The Trump administration’s active efforts to open up commercial logging in the U.S. wilderness, from eyebrows to serious concerns from scientists and current and former federal land managers.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tripled a month after President Trump signed two execution orders, national security concerns about timber and timber exports and the expansion of U.S. timber production.
The secretary issued a memorandum that created an “emergency decision” on 112,646,000 acres (455,862 square kilometers) of national forests. The United States has 154 national forests, with about 188.3 million acres (762,000 square kilometers), so the affected areas account for about 60% of the country's national forest land.
As Los Padres Forest Watch Release noted, the memorandum is a way to resolve the wildfire crisis, “rely relied heavily on “domestic wood production” and “heavy federal policies, such as environmental protection measures.”
When contacted for comment, ForestWatch executive director Jeff Kuyper referred Gizmodo to his comments in the release: “This is a thinly veiled attempt to ramp up logging on our national forests, bypass environmental laws, and line the pockets of the timber industry,” which “coupled with mass firings, budget cuts, and environmental rollbacks … will wreak havoc on the Los Padres and other national forests across the country.”
The first 100 days of the second Trump administration focused on systematically cutting funding and staff from major federal scientific institutions, undermining their ability to research, monitor and respond to environmental and public health crises.
As required by the government, agencies such as NOAA and NASA had to fire employees, cancel contracts and research programs in the name of cost-cutting, despite their key role in tracking everything from hurricanes to wildfires. Many scientists and civil servants have also been kicked out or reassigned by the National Park Service, part of the government's efforts to phase out the number of workers managing the country's wildlife shelters.
As the Secretary’s Memorandum shows, the Government will argue that the emergency decision is Protect Forest, there is no regression in their protected identity. But some experts disagree.
“The pretending of these orders is to enhance national security, which is forged,” Elaine Leslie, a former director of biological resources at the National Park Service, said in an email to Gizmodo. “Policies articulated and implemented will undermine environmental protection and benefit wealthy companies in an accelerated way.”
This is not to say that Leslie and other ecologists are opposed to managing the wild. Quite the contrary: Prescribed fires and sparseness are conventional equipment in forest management toolkits that help reduce the spread of out-of-control and large-scale wildfires and encourage local environments to flourish.
Mark Ashton, an ecologist at Yale University and university forest director, said in an email to Gizmodo that there is a lot of evidence that specific tree removal treatments have reduced the severity of wildfires.
Besides that, the country's national forests are very different from national parks. “Most of their land bases are managed for timber and logging, so there is nothing new,” Ashton said. “It’s a question and where to get it done.”
There is also friction. Under the Trump administration, under the recent executive order and secretary memorandum, the scale and approach of logging and land management may vary greatly.
“Sparse is not login – overall delete is smaller [diameter at breast height] Leslie said the trees. Logging usually harvests large, mature, and often aged trees on a considerable land. ” In other words, the government’s executive order appears to be targeting a very different component of forest areas, and people reduce the risk of fire.
“If this is normal government, complete professionals work for the forest service department, then this shouldn't be a problem,” Ashton noted.
“No other organization in the world has some expertise, or at least does,” he added. “It is worrying that many of these people have been released and it is difficult to see if this administration will comply with the numerous rules and regulations governing land management.”
“As shown, many forest supervisors have been withdrawn or retired,” Leslie said. “The civil servants are in the following order, or they know they will be fired.”
The Biden administration has also not protected the United States’ forests as much as possible, but so far the new administration’s attitude toward scientific institutions and national parks has not been confident in our management of our uncontaminated national forests.
“I think it's crucial to the long-term consequences of these expansion actions,” Leslie said. “This logging without a thorough environmental analysis will put endangered species at risk. It will threaten biodiversity, water quality and the entire watershed. It will reduce wildlife habitat and increase fragmentation.”
According to Los Padres Forest observations, commercial logging will not prevent the most destructive fires—those strong winds are powered by extreme winds (such as those that powered the devastating wildfires in Los Padres Forest at the beginning of the year) and climate conditions.
“By using an “emergency” statement to quickly browse commercial logging to prevent fires, the Trump administration puts special interests ahead of science and makes local communities more vulnerable as climate change worsens across the country,” Forest Observer said.
However, this government has no secret climate stance. The tough situation between the government and the National Forest is likely to eventually emerge in the courts, but Trump’s actions show that the current administration would rather act quickly and destroy things than any more chaotic alternatives. And if you cut off an old growth forest, it will take a long time to recover it.
