USDA Declares Emergency in US Forests, Requiring Logging (1)

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday declared an emergency on more than 112 million acres of national forests nationwide in order to increasing logging.

The order, which applies to 59% of all national forest land in the US, follows President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order requiring the US Forest Service and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to expedite timber harvesting on federal lands.

Rollins’ order says that wildfires, invasive species, disease outbreaks and insects are stressing national forests, which have had “too little active management.”

The order requires the Forest Service to remove as many barriers to ...