Activity Report Explorer

Rio Grande Valley Broadband • Entered by Susan Ostlie on March 31, 2022

Katya Spiecker : Mar 07 08:00AM -0700 Greetings Forest Defenders, Broads is *very excited* about joining a ne

March 11, 2022

Key Issue: Public Lands Health & Protection
Activity Type: Grant Funded Climate Education & Stewardship Program
Key Partners: Len Montgomery, Environment America, Lauren Anderson, Oregon Wild, Garett Rose, NRDC, Alex Craven, Sierra Club

Short Description of Activity

Broads is *very excited* about joining a new campaign along with 85 other
groups across the country calling on the Biden Administration to *enact a
strong, lasting rule across federal public lands that protects mature and
old-growth trees and forests from logging*, allowing the recovery of
old-growth forests that have been lost.
Overview of campaign and goals: Why this matters — Missing piece of US climate Policy
Next few years are critical for making real progress to mitigate climate change
Best opportunity to sequester and store carbon at scale: preserve old growth and mature forests and trees. Where we’re at – Efforts to protect older forests have been going on for decades, with many of you on this call leading the charge. Based on the responses we were able to force from the administration, we know that the window of opportunity is opening a crack, but we still have a lot of work to do to force it fully open. Creating this opportunity is what the Climate Forests Campaign is all about.
Goals: (Rule to protect mature and old growth) – Protect mature trees and stands on federal forestlands nationwide Through a rulemaking that is durable and meaningful and promulgated before the end of 2024.

Reflection/Evaluation

This movement does not seem to have a place for legitimate forest restoration. While I know that what passes for restoration in many places – Oregon and Montana for the most part – is just basically logging. They only preserve large and old trees along the roads where the public drives by and thinks restoration is being done. However, if you can see the areas behind the roads, it is all clear-cut. It is logging, and not restoration in any form. As a member of two CFLRPs in NM, I saw what true restoration looks like – old and large trees are left, and the forest is moving toward uneven aged stands that are much more fire-resilient and much closer to what a pre-western settlement landscape looked like. When I made this point in the chat, it was not addressed. I think the people running this group need to acknowledge that restoration can be done successfully as long as the primary driver is not extraction and economic development for local communities. It is sad that both grazing and logging are so detrimental to public lands, when just leaving the forests the way they are now is so degraded and destructive.