America's Most Endangered Forests

The National Forest Protection Alliance released its third bi-annual report listing twelve of the country's most endangered national forests. The report also provides a groundbreaking economic analysis demonstrating that the Bush Administration's push for more industrial logging in our nation's public forests defies the market realities for wood products. The major conclusion drawn from this research is that the market share of national forest wood products will likely remain near its current level – 2% of the U.S.'s total consumption – despite the federal government's efforts to increase industrial logging through higher subsidies and policies like the Healthy Forests Initiative. Jake Krellick, NFPA's Endangered Forests Project Coordinator and author of the report stated: " This 2% of our lumber and paper supply comes at the highest ecological cost to our nation's environment…much of the logging is still directed at the most sensitive forested habitats remaining in the U.S., including roadless areas, ancient, old-growth forests and critical fish and wildlife habitat."  The report concludes that: "Collectively, the forest profiles in this report illustrate the poor ecological state of the national forest system, in large part from Forest Service efforts to place private industrial interests above the interests of the American people."

The twelve most endangered forests include:

Malheur National Forest-OR

Siskiyou National Forest-OR

Oregon BLM Forests

Allegheny National Forest-PA

Bighorn National Forest-WY

Daniel Boone National Forest-KY

Los Padres National Forest-CA

George Washington & Jefferson National Forest-VA

Rio Grande National Forest-CO

Tongass National Forest-AK

National Forests in Mississippi

Bitterroot National Forest-MT  

The Lands Council is temporarily housing the National Forest Protection Alliance. Contact Mike Petersen with any questions at mpetersen@landscouncil.org or (509) 838-4912.