US Inventory: Old Forests Cover an Area Bigger Than California

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The Biden administration has discovered over 175,000 square miles of old and mature forests owned by the US government. They want to create new rules that can prevent these forests from catching fire, bugs, and other climate change-related problems.

The government recently counted all the mature and old-growth forests on federal land. It turns out there’s a lot more of these big trees than anyone thought!

These forests can be found in western states like Idaho, California, Montana and Oregon. They’re also in New England, near the Great Lakes and even down south in places like Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia. You can take a look at an online map to see all these places!

President Joe Biden is facing a tough situation. Some people in Congress, including some Democrats, want to cut down more trees because they think it’ll help stop forest fires. But environmentalists are hoping that he uses the latest inventory, or list of what’s available, to prevent the timber industry from cutting too many trees.

The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have a combined total of 50,000 miles that are filled with trees that haven’t been cut down (called old growth forests), as well as 125,000 miles more of forests that are mature (they’ve grown large). That makes the total area these forests cover up to 175,000 square miles.

The US Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture manage more than half of all the forests in the country. This is an area that’s bigger than California! Unfortunately, these older forests are now under threat due to climate change which causes more intense wildfires, droughts, diseases, and insects. These factors are making it difficult for forested land to stay healthy. The USDA Under Secretary Homer Wilkes said this issue needs to be taken seriously so we can quickly figure out our next steps.

The biggest old forests have pinyon pines and junipers that take up a total of 14,000 miles square (36,000 kilometers). For each type of tree, like the Gambel oaks and bristlecone pine, there is a different age given to determine it as an old growth forest. The experts still disagree on what exactly makes something a mature forest – nevertheless, there were no specific ages specified.

Biden announced an effort to protect a lot of older forests last year on Earth Day, but the count doesn’t include certain areas like national parks and gun wildlife refuges. Some people from the timber industry and Congress are not sure about this plan.

People have asked the government to focus on making wild areas less dangerous by cutting down extra trees, which can be a problem when fires start. The head of the Forest Service was called in front of a U.S. Senate meeting where members from both political parties said he needs to do this faster.

A Senator from Wyoming named John Barrasso asked Moore tough questions. He was worried that the government’s conservation efforts might stop people from being able to cut down trees and do other activities on public lands.

Most of the forests in the United States have been cut down over the last two hundred years. Previous laws to try and protect some older trees, like Bill Clinton’s “roadless rule” from 2001, which stopped logging on about a quarter of federal forests, weren’t as effective as hoped.

Nick Smith from the American Forest Resource Council, which represents the timber industry, said that a lot of trees that are very old and haven’t been touched are already backed by laws so they can be protected. He suggested that in places where it’s safe to do so causes like thinning trees or decreasing wildfire risks should occur, and the people who manage federal land should have already done this.

Government officials let everyone know on Thursday that they will ask people what they think before coming up with the rules needed to make sure national forests and grasslands are protected, taken care of, and managed in a way that helps combat climate change.

We should know more about how this would work in a few days when the plans get posted in an official government newspaper.

Organizations that help protect our environment asked the government to make rules about foresting so they don’t cut down too many old trees. Blaine Miller-McFeeley from Earthjustice mentioned that some cutting of trees will still happen, but we must also promote protecting forests and using them for activities like camping or hiking.

Miller-McFeeley said that people are still cutting down trees from old growth forests, but they’re not thinking about how it affects our climate or how it will help protect us from wildfires. Instead, all they care about is how many boards of wood they can get out of it.

Researchers did an inventory of forests using field surveys and discovered more forest areas than outside researchers from a study last year. Those outside researchers missed out on Alaska and had trouble recognizing drier forests like pinyon pine stands, where the trees are not so close together, according to study author Dominick DellaSala who works with a conservation group called Wild Heritage.

Dr. DellaSala is happy because now there are more examples of large trees in the government’s inventory. Scientists say that these big trees can help our environment by collecting and storing carbon dioxide, which helps to keep the planet from getting too hot!

Wildfires in California recently killed a lot of giant sequoias. Lightning started the fires which killed up to 20% of these gigantic trees, and all of them are located on the western side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

This year, wild fires released around 7.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air which is 18% of what was released when burning coal, oil, or other energy sources.