The Biden-Harris Administration, along with Executive Order 14072, has sought to conserve mature forests along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently announced a proposal to amend all 128 forest land management plans to conserve forest conditions on national forests nationwide.

According to Old-Growth Forest Network, today less than five percent of Western and only a fraction of one percent of Eastern original forests remains standing. Old-growth forests are a needed resource because they are one of the few land uses where topsoil is created rather than destroyed and they are also the location where more carbon and nitrogen is retained.

 

The legislation will fund land management plans as to how this resource can be managed and their conservation. The proposed amendment will also utilize the best available science to provide consistent direction across national forests and grasslands.

"Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource. This proposed nationwide forest plan amendment - the first in the agency's history - is an important step in conserving these national treasures," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Climate change is presenting new threats like historic droughts and catastrophic wildfire. This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape."

In June 2022, Secretary Vilsack followed through on President Biden's Executive order to conserve and restore old and mature forests and directed the USDA Forest Service to take action to address and restore forests which was issued on Earth Day 2022.

This action included conducting the first ever nationwide inventory of old-growth forests which concluded that the Forest Service manages nearly 25 million acres of old growth and more than 68 million acres of mature forests on national forests.

The current amendment will provide consistent direction on how to conserve and restore old-growth forest conditions, update the Northwest Forest Plan for climate resilience, including for mature and old forest ecosystems, and help in making sustainable yet informed management decisions in the National Forest Service and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management.