A Trump administration memorandum issued Thursday declared a state of emergency in domestic timber supply and national forest health, directing the Forest Service to suspend normal environmental reviews and increase logging on more than 100 million acres of national forest, including in the Pacific Northwest.
The memo from the secretary of agriculture is a first step in implementing President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order directing cutting of more national forests.
The memo has the effect of declaring nearly 60% of all national forestlands to be in a state of emergency, thereby lifting the usual requirements for public comment and environmental review for protection of endangered species and cultural resources before logging.
All regional foresters with the Forest Service were also ordered to develop five-year strategies to increase their timber volume to achieve an agencywide increase of 25%. The directive was issued by acting Associate Chief Christopher French in a memo to all regional foresters issued Thursday.
Timber organizations cheered the federal action Thursday.
“America’s wood products should come from American forests — especially those in the Pacific Northwest, where management follows some of the most rigorous scientific, labor, and environmental standards in the world,” said Nick Smith, spokesperson for the American Forest Resource Council, an industry group based in Portland.
The memorandum will help supply sustainably harvested wood to local mills and provide family-wage jobs across Washington, Smith said.
Opponents vowed to fight the emergency order because it violates federal law.
“This order is a trumped-up fake emergency whose real purpose is to enrich Big Timber by feeding our national forests into the woodchipper,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a prepared statement.
Others say the order is misguided and will not protect forests from wildfire.
“Throughout national forests, there will be less public involvement and environmental review,” said Mike Anderson, senior policy analyst for The Wilderness Society. “These are public lands and the public should have a voice in how they are managed … there will be more risk of environmental damage from these projects.”
The focus on increasing commercial production actually will put communities at greater fire risk, Anderson said, by prioritizing logging of big, commercially valuable trees that don’t pose a fire risk and taking attention from thinning dense stands of small trees that are fire-prone. “It is really an unfortunate turn of events.”
The order has special meaning in the Northwest, where millions of acres of national forest in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California have since 1994 been managed under the Northwest Forest Plan. The plan protects old growth and older forests from logging to sustain threatened species, including the northern spotted owl.
The plan remains in effect. However, areas of national forest within the plan area where logging is allowed would see reduced environmental review and increased logging. Even old growth that has burned could be logged on an expedited basis.
The memorandum doesn’t effect the amendment process underway to update the Northwest Forest Plan.
The Forest Service is being set up to fail, said Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild, especially as the Trump administration also cuts service staff needed to do the work of drawing up logging plans. “They couldn’t do this before … because it’s illegal, and they certainly can’t do it now, because it’s still illegal, and they don’t have the staff.”
The effect of the memorandum is yet to be seen. If Forest Service offices design cuts in national forests that are contrary to environmental protections, they can expect lawsuits, Pedery said.
“This memorandum is intended to facilitate the looting of national forests around the country,” Pedery said. “There is still an Endangered Species Act. There is still a Clean Water Act. There is still a National Environmental Policy Act.”
