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The Forest Service needs to open up to the public.

As a federal agency in charge of 193 million acres of forests, waters, wildlife habitat and recreation lands—not to mention timber, mineral, and grazing resources—the U.S. Forest Service's decisions are of great concern to many Americans.

But the key system the agency now uses to garner public comment on many of its proposed actions is fraught with technical complexity, making it an obstacle to public input and involvement rather than a reasonably handy gateway.

The Forest Service must streamline and simplify its public comment portal immediately so that American taxpayers can readily exercise their right to speak out.

Recently the Forest Service wrapped up its final comment period for the highly anticipated National Old-Growth Amendment (NOGA), a draft rule of once-in-a-generation importance that would protect mature and old-growth forests to combat the climate and extinction crises.

Public interest in the outcome was very high. The close of the final round of comments over a two-year period saw an estimated one million public comments on this proposed policy. (If you submitted comments as a result of one of Forests Forever's action alerts, thank you.)

But unlike the software platform used for the Federal Register Notice, the Forest Service relied on its clunky Comment and Analysis Response Application (CARA) portal for taking in and storing public comments.

CARA is not technically compatible with the software (e.g. EveryAction) that advocacy groups representing millions of Americans use as a gateway for public engagement.

For NOGA this forced organizations such as Forests Forever to undertake time-consuming and cumbersome tech workarounds to get comments in by the deadline. This should not be necessary when the Digital Age affords simpler means of communicating... providing email addresses to targeted officials, for example.

With the NOGA comment period behind us another landmark policy proposal is due in the coming weeks—revisions to update the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) covering some 24 million acres of publicly owned forestland in northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

American taxpayers have every right to expect that speaking out on the NWFP proposal, and others to follow, will not be unduly arduous.

Tell the Forest Service to put in place a simplified user-friendly public comment portal without delay!

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Forests Forever's new Swag Store offers a sizable array of fun items with which you can amplify our message, start a conversation— or just stay warm or hydrated. All carry our distinctive old-growth-forest-and-crescent-moon logo and many have our "Restore, Reinhabit, Re-enchant" motto. Except for our stock of books and bumper stickers all items are strictly printed to order, which means we don't produce and store unsold stock, with its attendant cost and potential waste. So browse our store and wear our logo with pride! All net proceeds benefit Forests Forever and its work to protect and restore Callifornia's forests.