U.S. finds over 100 million acres of old-growth and mature forests 

from WaPo Climate 202

More than 100 million acres of old-growth and mature forest still exist across the country, despite decades of commercial logging, wildfires and climate threats, according to the federal government’s first official count released Thursday, The Post’s Anna Phillips reports.

The report from the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management provides a much higher estimate than previous studies have shown. It marks the culmination of a year-long review ordered by President Biden.

Under the directive, the federal agencies were required to establish an inventory of trees that make up the country’s oldest forests. Now, their next step is to craft and implement policies to protect the old-growth and mature trees from a variety of threats. The order did not specify an age threshold for the trees or explicitly ban logging.

The report’s findings are likely to reignite tensions between environmentalists and the timber industry over what should be classified as an “old tree” and which forests deserve safeguards. Climate advocates and scientists typically see the trees as crucial to fighting climate change because they can store large amounts of carbon. But logging companies are likely to push back extensively against any new limits on their access to the most valuable timber.