The Forest Service is proposing to amend the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which was created to protect old-growth forests and wildlife.

The new plan proposals would weaken the protection of public forests.

The NWFP was implemented in response to excessive logging ravaging many acres of public patrimony with massive clearcuts that turned public forests into industrial tree farms.

By the 1980s, it was obvious that old-growth forests would soon be extirpated, along with the numerous species that depended on them, like the spotted owl.

In 1994, in response to public outrage over the carnage, the Clinton administration implemented the Northwest Forest Plan to slow the destruction of our national forest heritage.

The 1994 NWFP prioritized ecosystem recovery and required protections for mature (80-plus years old) and old-growth forests.

These changes have turned some of our public forest lands into carbon sinks, reducing GHG emissions and helping to curb climate warming. The NWFP also protected many forested watersheds, which are the spring wells of many municipalities. Forest protection has slowed the extinction of numerous species that depend on these old-growth forests.

The Forest Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement has four alternatives. Its preferred action, Alternative B, would be a disaster for our forests.

Logging under Alternative B could exceed 1 billion board feet annually, doubling 2023 logging levels and tripling the most recent 10-year average.

It raises the age class of “mature” or late successional stage forests from 80 to 120 years, effectively opening up 824,000 acres to logging. Post-fire logging of large old snags — the most essential biological legacy from wildfires — would be subject to logging.

In matrix stands of 200-year-old “old-growth forests,” logging to preclude fire would be permitted, even though such logging has been shown to increase wildfire spread.

It advocates logging up to a third of dry, east-side Oregon forests for “forest health” and fire hazard reduction — both questionable logging outcomes. Without going into the weeds, logging often opens forests to greater wind penetration and drying, which have been shown to increase fire spread, not reduce it.

Furthermore, the Forest Service has broad discretion in determining what is defined as a “dry forest,” meaning it could log other forest types.

The plan calls for logging up to 964,000 acres of dry forest landscape in the next 15 years, an area about four times the size of Mount Rainier National Park.

The preferred alternative of the NWFP revision will be a disaster for public forests.

While the status quo has numerous problems, the proposed alternatives are more problematic. Interested citizens can write the Forest Service and ask it to choose Alternative A, which maintains the current NWFP regulations. Send copies of your comments to Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.