Alert: US officials say old growth and mature forests on government lands cover an area larger than California, and the Biden administration plans a new rule to protect them.
The Biden administration has identified more than 175,000 square miles of old growth and mature forests on U.S. government land and plans to craft a new rule to better protect the nation’s woodlands from fires, insects and other side effects of climate change, federal officials planned to announce Thursday.
Results from the government’s first-ever national inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal land were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of a public release.
U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands combined have more than 50,000 square miles of old growth forests and about 125,000 square miles of mature forests, according to the inventory.
That’s more than half the forested land managed by the two agencies, and it covers an area larger than California. Yet officials say those stands of older trees are under increasing pressure as climate change worsens wildfires, drought, disease and insects — and leaves some forests devastated.
BIDEN ORDER AIMS TO PROTECT OLD-GROWTH FORESTS AS WILDFIRES BLAZE AROUND US
Older forests “are struggling to keep up with the stresses of climate change,” said USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment Homer Wilkes. “We must adapt quickly.”
Representatives of the timber industry and some members of Congress have been skeptical about President Joe Biden’s ambitions to protect older forests, which the Democrat unveiled last year on Earth Day.
They’ve urged the administration to instead concentrate on lessening wildfire dangers by thinning stands of trees where decades of fire suppression have allowed undergrowth to flourish, which can be a recipe for disaster when fires ignite.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore appeared this week before a U.S. Senate committee where he was pressured by lawmakers from both sides of…
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