Defenders Responds to Executive Order Aimed at Sacrificing National Forests

President Trump today has signed an executive order to curtail review under the Endangered Species Act to boost logging projects, directly threatening species protected under the federal law. Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife issued the following response:  

“The Trump administration is brazenly sacrificing our forests and the species that depend on them, issuing an executive order that calls for short-term timber production over science-based management and long-term forest health – which benefits people and wildlife alike. Without identifying any emergency, it directs agencies to look for ways to use emergency regulations and suggest ways to circumvent the ESA to give our forests away to corporate interests.  

“There is no legitimate reason or emergency to justify rubberstamping logging projects or convening the God Squad to undercut the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is a bedrock conservation law for a reason—it has successfully safeguarded and saved 95% of the species listed, including our nation’s national bird, the bald eagle, who is often found in such towering forests eyed by this executive order. Now is not the time to discard the ESA in favor of timber industry profits.”

###