A northern spotted owl in the old growth forest of Oregon
Todd Sonflieth / OPB
The health and vitality of forest ecosystems in the Northwest, and how much timber should be cut from those forests, is laid out in the Northwest Forest Plan. But that plan was created in the mid-1990s, and has not changed substantially since then, says Norm Johnson, one of its developers. He and his longtime colleague, Jerry Franklin, recently penned an opinion piece in The Register-Guard newspaper, opposing the planned logging of about 2,000 acres of mature trees (100-150 years old) in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. Johnson and Franklin say that in the time since the plan was written, forestry science has yielded a much deeper understanding of the ecological importance of these trees, including how they sequester carbon and provide habitat for countless species. Johnson and Franklin join us to discuss what’s at stake with this specific planned cut, and why they think new science should change the direction of forest management in Oregon.
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