Fighting a federal rollback of forest protections
We can’t stand to lose our biggest trees.
By Rory Isbell, Staff Attorney
This past January, just days before the inauguration of President Biden, a President Trump political appointee in Washington D.C. signed a last-minute decision to roll back protections for big trees on six National Forests in Central and Eastern Oregon.
This decision allows for logging of big trees larger than 21” in diameter on 7.9 million acres of National Forests in Central and Eastern Oregon - including on the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests. With a single pen stroke, the Trump administration bypassed a promised public process and decided our biggest trees can be logged and sold.
During the twentieth century, so many big trees were logged throughout Oregon that many wildlife species were running out of habitat. In LandWatch’s early years, we successfully saved many of the remaining big trees on the Deschutes National Forest, with targeted victories in the Metolius River Basin and Sisters Ranger District.
Photo: U.S. Forest Service
To respond to the catastrophic loss of most of our big trees, the Forest Service adopted rules known as the Eastside Screens in the mid-1990s. The Eastside Screens protected all trees greater than 21” in diameter on six eastside forests from being cut down for timber.
For decades, the Eastside Screens protected our biggest trees and old growth forests, giving wildlife a chance to rebound. Then, in 2020, the Forest Service announced it was planning to amend the 21” rule. They claimed that certain big trees need to be logged to mitigate wildfires. We were skeptical about the motivations from the get-go, especially because these big trees are naturally resistant to wildfire and keep forest floors wetter and cooler.
The surprise decision by the Trump administration to make sure this environmental rollback was finalized before inauguration day confirmed our suspicions that this rule change was politically motivated. Simply put, it was designed to be a giveaway to the timber industry.
Big trees of all species provide homes for wildlife, provide shade, stabilize soils, create moist microclimates, protect water, and store atmospheric carbon. And if you’re like us, their very presence on the landscape is the cornerstone of why we love our Oregon forests.
The Ochoco National Forest in Eastern Oregon is one national forest that could be affected by the federal rollback. Photo: U.S. Forest Service
Big and old trees also store a significant amount of carbon. While big trees, larger than 21” in diameter, make up only 3% of our forests, they hold 42% of forest carbon. That means one of the best and easiest things we can do to help mitigate climate change is to leave all of these big trees standing.
One of the Biden administration’s key priorities is mitigating the ongoing climate crisis. Executive Order 13990 calls on federal agencies to review Trump administration decisions for their climate impacts. We’re hopeful that the Biden administration will call on the Forest Service to review the decision rolling back protections for our big trees for its impact on the climate. That is why we recently sent letters to then-Senior Advisor for Climate at USDA Robert Bonnie and White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy asking them to review the Trump administration decision.
So far, we haven’t seen the Forest Service put their disastrous rollback of protections for big trees into action, which is good news, but they have not pulled it back either. So, even though there has not yet been a timber sale proposing to log these big trees pursuant to the decision, we have to keep careful watch. LandWatch will continue to advocate for our big trees and work to keep the chainsaws away from these pillars of our forest ecosystems.