Lost Sierra Forest - Climate Action Camp

When you think of an “emergency” in the natural world, what comes to mind? Climate emergency? Biodiversity emergency? Extinction emergency?

Both complicit and in denial of all of the above, the U.S. Forest Service has instead declared a LOGGING EMERGENCY (!), putting almost 1 million acres of carbon-storing, wildlife-sheltering public forests on the chopping block over the last year alone, an exponential increase compared to recent logging.

As of March 2024, 894,898 acres (likely more by the time you read this) across California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Washington are slated to be logged (including clearcutting and targeting mature and old growth trees) under an anti-science industry scheme that pretends the best way to protect communities from wildfire is to cut down forests.

Instead, the scientific consensus is that hardening homes—Firewise measures such as installing non-flammable roofs and maintaining defensible space 15-60 feet around structures—can save the vast majority from the most intense wildfires.

More specifically, this logging is being fast-tracked by exploiting a controversial “emergency action” authorization invoked by former corporate Big Ag lobbyist, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as laid out under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. This so-called “emergency” logging skirts the objection period of what’s known as the predecisional administrative review process, a legal challenge used by environmental advocates to pause or stop destructive projects, while bypassing alternative actions required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

What’s more, western forests are at risk from the polluting “biomass” industry and other interconnected corporate+government schemes that threaten to push us over the climate and biodiversity tipping point.

Of course, anyone remotely science-literate—or with the least bit of common sense—knows that the most credible body of studies show that not only won’t logging protect communities from the natural and essential process of wildfire, tree-cutting can make flames burn hotter and spread faster by opening forests to sunlight and wind. Not to mention adding slash piles to the forest, generating more carbon into the air and worsening future wildfires.

Indeed, the whole premise of logging to create “historical conditions” of parklike forests due to so-called “overgrown” stands and “unusual” high-severity wildfire has been repeatedly debunked, with peer-reviewed studies proving that western forests prior to fire suppression have always grown densely and experienced mixed- and high-severity wildfire.

The climate emergency demands we protect carbon-storing forests, including mature and old-growth stands. Don’t let them use climate-driven wildfires or polluting “biomass” energy as justification for further deforestation, which will only pour fuel on the flames.

But science alone won’t save the forest. It’s up to us to convince the Forest Service—and the politicians funneling tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into their coffers—to focus on “Firewise, not logging lies!”

Which is why we’re inviting YOU to take part in the National Day of Forest-Climate Action on Tuesday, May 28 (the day after Memorial Day)!

If you live on the west side of the continent, come out to the Lost Sierra Forest-Climate Action Camp from May 23-29. We’ll be setting up just outside the Plumas National Forest (not far from the town of Paradise, which burned down in 2018 after widespread “fuel reduction” logging) where the Forest Circus hopes to log 274,000 acres under the phony guise of “wildfire fuel reduction,” spewing at least 6 million tons of carbon dioxide and $30 million in toxic pesticides, including in ancient rainforest, while fueling 2 polluting “biomass” pellet factories!

Go to lostsierraforest.wordpress.com for schedule and info, and email us at lostsierra_forest [at] proton.me to RSVP or if you’d like to lead a workshop.

If you live on the east side of the land mass, check out the 32nd annual Heartwood Forest Council in Meigs County, Ohio. More info at heartwood.org/2024-forest-council

Many more actions will be planned and listed at lostsierra.wordpress.com

And if you don’t think you’ll make it to either, plan an action of your own. Just be sure to contact us at lostsierra_forest [at] proton.me so we can coordinate and spread the word!