a0<\/p>\n In January, the USFS documented the three biggest threats to the health of mature and old growth forests nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, wildfire, exacerbated by climate change and fire exclusion, is the leading threat to mature and old-growth forests, followed by insects and disease. Tree cutting (any removal of trees) is currently a relatively minor threat despite having been a major disturbance historically,\u201d\u00a0 the threat analysis<\/a> reads. \u201cThe analysis also found that two thirds of mature forests and just over half of old-growth forests are vulnerable to these threats.\u201d<\/p>\n But Imbergamo says the draft proposal, which claims to address these primary threats, would actually do the opposite.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is unprecedented, amending all 128 forest plans in 13 months when it usually takes maybe two to five years to amend a single forest plan,\u201d Imbergamo says. \u201cIt\u2019s also unnecessary. [The USFS] already has 2,700 other plan components that set standards for managing old growth forests. And it\u2019s unhelpful because it is directly at odds with the threat assessment, which said it isn\u2019t harvest that\u2019s disposing of old growth, it\u2019s wildfire, insects, and disease. But what does the administration put out? A proposal to limit harvest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Multiple schools of thought exist for how to best address wildfire in the U.S. The widely held idea that conducting fuel reductions in old growth forests would better protect old growth trees from high-severity fire is logical. But studies have also shown that old growth forests are more naturally fire-resistant than immature forests in some places. Take this example<\/a> from the Klamath-Siskiyou region of Oregon in 2013 following the Big Windy and Douglas fires.<\/p>\n \u201cSomewhat to our surprise, we found that, compared to other forest types within the burned area, old-growth forests burned on average much cooler than younger forests, which were more likely to experience high-severity fire,\u201d USFS wildlife biologist Damon Lesmeister told Phys.org<\/a> of his study. \u201cHow this actually plays out during a mixed-severity wildfire makes sense when you consider the qualities of old-growth forest that can limit severe wildfire<\/a> ignitions and burn temperatures, like shading from multilayer canopies, cooler temperatures<\/a>, moist air and soil as well as larger, hardier trees.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Old growth forests also act as a major global carbon sink, and research shows<\/a> that trees sequester significantly more carbon as they age. Of course, that point becomes moot the minute those trees start to burn, a major talking point for advocates of actively managing old growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n This debate gets even more complicated because old and mature forests vary greatly. Southeastern hardwood forests have different management requirements than pinyon-juniper forests in the Southwest. What\u2019s \u201cimmature\u201d for a bristlecone pine tree<\/a> might be ancient for an Arizona ash<\/a> or a boxelder tree<\/a>. Drought has a stranglehold on forests in the Mountain West. Meanwhile, Vermont<\/a> and New Hampshire<\/a> just got done with their wettest summers on record \u2014 much of which was spent under the choke of intense wildfire smoke from neighbor-to-the-North Quebec. In other words, forest conditions in North America are anything but homogenous.<\/p>\n As a result, opinions on the USFS proposal seem to be tied, at least in part, to locality.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of old growth forest in the Southwest,\u201d New Mexico Wildlife Federation<\/a> executive director Jesse Deubel tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cWe have old growth forests in different biomes, but they\u2019re fairly rare. I hate to call them a novelty, but when you\u2019re in that habitat type, it\u2019s remarkable. And that habitat is very sufficient to support our big game populations \u2026 I know it\u2019s necessary to have a good balance of those three age classes, but New Mexico is already out of balance in the sense that we don\u2019t have enough old growth. So it\u2019s very easy to be supportive of conserving what we have left.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in more deciduous-dominant forests, old growth tends to offer incomplete habitat for most wildlife species, Ruffed Grouse Society<\/a> president Ben Jones tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. Ground cover is typically sparse in these areas, thanks to dense canopies that allow little sunlight to reach the forest floor. This provides very little ground-nesting habitat for game birds like turkeys and grouse, and even nongame birds that do nest in old-growth trees often travel to younger stands to find food.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you talk to birders, they\u2019re going to [age-diverse forests] to increase the number of species they\u2019re seeing in a day,\u201d Jones says. \u201cGolden-winged warblers nest in really dense cover with young forest characteristics. When their young are ready to leave that nest, they take them to middle-aged forest to forage in those tree canopies. But cerulean warblers nest in that high canopy. As soon as their kids fledge, they\u2019re taking them down to forage in the young forest cover.\u201d<\/p>\n Deer also have a hard time feeding in old-growth hardwood forests due to the lack of young, woody browse close to the ground, former National Deer Association<\/a> senior director of policy Torin Miller tells Outdoor Life.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDeer thrive in seral and maturing forests that have a diversity of trees and other plant life and a diversity of cover. They thrive in that interface. When we get into forests that are primarily old growth monoculture with very little understory, they provide little benefit to deer specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that forest-dwelling wildlife, both game and nongame species, need an age-diverse mosaic of trees to survive. Immature, middle-aged, mature, and old-growth trees work together to create productive habitat for all wildlife, from songbirds to moose, Jones says. He also highlights that forests are dynamic, ever-changing ecosystems that go through cycles. A century from now, some young forests will have reached maturity while others might only be nearing middle age. Some old forests will inevitably host new growth again, especially after wildfire or other disturbance. Additionally, in a world where no single acre of forest exists free of human impact, there\u2019s no such thing as a \u201chands-off\u201d approach to management anymore.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: 7 Sneaky Ways Landowners Block Access to Public Lands<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHow can [the USFS] play with cards that were thrown away in 1900? That\u2019s what you\u2019re asking the federal government to do with restrictive protections on this idea of old growth in conditions that no longer exist,\u201d Jones says. \u201cWe don\u2019t have roaming herds of forest bison in the east anymore, fires can\u2019t just burn across entire landscapes for months out of the year, so we have to accept that we\u2019re in a human-impacted environment, and we have to manage it for its best outcomes today.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In the near-term, the proposed action and a draft environmental impact statement should come out in May, which will initiate another 90-day public comment period, according to the Federal Register<\/a>. If the GOP reclaims the White House, the odds that the amendment sees the light of day are slim. But if Democrats win, the final EIS will likely come out in January 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nWhere Are America\u2019s Old Growth Forests?<\/h2>\n
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Why Old Growth Forest Management Is Contentious<\/h2>\n
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All Old Growth Forests Are Unique<\/h2>\n
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What\u2019s Next<\/h2>\n