Federal officials are preparing to disband an advisory committee tasked with guiding policies for millions of acres of national forests in the Pacific Northwest, according to two committee members.
Tribal leaders, environmental advocates, timber representatives and local government officials were among the 21 members of the Northwest Forest Plan federal advisory committee. They鈥檝e been meeting in person over dayslong meetings since summer 2023, hashing out how to tackle wildfires, pests and diseases across nearly 25 million acres of national forests in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
On Thursday, officials with the U.S. Forest Service told committee members the agency was likely to dissolve the group in the coming weeks. Some members said they had been expecting this news, given President Donald Trump鈥檚 goal of eradicating most of the Biden administration鈥檚 efforts.
鈥淲e all knew that this was a possibility,鈥� environmental attorney and committee member Susan Jane Brown said. 鈥淪o everyone鈥檚 disappointed, but not terribly surprised.鈥�
The Forest Service pulled the committee together during the Biden administration to help amend the decades-old Northwest Forest Plan, a set of policies that came out of the timber wars of the 1980s and 鈥�90s.
The committee鈥檚 primary task was to create a set of recommendations on how the forest plan should be amended, like how much logging could happen and where, and how to protect endangered species from logging impacts. The committee also focused on how the federal government should work alongside tribes in managing millions of acres of their ancestral lands, something that .
The committee delivered its recommendations to the Forest Service .
鈥淚t鈥檚 always disappointing when a process like this comes to an end,鈥� Travis Joseph, president of the timber association American Forest Resource Council, said. 鈥淭hat said, we did our job. We did what was asked of us.鈥�
The committee still had other tasks on the table. One of them was considering restrictions on commercial huckleberry harvesting in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, the only national forest with a large-scale commercial huckleberry program.
As reported by , huckleberries are considered an essential first food for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the Yakama Nation, but tribal members have had to compete with commercial pickers for the few productive bushes they could find. Commercially picked berries often end up in soaps, syrups and candies sold in tourist shops around the Pacific Northwest.
Federal forest policies that forced tribes to stop setting fire to the land 鈥� a cultural practice that helped foods like huckleberries grow 鈥� and decades of aggressive fire suppression have also hindered huckleberry growth, making the berries difficult to come by.
Even when the committee is officially dissolved, Brown and Joseph said members will likely continue to advocate for forest policies.
鈥淲e are now just ordinary members of the public again, and we can submit comments and we can meet with the Forest Service just like other members of the public do,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淢any of us have that desire to continue forward.鈥�
The Forest Service included many of the committee鈥檚 recommendations in its draft amendment, and the agency is accepting public input on that draft through . Many environmental groups , saying it doesn鈥檛 include strong enough protections for old growth forests.
