The Trump administration is reducing bureaucratic barriers for logging public forests, including New Hampshire’s 800,000-acre White Mountain National Forest. In a memorandum on April 4, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins designated an emergency situation determination for 112 million acres of national forests marked as “high risk” for fire danger, invasive pests or other concerns. Most of White Mountain National Forest is included in the memorandum.
Emergency situation determinations authorize the United States Forest Service to forgo typical objection processes that allow community members to voice their concerns about logging proposals before they are implemented, according to the Associated Press. The memorandum follows Trump’s March 1 executive order to increase domestic timber production by 25%, citing goals of economic development, wildfire protection and forest health.
In an April 3 letter to regional foresters and deputy chiefs, Forest Service acting associate chief Chris French wrote that by “streamlin[ing] or reduc[ing] certification requirements and processes,” the agency will “capitalize on value and restore the areas to more fire resilient conditions.”
The memorandum states that regional and forest-specific strategy plans will be developed in the next few months. In an email statement to The Dartmouth, a United States Department of Agriculture spokesperson wrote that the agency will act “in alignment with the Secretary’s direction.”
“We will streamline forest management efforts, reduce burdensome regulations and grow partnerships to support economic growth and sustainability,” the USDA spokesperson wrote. “Active management has long been at the core of Forest Service efforts to address the many challenges faced by the people and communities we serve.”
The White Mountain National Forest is governed by the Forest Service and only 5,000 acres are currently available for logging contracts and their community plan — which has “general support” — gets input from various community stakeholders, according to New Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands director Patrick Hackley.
Some, like ecology professor Matthew Ayres, are concerned about streamlining or reducing environmental protection processes which give the public a voice on the future of the forest.
“The Forest Service has a process built over decades for soliciting public input,” Ayres said. “Ransacking that decision-making process is a recipe for the deterioration of the natural resources that are the national forests.”
Rushed logging projects can sometimes overlook important safety practices, which can lead to issues like the pollution of streams due to hydraulic oil from logging equipment, according to forest industry specialist Andy Fast, who works in the University of New Hampshire Extension — a division of the university that provides educational resources to loggers.
“[Loggers] cannot impact wetlands,” Fast added. “Disturbing them in any way — that’s violation of wetland law … By virtue of the attributes of equipment, there’s risk.”
However, Hackley said he is “not overly concerned” for New Hampshire’s national forests because forestry services workers “still have to comply” with federal environmental protection laws, such as the National Environmental Protection Act, which mandates that foresters assess the environmental and water quality impact of logging projects before they are started.
“If they overturn NEPA, then obviously I’d be concerned,” Hackley said. “The goal is to move the process forward, stay within the constraints of the law [and] get through the requirements in a more timely manner.”
Some local loggers have expressed excitement at the change because it reduces “red tape.”
Benjamin White, who owns BW Timber Harvesting, a small timber harvesting business based in North Haverhill, N.H., said “bureaucratic mumbo jumbo” makes it harder to thin public forests, which is “essential” for regeneration.
“Forests are like a garden,” White explained. “You need to tend your garden.”
It is unclear if the memorandum will have a large impact on New Hampshire’s logging industry. Because most of the forests in New Hampshire are privately owned, there is less demand for increased logging contracts on public land, according to Fast.
“In states that are less forested or forests are under government control, it’s gonna make a huge difference,” White, who primarily harvests from privately-owned forests, said.
Still, most of the White Mountain National Forest is subject to the Emergency Situation Determination. The forest borders Mt. Moosilauke, the site of Dartmouth traditions like First Year Trips and reunions. It also holds the Hubbard-Brook Research forest, where Dartmouth students and researchers have collected continuous ecological data streams — on rainfall and bird songs, for example — since the 1960s, according Ayres.
Although Ayres said he is “not concerned” about logging because of how few logging businesses are in New Hampshire, he noted that the Forest Service is facing budget cuts under the Trump administration. Ayres said he knows two people who worked for White Mountain National Forest who were fired or retired unexpectedly since Trump took office.
“No one knows how many forest service employees have been laid off in the last two months, but it must be thousands,” Ayres said. “The loss of expertise and the interruption of the ability of these people to do their jobs is what’s going to diminish the resources of the national forest.”
Ayres lost three federal grants for research at the Hubbard-Brook, and his team had to hire fewer researchers compared to previous years.
“We would have two or three more people working with us at Hubbard Brook this summer were it not for impacts on our research budgets from the National Science Foundation,” Ayres said. “We found a couple of really amazing people that we wanted to hire and we just recently had to say, ‘No, I’m terribly sorry.’”
