SEATTLE – President Biden is taking steps to restore national forests that have been devastated by wildfires, drought and plague, using an Earth Day visit to Seattle to sign an executive order protecting some of the country’s largest and oldest trees .
Old trees are key buffers against climate change and provide crucial carbon sinks that absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
The Biden Order directs federal land administrators to define and inventory mature and old-growth forests across the country within a year. The order requires the Forest Service, the Land Management Office and the National Park Service to identify threats to older trees, such as forest fires and climate change, and to develop policies to safeguard them.
The order does not prohibit the felling of mature or old trees, the White House said.
By signing the order on Friday, Biden can publicly reaffirm his environmental credentials at a time when his administration has been concerned about high oil and gasoline prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gas costs have been a drag on Biden’s popularity and have created short-term political pressures for this year’s midterm elections, but the Democratic president has focused on wildfires. intensifying due to climate change.
The measure aims to safeguard national forests that have been severely damaged by wildfires, drought and plague, including recent fires that killed thousands of giant redwoods in California. Redwood forests are among the most efficient in the world for removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and provide critical habitat for native wildlife and watersheds that supply farms and communities in the West.
Such intense flames to kill trees that were once considered virtually fireproof have alarmed land managers, environmentalists and tree lovers around the world and demonstrated the serious impacts of climate change. A warming planet that has created longer, warmer droughts, combined with a century of firefighting that has drowned forests with a thick undergrowth, has fueled the flames that have extinguished trees dating back to ancient civilizations.
A senior government official noted that forests absorb more than 10 percent of the U.S.’s annual greenhouse gases, while providing flood control, clean water, clean air, and a home for wildlife. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the details of Biden’s order before it was made public.
Biden’s ambitious climate agenda has been plagued by setbacks, a year after taking office amid a flurry of climate-related promises. The president hosted a virtual summit on global warming at the White House last Earth Day. He took the opportunity to almost double the U.S. goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, putting the country at the forefront of the fight against climate change.
A year later, its strongest proposals remain stagnant on Capitol Hill despite renewed warnings from scientists that the world is rushing into a dangerous future marked by extreme heat, drought and weather.
In addition, Russia’s war in Ukraine has reorganized climate change policy, which has led Biden to release oil from the country’s strategic reserve and to encourage more domestic drilling in hopes of reducing the very high prices of gas they are emptying. the American portfolios.
While Biden is raising fuel-saving standards for vehicles and included green policies in last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, the lack of further progress overshadows its second Earth Day as the president.
Timber industry representative Nick Smith said before the order was made public that lumberjacks are concerned about adding more bureaucracy to a forest management framework that can no longer keep up with forest fires. increasing due to climate change.
This would undermine the Biden administration’s goal of doubling the amount of controlled logging and burning over the next decade to reduce dry western forests, said Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council, an industry group based in Oregon.
“The federal government has an urgent need to reduce massive greenhouse gas emissions from severe forest fires, which can only be achieved by actively managing our unhealthy and overpopulated federal forests,” he said.
But former U.S. Forest Service Deputy Chief Jim Furnish said the risks of wildfires and climate change would be better addressed by removing smaller trees that could fuel wildfires while leaving the trees mature. instead.
For many years, the Forest Service has cut down older trees that are worth more to contribute money to the removal of smaller trees, Furnish said. But that is no longer necessary after Congress passed more than $ 5 billion to reduce the risk of wildfires in last year’s infrastructure bill, he said. The law includes money to hire 1,500 firefighters and ensure they earn at least $ 15 an hour.
Timber sales in federal forests across the country have doubled in the past 20 years as Republicans and Democrats have pushed for a more aggressive thinning of neighborhoods to cut down small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires. .
Critics, including many forest scientists, say officials allow the removal of too many older trees that can withstand the fire.
A letter signed by 135 scientists called on Biden to protect mature and old-growth forests as a critical climate solution.
“Older forests provide the highest carbon storage potential on Earth, with mature forests and larger trees driving most of the forest’s carbon buildup in the next few critical decades. they are vulnerable to logging, they cannot fulfill these vital functions, “he said. the scientists wrote on Thursday. Former Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck and Norman Christensen, founding dean and professor emeritus at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, were among those who signed the letter.
Protecting mature forests also “would be an important and highly visible example for other large forest nations to follow as they address the threats of climate change,” the scientists wrote.
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