On Feb. 2, The Pew Charitable Trusts and its local and regional partners submitted comments to the U.S. Forest Service on its proposed amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The letter urged the Forest Service to ensure that the amendment stands as a model of climate-informed adaptive management by embracing the latest science and focusing on emerging threats to forest health.
The NWFP guides the management of roughly 20 million acres (about the area of South Carolina) of National Forest System lands, stretching from the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest along the Washington border with Canada, through Oregon, to the Mendocino National Forest in northwestern California. And since the NWFP’s adoption in 1994, it has successfully slowed the decline of several threatened or endangered species and helped to restore watershed health and protect old-growth forests.
However, changing temperature and precipitation patterns throughout the Pacific Northwest pose new threats to forest health and magnify impacts from insects, disease, and recent large and severe wildfires. These pressures, along with increased scientific understanding and information gleaned from the NWFP’s monitoring protocols, highlight the need for targeted updates to the plan to maintain healthy, resilient forests. Pew and its partners encourage the Forest Service to focus on improving landscape resilience to wildfire, adapting to the ongoing effects of climate change, conserving existing old-growth forests and recruiting future generations of old growth, incorporating Indigenous knowledge, and supporting the sustainability of nearby communities.