Speak up for big trees!
The Forest Service is moving forward with plans to weaken its rules that protect big trees on all National Forests in Central and Eastern Oregon. Since the mid-1990s, a clear rule has protected all trees larger than 21” in diameter from timber harvest throughout the Deschutes, Ochoco, Fremont-Winema, Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests. This rule is known as the Wildlife Standard of the Eastside Screens, meaning the Forest Service must “screen” timber sales to ensure that wildlife habitat will be preserved.
Photo courtesy of Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region
Most big trees on our National Forests have already been cut down over the past 150 years. Those that remain have incredible ecological value because they are vital habitat for many species of wildlife. They provide shade that helps keep streams cold, keep soils healthy, and keep forests fire-resilient. They are also a valuable carbon storage sink. With so few old-growth forests left in Oregon, we should be doing everything we can to save our last big trees.
Now, the Forest Service is planning to gut this vital protection for big trees. We warned you about this back in May when the Forest Service announced online workshops exploring changes to its big tree protections. Confirming our worst fears, the Forest Service has released a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that weakens the hard-and-fast standard that prevents logging any trees bigger than 21” in diameter. The new rule would replace this standard with a squishy guideline that suggests National Forest managers “should” try and preserve some big trees. You can review the proposal here.
When it comes to protecting big trees on public land, LandWatch prefers strong rules, not discretionary guidelines.
A comment period on this proposal is open until September 10. This is your chance to tell the Forest Service to uphold the 21” rule.
Below you will find a letter that can be copied and pasted in and email to the Forest Service.
Or, submit your own comments via the Forest Service’s online portal: https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/CommentInput?project=58050 or via email: SM.FS.EScreens21@usda.gov.
P.S. Our friends at Oregon Wild are hosting an online presentation on this disastrous proposal on September 2 at 6pm. You can sign up here.
Dear Shane Jeffries, Forest Supervisor, Ochoco National Forest:
I want the Forest Service to maintain protections for all large trees over 21” on Central and Eastern Oregon National Forests. After too many decades of overgrazing, fire suppression, and logging, our forests are in need of restoration. Preserving big trees is crucial to restoration efforts, as big trees provide habitat for wildlife, keep soils healthy, keep water clean and cold, and store carbon pollution. Forest managers already have the ability to design projects to restore forest health without removing protections for big trees.
The Wildlife Standard of the Eastside Screens is just two decades old and has only begun its work to restore late, old structure forests. I envision a future with large swaths of old-growth forest throughout Central and Eastern Oregon, and the Wildlife Standard is critical to achieving that vision. I prefer a numerical standard that ensures all big trees >21” in diameter will be preserved, not the proposed guideline that puts our biggest trees at risk.
When the Eastside Screens were adopted, a broader holistic review of eastside forest policy was promised but the Forest Service has not delivered on that promise. The Draft Environmental Assessment fails to disclose the far-reaching effects of this significant revision to the Eastside Screens. How will the preferred alternative affect all sensitive species and management indicator species that need big trees? How will it affect the carbon storage capability of our forests? How will it impact water quality and fish habitat? How will it affect dry forests versus moist-mixed conifer forests? How will it affect the recruitment of future big trees, snags, and downed wood? At a minimum, I request an EIS that discloses these and other significant environmental effects.
Oregonians deeply value our public lands, and especially our big trees and the wildlife they support. The proposed weakening of the Wildlife Standard of the Eastside Screens is at odds with these values, and I urge you to abandon this proposal and pursue other more pressing restoration needs on our National Forests.
Sincerely,
[Your name]