The Oregon Board of Forestry recently passed a new revised management plan that will increase logging in forests across Oregon. Conservationists and environmentalists oppose this new plan and have advocated for permanent conservation areas in the forests affected by the management plan.

“It’s unfortunate because it takes a big step backward,” Oregon Wild spokesperson Sean Stevens said. “This is something where the Board of Forestry is out of step.”

John Blackwell, chairperson of the Oregon Forestry Board, disagreed.

“It’s a giant step forward,” Blackwell said. The board is under a lot of pressure to harvest at a higher rate than what is laid out in the new forest management plan, he added. The state forests are tied to the public school fund, so there is pressure to increase logging.

Oregon’s logging business is one of the biggest industries in the state. Economic needs and environmental concerns prompted the revisions, according to an Oregon Board of Forestry press release.

According to the release, “By making this change, the board seeks to rebalance the social, economic and environmental benefits from state forests, which account for about three percent of Oregon’s forest land base.”

Affected areas include 364,000 acres of the Tillamook State Forest, 154,000 acres of the Clatsop State Forest, 64,000 acres of tracts throughout the Coast Range in Polk, Benton, Lincoln and Lane counties, 48,000 acres of the Santiam State Forest, and 18,000 acres of other tracts near Grants Pass in southwest Oregon.

Under the new management plan, 196 million board feet of forest will be harvested every year. (One board foot is equivalent to 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch of lumber.) Three hundred million board feet of forest grow every year, Blackwell said.

The Tillamook forest does not have high biodiversity because the trees are in middle stage, Peg Boulay said, co-director of the Environmental Leadership Program.

“Since these forests are still young and recovering from the Tillamook burn of the mid-20th century, very few of them possess the older conditions that meet the habitat needs of some animal and plant species,” according to the release.

Environmentalists are concerned about how the new plan will affect species that depend on the forests and those regions of the state for their survival, such as salmon, sturgeon, deer and falcon. Poor logging practices can put different animal species at risk, Boulay said.

“All aquatic species, like salmon and sturgeon, have evolved with cold, clear water,” she said. “Poorly planned logging can impact that.”

The board voted five to two for the revised management plan, which includes the removal of a mandate to obtain a habitat conservation plan, a program to meet federal endangered species laws. Oregon will manage its endangered species on a site-specific basis, according to the release.

Boulay said the old management plan included structure-based management procedures, which recreate natural processes.

“They’re backing away from that due to economic pressures,” she said. These structure-based management procedures include maintaining snags, protecting the streams, and avoiding massive clear cuts. “That’s not compatible with increasing revenue,” she said.

On April 22, the board received a report from a public advisory group who studied a rule that defines the “greatest permanent value” of state-managed forestland. A significant change to this rule could cause the board to change the forest management plans to make sure they align with the revised rule, according to the forestry board press release.