Forest Service Withdraws Environmental Impact Statement on Old-Growth Forests

WASHINGTON (January 8, 2025) – Yesterday, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced that they will be withdrawing their notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement on old-growth forests. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC) released the following statement praising the agency’s decision to listen to local stakeholders who knew from the beginning that this was the wrong approach:   

“We are pleased to see that the Forest Service has abandoned their ill-conceived plan amendment process. Going down this road would have put ecosystems at higher risk of catastrophic wildfire. Even worse, formalizing this kind of old growth strategy would have been a direct affront to the work cattle and sheep producers have been doing for decades to protect lands and waters. In one fell swoop, the Forest Service would have taken decades of work to prevent pinyon juniper encroachment and turned it on its head, penalizing the very people who prevented total woody conversion of grasslands and rangelands. The agency should not have needed to raise widespread alarm through an official agency notice when the science – and history – are abundantly clear,” said PLC Executive Director Kaitlynn Glover. “NCBA and PLC thank the Forest Service for abandoning their top-down approach and urge them to resume partnerships with landowners and producers who have spent decades managing our nation’s National Forest System.”