Local and national environmentalists have been calling for the Biden administration to protect old forests — particularly those on public lands — from logging.
The administration took a step toward increasing protections on Friday, announcing an executive order in which the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture “will conduct the first-ever inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal lands.”
In Vermont, old growth forests account for less than 1% of all forested land, and less than 3% of forests are managed passively in a manner that will eventually allow them to reach old-growth status, according to Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, an organization that advocates for protecting forests on public lands.
“That is an incredibly small fraction of our forests that resemble the natural old forests of our region, which once dominated,” Porter said.
After the inventory is complete, the administration reports that it will develop new land management policies “to institutionalize climate-smart management and conservation strategies that address the threats facing mature and old-growth forests on federal lands.”
The order also includes measures to safeguard forests from wildfires, combat commodity-driven deforestation and create jobs connected to outdoor recreation, according to a White House-issued fact sheet.
“The purpose of this is to someday — hopefully sooner than later — protect these forests, for all of those values that they provide, the services that they provide,” Porter said. “The clean water, the carbon storage, the habitat for imperiled species.”
While Porter called the move unprecedented and said it could mark a step toward those substantive policies, he said the order is just that — a step.
“The honest truth is that it does not go as far as we wanted it to,” Porter said. “We wish this would have put an end to logging of mature and old growth forests.”
It’s not yet clear what the specific implications of the order might be. An official with the Green Mountain National Forest did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Porter hopes that the order might stop proposed logging on 11,000 acres in a portion of the Green Mountain National Forest called the Telephone Gap.
“That project is going to take at least another year, likely more, to even come to any decision,” he said. “We’re looking at this process having an influence on that project, for sure.”
Old growth forests provide a number of climate benefits, according to Jamison Ervin, a Vermont-based scientist with the United Nations Development Programme. Ervin spoke to VTDigger in a personal capacity, but her program supports countries in the process of developing climate action plans and places a particular emphasis on forest protection.
“Here in the Northeast, here in Vermont, we have so many opportunities to increase areas of older forests, especially on state lands,” she said.
Nature-based solutions to climate change are often overlooked, she said. She, too, supports a moratorium on logging old forests.
“But I think the direction is a great one,” she said. “Let’s first take stock, and let’s develop a plan for ensuring that we have a chance of meeting our climate targets through forest conservation.”
Rich Holschuh , a Windham County-based member of the Elnu Abenaki tribe, supports a move to protect public and old-growth forests and also hopes to eventually see a ban on logging old-growth forests. The Green Mountain National Forest is a place of cultural significance to Abenaki people, he said.
“Whatever is there needs to be recognized and respected and not further damaged,” he said.
Holschuh said it will be crucial for the Biden administration to include Indigenous voices when more formal policies are created following the inventory.
“We have been up into the mountains and the Green Mountain National Forest representing tribal interests a number of times, and it would be nice to see policies that accommodate that participation and those perspectives become more accepted,” he said.
He called the initiative announced Friday “one of the best things” he’s seen from the Biden administration.
“I’m going to wait and see how it plays out,” he said.
