The Keep Washington Evergreen initiative, proposed by public lands commissioner Hilary Franz in November, seeks to protect forests in the state over 20 years. In this final story, we look at the goal of reforestation.Read More
Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz introduced the Keep Washington Evergreen initiative at the end of November, which aims to protect and reestablish the state’s forests. In part two of this three part report, we look at the goal of protecting forests from conversion.Read More
Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz introduced the Keep Washington Evergreen initiative at the end of November, which aims to protect and reestablish the state’s forests. In part one, we look at restoring forest health.Read More
In the decades since government restrictions reduced logging on federal lands, the timber industry has promoted the idea that private lands are less prone to wildfires, saying that forests thick with trees fuel bigger, more destructive blazes. But an analysis by OPB and ProPublica shows last month’s fires burned as intensely on private forests with large-scale logging Read More
New research suggests that a U.S. Forest Service proposal to allow the cutting of larger trees on public lands east of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington will have an outsized impact on forest carbon storage in the Pacific Northwest.Read More
This latest rollback proposal, issued Tuesday, comes from the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region. It would end a 25-year-old provision that prevents logging of trees that exceed 21 inches in diameter in six national forests across Eastern Oregon and Washington.Read More
Oregon Forest Resources Institute, created in the early 1990s to educate residents about forestry, has acted as a public-relations agency and lobbying arm for the timber industry, in some cases skirting legal constraints that forbid it from doing so.Read More
The land management plans, known as the “Eastside Screens,” came about in 1995 to protect old growth trees east of the Cascades. The rules were meant to be temporary. The Forest Service wants to amend a section of the policy called the “21-inch rule,” which prohibits harvesting trees that are greater than 21-inches in diameter.Read More
Deforestation, climate change and the disturbances it can exacerbate – like wildfires, extreme droughts and insect outbreaks – are decimating old growth forests across the globe. That means forests worldwide are filling in with younger and shorter trees, according to a new study.Read More
Researchers began their detective work, trying to figure out what happened to these treated areas during the first few extreme days of the Carlton Complex fire. They gathered geospatial maps and satellite images.Read More
Researchers at Oregon State University and the University of California-Berkeley looked at which forests in the Western United States should be prioritized for preservation under climate change scenarios.Read More
The tussock moth caterpillar is quite the sight, if you’ve ever seen one hanging around a Douglas fir tree. These hungry caterpillars can eat Douglas fir and grand fir needles, first starting with the new needles that grow as the caterpillars hatch. Later, munching on older needles high in the treetops.Read More
Federal land managers have proposed sweeping rule changes to a landmark environmental law that would allow them to fast-track certain forest management projects, including logging and prescribed burning.Read More
The chief of the U.S. Forest Service is warning that a billion acres of land across America are at risk of catastrophic wildfires like last fall's deadly Camp Fire that destroyed most of Paradise, Calif.Read More
State and federal officials signed an agreement Wednesday to protect Washington’s forests and wildlife. The plan would combine resources to fight destructive wildfires, threats to forest health and challenges faced by salmon and orcas.Read More
Climate change is expected to increase drought and wildfire vulnerability in forests across the West. But new research out of Oregon State University shows that some places will fare better than others. Read More
After wildfire season ends each year, land managers start planning what comes next for the areas that burned. Often, the strategy used to ensure the forests return is to salvage log and then replant. But a recent study suggests that in some areas, it might be just as effective to leave the forest alone.Read More
On Thursday, a U.S. District Court Judge in Spokane gave the green light to a controversial forest restoration project on Washington’s Colville National Forest.Read More
The Trump Administration has called for more logging of western forests to reduce wildfire risks. But people on the ground in the west say the solution is thinning and forest restoration, not logging.Read More
In 2013, the U.S. Forest Service was looking for someone to reduce wildfire risk and rehabilitate a stand of overgrown trees on the Colville National Forest in northeastern Washington. Colville-based Vaagen Brothers Lumber submitted the one and only proposal to take on the ‘A to Z’ project. Its future awaits a federal court decision.Read More
A group of senators from western states want to expand a national effort to boost timber production and restore natural conditions on overstocked forests using thinning and other restoration work.Read More
