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The urgency of saving forests worldwide has reached alarming new levels in the wake of recent events.
Last month's COP 27 climate conference, election results in the U.S. and Brazil, and a torrent of new climate catastrophes are among developments that have made it clearer than ever before: Forest conservation—especially saving older, mature forests—must be the starting point in any strategy to reverse environmental Armageddon.
Recently President Joe Biden issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14072 calling on the U.S. government to develop policies to save mature and older forests.
Our allies at Wild Heritage have unveiled a groundbreaking assessment map (scroll down to the Resources section at bottom of this alert) showing that in the continental U.S. about 50 million acres of older federal forests are under threat of destruction and degradation by logging.
"Protecting older forests from logging on federal lands is critical to President Biden's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent of 2005 levels by 2030," said Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala in announcing the map and accompanying research.
But there are many impacts to forests apart from logging. E.O. 14072 is a major step in the right direction but needs strengthening by taking into scope all the threats to the forest biome, including but not limited to global warming, off-road vehicle use, fossil fuel extraction projects, grazing, and roadbuilding.
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Paul Hughes
Executive Director
Forests Forever
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RESOURCES →
- This first-ever comprehensive interactive map shows forest maturity and stand development in the lower 48 states.
- And this video does a good job of explaining what makes older, mature forests so different from other forests. (9:47)
- The strongest recent vision for conserving the country's mature and old-growth forests came in President Biden's Executive Order 14072.
- Forests Forever is among the Forest Carbon Coalition groups that signed a recent letter calling on senior Biden Administration officials to take stronger action for mature forests.