USDA Emergency Announcement on Timber Will Affect Recreation

Photo credit: BLM Flickr

Earlier this month, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a Secretarial Memo aimed at increasing timber harvests on National Forests following from President Trump's Executive Order on American timber production.

The memo establishes an "Emergency Situation Determination" on 112,646,000 acres of national forestlands, around 58% of the total land managed by the Forest Service. It includes a linked map that shows where the emergency determination applies.

The emergency determination means that the Forest Service can proceed with timber projects and other forestry activities with shortened environmental reviews, limiting the public process used by stakeholders like the outdoor community to inform how projects are designed and address potential impacts to trails, watersheds, viewsheds, and other recreation resources.

Though the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, allows the Secretary of Agriculture to take emergency actions to mitigate immediate threats to people and natural resources, applying this sort of authority over such a vast, ecologically-diverse area is unprecedented.  While the memo identifies these lands  as areas with high risk of wildfire, insect infestations, and diseases (including things like bark beetles and forest pathogens), it doesn’t provide any assurance that the decision is based on up-to-date, localized data or local input. Also concerning, the memo tasks Forest Service staff with increasing its timber output while the agency is simultaneously undergoing a dramatic reduction in force.

“Catastrophic wildfire is a growing issue in the west and across America. While the outdoor community supports science-based actions needed to make our forests fire-resilient, this work needs to be planned thoughtfully and in a way that reflects the needs of local communities and public lands users including outdoor recreationists.  By weakening the public process around wildfire mitigation, USDA’s declaration makes this sort of community-driven wildfire planning less likely and directly affects the outdoor recreation community’s ability to have a say about what happens on our National Forests,” said Jamie Ervin, Senior Policy Manager for Outdoor Alliance.

In the same press release, the USDA announced it was canceling protections for Nevada’s Ruby Mountains and for New Mexico’s Upper Pecos River Watershed, both of which are home to outdoor recreation opportunities and important conservation opportunities.