Act Now: Protect mature and old-growth forests and watersheds in the Pacific Northwest

Speak up today for Northwest Forests!

 

After 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan (NFP) is being updated! Spanning 24 million acres of national forest in Washington, Oregon and California, the NFP is the world’s first ecosystem management plan. Its foundation is solid; it has proven successful in improving our river habitat, which prevents direct harm to native and rare wildlife, and chartered a path toward restoring depleted mature and old forest habitat.

In Washington, the NFP covers the Okanogan, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, Olympic, and Gifford Pinchot National Forests, all places we know and love. Home to fisher, wolverine, wolf, grizzly bear, Cascade red fox, spotted owl, marbled murrelet, and a unique array of amphibians, mollusks, bats, fungi, mosses, lichens, small mammals, and many others. These forests provide world-class carbon storage.

However, a lot has changed. Climate change has magnified fire, drought, and flood events. Instructive new scientific and monitoring information has been collected, compiled, and published. Tribal partners underrepresented in the past must be given the opportunity to co-create management actions. To integrate this information, the Forest Service proposes updating the NFP to ensure our forests and watersheds remain healthy and resilient.

To best meet these challenges, the Forest Service should focus on mitigating climate change impacts by finally protecting all mature and old-growth trees and forests, reducing road density to protect streams from climate-induced flooding, increasing prescribed, managed, and cultural burning, and incorporating Indigenous knowledge.

The Forest Service is accepting public comments through Feb. 2 on the scope of the amendment.

 

Your voice is needed to shape the future of national forests. Please use this easy form to act quickly and submit your comment today!