After 30 years, the groundbreaking Northwest Forest Plan is being updated! Late last year, the U.S. Forest Service released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the first amendment to the Plan. The DEIS includes a proposed action (Alternative B) that is derived from the recommendations from a federal advisory committee consisting of diverse interests and tribal voices. As the Forest Service considers public comment on this update, we need your voice to ensure the strongest possible protections are put in place. This is a critical moment for forests, rivers, fish, and wildlife throughout the Northwest.

Why This Matters: For 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan has been essential in protecting old-growth forests, restoring watersheds, and protecting fish and wildlife across 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in Washington, Oregon and northern California—including most of the 3.8-million-acre Wenatchee-Okanogan National Forest.

The plan has shifted forest management away from old destructive logging practices to a science-based approach that preserved some of the mature and old-growth forests, which are crucial for sequestering carbon and combating climate change. But a lot has changed in 30 years, and the plan must adapt to growing needs for the ecosystem and communities—and protect all of our older forests where they still remain.

Comment on the Northwest Forest Plan

What We Need Going Forward in the Northwest Forest Plan:

• Stronger Protections for Mature Trees: The new plan must enhance current protections for mature and old-growth forests. In addition to protecting old trees, the plan should provide strategies for preserving the next generation of large, old trees across the landscape. East of the Cascades our forests are slow to mature; by protecting the next generation of trees, we can grow structural complexity and eventually see more old growth.
• Tribal Involvement: Meaningful inclusion of tribes in forest management was not considered in the original plan and is essential going forward.
• Climate Resilience: The plan must address the challenges posed by climate change to ensure ecosystems continue to thrive. Currently the plan addresses managing fire and thinning but it should incorporate additional climate-related issues such as wildlife migration and connectivity and watershed health.
• Habitat Connectivity: Our national forests are chock full of roads that fragment habitat. Reducing road density improves habitat connectivity for wildlife and reduces impacts on aquatic environments.
• More Fire in our Dry Forests: Our dryland forests are adapted to fire. Increasing prescribed fire and cultural burning across these landscapes will improve forest health and resilience.
  

  How to Comment:

  1. Submit your own comments on the plan: Craft and customize your own letter on the plan. We’ve included some key improvements we’re recommending above. You can submit comments directly on the Forest Service Portal here.
  2. Submit a form letter: Conservation Northwest is one partner we’ve been working closely with on this update. They have crafted a comment letter below that touches on our primary recommendations and concerns. If you aren’t able to write your own letter, consider sending a version of this letter to the Forest Service through their comment portal.

  Submit your comments before Monday, March 17 at 8:59pm (PST)

  Form Letter:

  Dear Ms. Jacque Buchanan, Regional Forester:

  I’m writing to comment on the Forest Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed Northwest Forest Plan (NFP) amendment. I strongly support the NFP’s regional approach to ensure the viability of fish and wildlife associated with ancient forest ecosystems and to support local communities. In recognition of climate change, I support a modified Alternative B (B+) to better recruit old forests, burn dry forests, improve habitat connectivity, protect aquatic ecosystems, and restore old forests in Reserves.

  Forests of the Cascades and Olympics are vital to our region, providing excellent water quality, crucial climate resilience, marvelous biological diversity, inspiring places for contemplation and recreation, and job opportunities. Since 1994, the NFP has improved watershed conditions and reduced threats to ancient forests and their inhabitants, including many very rare, unique species that occur only in the Pacific Northwest.

  The proposed NFP amendment is a big step forward in protecting old-growth forests and trees, restoring fire to the landscape, and improving ecological resilience of dry fire-prone forests. It also provides valuable direction to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge in decision-making and expand co-stewardship opportunities to better address Tribal cultural needs, achieve forest management goals, and meet indigenous treaty and trust responsibilities.

  However, the proposed amendment needs improvement in five key areas. Please amend the proposed action with standards and guidelines that:

  • Promote old-growth recovery in dry forests by recruiting enough trees from the largest and oldest size class during stewardship actions to restore old-growth distribution and abundance on the landscape. Older and larger trees are inordinately important for storing carbon, supporting biological diversity, and resisting stress from fire, drought, and other disturbances.

  • Prioritize ecological restoration of previously logged areas in wetter forests, especially in 80-120-year-old stands. Old plantations with homogenous structure and composition will benefit the most from actions that enhance structural complexity and other late-successional characteristics.

  • Reduce road density to improve wildlife habitat connectivity and reduce aquatic impacts from climate-induced flood events. Reduce road density to 1 mile road/mile2 in key watersheds and to 2 miles of road/mile2 outside key watersheds and hydrologically decouple roads from water resources in all land allocations. Maintain the habitat connectivity emphasis in the Snoqualmie Pass Adaptive Management Area.

  • Maximize wildland fire and indigenous cultural burning to restore ecologically appropriate fire activity and behavior across drier forest landscapes, and incorporate Indigenous cultural burning practices more broadly. Adopt plan components that support Tribes’ co-management and co-stewardship informed by indigenous knowledge, access to cultural and religious sites, indigenous hunting and gathering on national forests, and other issues of interest to Tribes.

  • Remove guideline 1(b) from FORSTW-LSR-GDL for creating young forest in Late-Successional Reserves. Natural disturbances are expected to continue to create suitable amounts of complex early successional forest habitat in Reserves and this guideline is unneeded.

  Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on the Forest Service’s proposed amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan.

  Sincerely,

  (Your Name)