“This tends to accelerate fires”

Scientists are warning about increasing logging on public lands, even after President Joe Biden cracked down on the practice in the United States.

What is happening?

According to a Scripps News report, scientists at the John Muir Institute said logging in mature and old-growth forests on public lands has increased under the Biden administration, despite promises to further restrict the practice.

“They’re removing thousands and thousands of mature trees from the landscape. They’re ripping out the tree trunks for lumber, then they’re removing the branches and the tops of the trees, and then they’re taking the smaller trees and put into gigantic trees.” piles,” said Chad Hanson, forest ecologist and director of the John Muir Project.

According to records obtained by Scripps, 2.3 billion board feet were mined in 2021, while in 2024, almost 3 billion board feet were mined.

This comes despite numerous executive orders from the president as well as a pledge to “end forest loss” and restore “at least 200 million hectares of forests and other ecosystems by 2030.”

Why is deforestation important?

Old-growth and mature forests are among our most crucial resources in the fight against global warming. They serve as carbon sinks, absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide to help them grow and produce more oxygen in the process.

However, when cut down, these ancient trees have the opposite effect; their trapped carbon is released into the atmosphere when they are processed into usable commercial wood.

The U.S. Forest Service has said logging efforts on public lands are intended to reduce the risk of wildfires, but Hanson said forest thinning can actually have the opposite effect.

“It tends to speed up fires, kill more trees and prevent them from being killed,” Hanson said. “This increases carbon emissions and puts communities at greater risk because fires spread more quickly in these thinned areas.”

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What are we doing about logging on public lands?

The biggest fight against logging on public lands remains politics; The Biden administration has expanded protections for old-growth forests, although it appears unlikely that many of these protections will continue under the new Donald Trump administration.

Environmentalists have opposed logging efforts and recently won a massive victory by stopping a project in the Ashley National Forest. In Australia, the New South Wales government faced backlash for allowing logging in the Great Koala National Park and for criticism in Victoria for a planned operation that threatened trees used as habitat for the endangered greater glider.

The best way to prevent further loss of old-growth forests is to push your state and local legislators to continue logging on public lands as much as possible.

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