These include:

• Halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation
• Diversifying and revitalizing rural communities and addressing environmental injustices
• Reducing forestland ownership by short-sighted investors
• Reducing wasteful consumption of wood products, and
• Reducing the climate impacts of industrial forest practices

As documented in the policy roadmap – Repairing America’s Tattered Forests – nearly 80% of US forestlands are moderately or severely degraded from decades of mismanagement and harmful projects and activities including logging, grazing, mining, roads, invasive species, off road vehicle use, suburban sprawl and unwarranted fire suppression. In addition, logging of the last remnants of ecologically intact primary and natural forests continues, largely as a result of subsidized logging on public forestlands.

The loss and degradation of US forestlands comes with a high climate price tag. Industrial logging activities are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions despite being excluded from national and state level GHG inventories. In addition, lands heavily impacted by clearcuts, dense logging road networks and timber plantations are far more vulnerable to wildfires, water shortages, floods, storm damage and other stressors already on the rise due to climate change. But President Biden’s Executive Order 140008 offers hope for turning the tide.