Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities

Forest roads on National Forest System (NFS) lands are an essential part of America’s infrastructure, providing forest products, open space, wildlife habitat, clean water and air, and more. They provide motorized access into our federally-owned forests, enabling millions of Americans

by Molly Pitts, HFHC Rocky Mountains Director As a Colorado resident, I truly enjoy a wide variety of activities on all types of lands including secluded, designated wilderness areas. As a forester, I am deeply concerned with the idea of

By Tom Morton, Choose Outdoors Chairman of the Board and Bruce Ward, Choose Outdoors President The recent announcement of the “Platte Fifteen” Cross Laminated Timber building in Denver is great news, for many reasons. Platte and 15th Streets, formerly the

Rachel Lee Hall contributed the following to Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities. Check out her Forests Under Stress web site here.  Forest Under Stress (FUS) contains research and observation gathered over forty years while living in Southern Oregon. All photos were

Darr Moon contributed the following column to Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities. My uncle was an engineer for the Forest Service, he helped design and build the Yankee Fork road we used to access our summer gold camp. He was a

By Nick Smith The following column originally appeared in the Medford Mail Tribune Everyone has an opinion on how best to respond to the trend of catastrophic wildfires and smoke. In his Mail Tribune guest column, Derek Volkart floats the

The devastation from last year’s wildfires is still unfolding at a scale that has not even begun to be understood.  The socioeconomic impacts (loss of life, property, natural resources, massive impact on health and healthcare, economic impacts on business and

Professional Forester Paul Kangas offers the following to encourage dialog on our crisis of wildfire and smoke. SUMMARY OF REPORT It’s not “business as usual” in managing forests, wildlands and wildfires after two years of being surrounded by wildfires and

by Nick Smith, Executive Director of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities  Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities (HFHC) was launched over five years ago to give Americans a stronger voice in the management of our federally-owned forests.  A primary goal has always been

The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is developing a “long-term conservation strategy” for the Marbled Murrelet that would effectively set aside tens of thousands of additional acres of state trust lands in western Washington from sustainable timber harvests. If adopted, this