USFS Seeks Members for NWFP Area Committee

Received this press release this morning….

 

Forest Service News Release
Contact: Catherine Caruso

[email protected]

Forest Service Recruiting for New
Federal Advisory Committee

Call for help to modernize Northwest Forest Plan

PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 5, 2022 — Nominations are being accepted through mid January for members to a Federal Advisory Committee for national forests in the Northwest Forest Plan area of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

The Committee will provide input on modernizing landscape management to promote sustainability, climate change adaptation, and wildfire resilience while addressing the increased demands on Northwest Forest Plan lands.

The 20-member committee will meet about four times annually for a two-year term. They will represent the diversity across the three states covered by the plan and include experts in the science community, organizations with an interest in these forests, plus government, tribal and public groups.

The Committee will offer advice on these topics, plus additional requests from the Secretary of Agriculture or the Chief of the Forest Service:

    • Planning options to complement the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, to assist the Forest Service in proactive wildfire risk reduction and obstacles in vegetation management.
    • Ways to address dynamic ecosystems with adaptive management, monitoring, and future uncertainty.
    • Integrating indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, perspectives, and values into federal forest planning and management.
    • Feedback on how to protect and promote conservation of mature, old-growth forest while ensuring national forests are resilient to high-severity wildfire, insects, disease, and other disturbances worsened by the climate crisis.
    • Preliminary recommendations in line with Forest Service NWFP planning timelines.

 

Review instructions on the Federal Register Notice. Submit packets by Jan. 17, 2023 – including cover letter, resume, references and form AD-755 – to [email protected]. Put “FACA Nomination” in the subject line. If mailing, send to: Regional Forester Glenn Casamassa, c/o NWFP FACA Team, 1220 SW 3rd Avenue, Portland, OR 97204.

For more information, visit the Forest Service’s Northwest Forest Plan page or the committee page.

For questions, contact Mark Brown at (971) 712-4369, Nick Goldstein at (503) 347-1765, or email [email protected]. Individuals using devices for the deaf may call (800) 877-8339, 5 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Friday.

 

 

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1 thought on “USFS Seeks Members for NWFP Area Committee”

  1. FYI, Greenwire covered this today. Excerpt:

    A spokesperson for the AFRC, Nick Smith, said the organization will “engage in the nomination process and beyond,” and believes the timing is right to revisit the Northwest Forest Plan.

    “With the Northwest Forest Plan nearly 30 years old, we think this is a good opportunity to align the future management of these federal forests with modern science and forest practices,” Smith told E&E News.

    Smith said the forest plan has fallen short in maintaining a timber industry and, arguably, in protecting the environment, given growing damage from wildfires in forests that aren’t thinned as much.

    It is important to remember, Smith said, that two of the five major goals of the NWFP are to “never forget human and economic dimensions of the issues,” and to “produce a predictable and sustainable level of timber sales and nontimber resources.”

    Environmental groups praised the committee’s creation.

    While the forest plan has helped conserve old-growth forests and waterways, “the Pacific Northwest and the entire country are facing different challenges from a quarter-century ago when the Northwest Forest Plan was created,” the Wilderness Society said in a news release.

    “The Northwest Forest Plan is a hugely important tool for the future of our national forests, and it needs to be updated based on the best available science to address increasing threats from wildfires, floods and loss of mature and old forests,” said Megan Birzell, the group’s Washington state director.

    Reply

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