Solutions

The following is a compilation of existing tools to increase efficiencies in the timber sale process.

This decision adopts an integrated strategy for vegetation management that is aggressive enough to reduce the risk of wildfire to communities in the urban-wildland interface while modifying fire behavior over the broader landscape. With the careful placement of thinning projects, we can make significant progress in reducing the threat of catastrophic fires to wildlife and […]

Uncontrolled Litigation, Uncontrolled Fires: A Case Study: 2012 is shaping up to be yet another big year for wildfires. As of August 30, over 44,000 fires have scorched more than 7.2 million acres. While only 1.8 million acres of these fires have burned on Forest Service lands, several fires demonstrate that badly needed forest health […]

Forest Service Planning Rule On January 26, 2012, the Forest Service released the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) containing as the Preferred Alternative a new Forest Planning Rule. AFRC submitted detailed comments on the Draft Rule, issued February 14, 2011, expressing its members’ concerns about the policy direction the rule takes, the cost in taxpayer […]

Ann Forest Burns, Scott Horngren, Ross Mickey, and Tom Partin1, American Forest Resource Council We have been asked to share the timber industry’s perspective on how effective the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has been since its implementation and whether changes are need to ensure that its original conservation, social and economic objectives are met in […]

Since 1976, forest roads have been regulated as nonpoint sources of pollution under the federal Clean Water Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently overturned 35 years of precedent by ruling that forest roads and associated stormwater ditches are point sources subject to National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, the […]

Now or Never: Growing the Rural Economy and Protecting Forests While Reducing Costs: Investing in Federal Forest Management is a win-win Extreme forest health problems plague the National Forest System The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manage over 190 million acres of forest lands. By some estimates, more than 73 million acres […]

The goal of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was to move past the controversy surrounding timber harvesting in Washington and Oregon following the 1990 listing of the northern spotted owl (NSO) as an endangered species. Its purpose was to provide a vision for forest management in the region. Although the plan was far from […]

Forests cover one third of the land area of the United States and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2008, offset 13.5 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the release of oxygen and the storage of carbon. This is equivalent to the GHGs […]