Sample Letter: Protect Old-Growth Forests!

This is a sample letter to ask the Biden Administration to protect our remaining old-growth forests. Do not copy and paste this letter! Please remember to customize it to include your own personal thoughts and experiences with old-growth forests, and reasons for action.

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Dear President Biden, Secretary Vilsack, and Secretary Haaland,

Please ensure permanent protections for mature and old-growth forests on federal lands are a central component of our nation’s strategy to address the joint climate and extinction crises. Our older forests are still being logged at an alarming rate — this directly undermines the Biden administration’s efforts to address climate change and protect 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. 

Taking administrative action to conserve older forests on the United States’ federal lands will represent a broad win for this Administration by mitigating and adapting to the current and future impacts of climate change, conserving habitat to counter the biodiversity crisis, and securing a wide range of co-benefits. Unfortunately, thus far the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have not produced credible proposals for combating climate change nationwide, or for conserving carbon-rich older forests and trees on the lands they manage. The administration should correct that error by protecting older forests and trees on public lands in the United States from logging.

In 2021, the Biden administration announced that it would halt large-scale old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest. While a critical protective step, additional action is urgently needed to both expand older forest and tree protections across the United States and to ensure that the protections are enduring for the benefit of this and future generations.

We strongly urge you to take administrative action to protect older forests and trees on public lands in the United States from logging, and to ensure federal agencies work to recover these carbon rich landscapes for their climate, biodiversity, and watershed benefits to our nation.

Sincerely,