It is not every day that the federal government has an opportunity to do something truly important for our state and our country’s precious old-growth forests.
Healthy forests, of which old growth is an important component, provide many benefits to people and nature, including: providing sources of clean drinking water; mitigating the impacts of severe weather events such as wildfire, floods, and drought; sequestering carbon from the atmosphere; providing wildlife habitat; and, generating revenue for local economies through sustainable forestry, tourism, and recreation opportunities.
Today, primarily due to a history of aggressive timber harvest, old-growth forests only account for about 17% of forested lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service…