Scientists highlight the “emergency” forest registration order for Trump

The aggressive efforts of the Trump administration to open the American wild spaces in cutting commercial trees raises everything from eyebrows to serious concerns among scientists and current and former federal lands.

A month after President Trump signed two executives regarding National security concerns From exports of wood, wood and expansion American wood productionMinister of Agriculture, Brock Rollins, three times.

secretary Published A memorandum creates “determining the state of emergency” for more than 112,646,000 acres (455,862 square kilometers) of national forests. There are 154 national forests in the United States, including about 188.3 million acres (762,000 square kilometers), so the affected areas are about 60 % of all national forest lands in the country.

Fradful as a way to address the forest fire crisis, the memo relies heavily on signals to “production of local wood” and “heavy federal policies” such as environmental guarantees “, as shown in the issuance of Los Badris forest control.

When calling the comment, Forestwatch CEO Jeff Koyber referred Gizmodo to his comments in the version: “This is a highly veiled attempt to intensify the registration of our national forests, bypass environmental laws, and line up on the pockets in the wood industry.”

The first 100 days of the Trump administration focused on systematically reduced financing and employees through the main federal science agencies, undermining their ability to research, monitor and respond to environmental and public health crises.

At the request of the administration, agencies such as Noa and Nassa They must Employee definition And cancellation Contracts and Research programs In the name of reducing costs, despite their decisive roles in tracking everything from hurricanes to forest fires. Many public scholars and employees are also dragging It was pushed or reset from National Park ServicePart of a wider effort by the administration to stimulate the numbers of workers who manage wildlife shelters in our country.

As shown in the Al -Amin’s memo, the government will argue that the emergency decision is Protection Forests, not to back down from their protected condition. But some experts do not agree.

“These requests are under the pretext of strengthening the national security that is more enormous,” Eline Leslie, the former biological resources to serve the National Park, said in an email to Gismino. “The policies that have been clarified and implemented will weaken environmental protection for the benefit of wealthy companies in an urgent way.”

This does not mean that Leslie and other environmental scientists oppose the management of land lands. Quite the opposite: the described fires and mitigation are regular devices in the forest management tool group, which helps to reduce the spread of control and massive forest fires and encourage local environments to prosper.

There is a lot of evidence that special trees removal treatments reduce the severity of forest fires.

Besides, the country’s national forests are managed completely differently from their national gardens. Ashton said: “A lot of their land base has been managed and recorded – so there is nothing new to that,” Ashton said. “It is a matter of how and where is this.”

There is rubbing. The scale and approach to cutting trees and land management may appear completely different under the Trump administration, affecting a large group of national forests under recent executive orders and secretarial memo.

“Reducing the registration of trees – removes smaller trees (diameter on the height of the breast) in general,” said Leslie. “It harvested large mature trees in general, and old growth trees in very large spaces.” In other words, the government’s executive orders seem to target a completely different component of forest areas than those targeted by people who reduce fire risk.

“If the regular administration with a completely intact professional workforce is working in the service of forests – this should not be a problem,” Ashton pointed out.

He added: “Forest service has a level of experience that is compatible with any other organization in the world – or at least it has.” “It is worrying that many of these people have been released and difficult to know whether this administration will adhere to many rules and regulations governing the administration of the Earth.”

“As shown, many forest supervisors or retirees resigned. Civil Service staff at a stage of follow -up orders or know that they will be expelled,” said Leslie. “We hope that the environmental groups will gather to prosecute.”

the Biden Administration Do not As much as possible To protect the forests of America, but the position of the new administration towards national science and park agencies so far does not provide great confidence in their supervision of our virgin national forests.

“I think what is decisive importance is the long -term consequences of these expanded procedures,” said Leslie. “This type of registration without a comprehensive environmental analysis will endanger the endangered species. It will threaten biological diversity, water quality and entire water gatherings. It will reduce wildlife habitats and increase fragmentation.”

According to Los Padres Forest, the most destroyed fires will not prevent commercial registration – these fires fueled by strong winds (such as those operating with energy The destroyed forest fires in Los Angeles At the beginning of the year) and climate conditions.

Using “emergency ads” to record rapid commercial registration under the wrong promise to protect against fires, the Trump administration puts special interests in science and leaving local communities more at risk at a time when climate change increases in increasing the risk of fire throughout the country, “forest monitoring.

But this administration has been made No secret to her position On the climate, too. It may end in the broken situation between the administration and national forests in the courts, but Trump’s actions indicate that the current administration prefers to move quickly and break things more than any alternative less chaos. And if you cut the old growth forest, it will take a long time to restore it.