Donors and Supporters,
I want to thank everyone who donated to help get me to Washington D.C. to attend the Mature and Old Growth (MOG) Science Summit. The conference had over 200 attendees, including scientists, tribal forestry representatives, policy-makers, agency personnel, and land managers. The Summit was centered around the Biden administration’s proposed national forest plan amendment. That proposal aims to conserve mature and old-growth forests on federal lands in support of their climate buffering capacity, while also managing those forests for resiliency in the face of climate change and other stressors. I was one of only a few advocates present.
The organizers and moderators did a good job allowing for comments and input, which I certainly made use of. In a program largely dominated by western forest perspectives, I was able to offer thoughts and observations about old-growth and public lands management in our region. Much emphasis was given (and duly so) to the substantial threats posed to western old-growth forests through the effects of climate change, including worsening impacts from wildfire, insects, and disease. In western forests, these impacts and stressors now dwarf the impacts of logging. And yet, this emphasis served to obscure how logging remains the primary threat to mature and old-growth forests, and is the largest driver of forest carbon emissions, in the southeast.
Forest Service officials also asserted that the agency has largely shifted away from regeneration harvests, like clearcuts and low-retention shelterwood harvests, and instead focuses on thinning (especially understory thinning) to reduce wildfire hazards. I was able to counter that the Forest Service continues to emphasize severe regeneration systems on the Daniel Boone and many southeastern national forests. I was also able to share our experiences with the disregard – even hostility – toward old-growth forests from personnel on the Daniel Boone, and how this could make any adoption of the proposed mature and old-growth forest protections meaningless.
Several people thanked me for my comments and contributions, which was affirming. I was even told to “keep it up” by former Forest Service Deputy Chief (and outspoken advocate) Jim Furnish, which was a kind of “rock star” moment for me.
Despite these issues, the conference offered some very insightful presentations and thoughtful discussions on a very complicated, difficult topic. And a centering of indigenous cultural practices and contemporary tribal forestry perspectives brought another, and much appreciated, layer of complexity. In many respects, the ecological legacy of North America cannot be separated from indigenous cultural practices extending back through the Holocene the end of the last ice age.
Again, thank you for helping me to get there. I do believe that that the issues and concerns I raised were heard. And for me personally, it was a learning experience that provided me with information and perspectives that will continue to help me as I think through what our forests are, where they’re going, and how we can protect and preserve them in an uncertain future.
For the Forest,
Jim Scheff