Old growth, new management: Last day to comment on Forest Service proposal is Friday

Ever wondered why the United States Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture? Then you’ve also pondered a fundamental fact about how the government views trees in the United States.

Since the Forest Service’s creation in 1905, the nation’s woods have been considered to be a farmable resource, similar to crops. The Forest Service was formed to provide timber products out of dead logs, not carbon sequestration centers out of living trees, but in recent years, the Forest Service has suggested it could be amenable to the formation of safeguards that could conserve old-growth forests in the United States.

The Forest Service, in its own words, now recognizes that old-growth forests “offer biological diversity, carbon sequestration, wildlife and fisheries habitat, recreation, soil productivity, water quality and aesthetic beauty,” according to a statement put out by the service in 2022.

An effort to change forest management techniques to reflect this sentiment began in December with the Department of Agriculture announcing its intent to amend National Forest land management plans in the United States, with a focus on conserving and stewarding old-growth forest conditions and recruiting future old-growth conditions in light of increasing threats due to rapidly changing climate conditions.

Nearby, more than 2.2 million acres of land are managed by the Forest Service in the White River National Forest, which is located mostly in Eagle County but also has land in Pitkin, Garfield, Summit, Rio Blanco, Mesa, Gunnison, Routt, and Moffat counties.

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A public comment period for the plan amendments runs through Friday at cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?Project=65356

Not just redwoods

While the term “old growth” brings to mind the giant redwoods of California, the Forest Service points out that old growth is any tree in the late stages of its development, including many trees in Colorado.

“Iconic images of old-growth forests tend to be of moist forests that grow in highly productive coastal areas,” according to the Forest Service. “However old-growth forests are also pinyon-juniper, pine, spruce, hemlock and oak-hickory.”

In Colorado, old-growth logging has seen its share of controversy in recent years. A 2024 plan to log more than 700,000 acres in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests in southwestern Colorado was opposed by several nonprofit organizations and government bodies including Ouray County, San Miguel County, the Intermountain Forest Association, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Defenders of Wildlife, High Country Conservation Advocates, Rocky Mountain Wild, Center for Biological Diversity, The Wilderness Society, Wilderness Workshop, and WildEarth Guardians.

“The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests boast the highest carbon sequestration capacity of any national forest in the Rocky Mountain region,” said Alison Gallensky, conservation geographer with Rocky Mountain Wild.

Nevertheless, “the Forest Service has failed to ensure these vital carbon sinks aren’t logged and sold,” Gallensky added.

Despite the concerns, the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, Gunnison National Forests Revised Land Management Plan was finalized in July, identifying some 771,000 acres as suitable for timber production.

On the other side of the state, a 2023 plan to cut down hundreds of old-growth trees at Elk Meadow Park in Evergreen was also controversial, with the Eco-Integrity Alliance saying the trees were being logged “under the phony guise of ‘wildfire risk reduction.'”

Citing studies from Colorado’s Four Mile Canyon Fire in 2012 and the Hayman Fire in 2002, the alliance said logging old-growth forests won’t prevent large wildfires and could even make fires burn more severely by drying and heating the forest and spreading flames into communities by opening it to wind.

The group said any money used in an attempt to suppress wildfire would be better spent on preparing communities for the eventuality of it.

“The U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory found that making homes ‘Firewise’ — tending an area up to 100 feet around structures, installing metal roofs, etc. — is what protects property and lives, with up to 95 percent of treated structures withstanding even the largest fires,” the alliance stated.

Comment open through Friday

While some groups are hopeful about the potential for a new direction in the Forest Service, others remain skeptical.

Conservation group WildEarth Guardians this week said the proposal, in its current form, doesn’t appear to go far enough and issued a call action soliciting public comment.

“Instead of ending commercial exploitation, the agency seeks to enshrine direction that will send old growth trees to the mill instead of letting them remain standing where they can help stop the dual climate and biodiversity crises,” the group said in a release.

But the group also said the public’s opportunity to offer comment — which runs through Friday — could change that.

“With your help, we can convince the Forest Service to change course and end the logging of these unique forests,” said Adam Rissien, the group’s ReWilding Manager. “This is a critical opportunity to call for strong old growth forest protections, and to expand them into the future.”

WildEarth Guardians is also inviting the public to a free screening of the new film, “Crown Jewels” on Wednesday at 5 p.m. MST via Zoom.

The film was created by environmental activist Alex Haraus and cinematographers Aidan Kranz and Elena Jean and takes viewers on a journey across some of the last remaining ancient forests located on public lands in the United States.

“As the film crew travels from the rolling hills of West Virginia to the serene valleys of Wisconsin and temperate rainforest of Oregon, they learn more about the value that these ancient ecosystems have for the communities that depend on them,” WildEarth Guardians wrote in a review of the film. “In the United States, the Forest Service is currently targeting hundreds of thousands of acres of mature and old-growth forest for logging. These forests could be lost forever unless we can demonstrate widespread support for protecting them.

“This year, the public has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to forever change the way our government manages our federal public lands,” the group added.

“Crown Jewels” has a run time of 58 minutes, and experts from Environment America Research and Policy Center and Sierra Club will take questions from the audience for 45 minutes following the film.

To register for the free screening, visit environmentamerica.org/center/events/stand-for-our-forests-crown-jewels-virtual-film-screening/