White House Old-growth Forest Strategy is Important First Step Toward Protecting Imperiled Wildlife

Defenders applauds President Biden’s leadership in issuing an executive order directing the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to define, inventory and identify threats to America’s last remaining old and mature forests.

“America’s mature and old-growth forests are critical carbon sinks and biodiversity strongholds that provide essential habitat for hundreds of imperiled species across the country,” said Monica Goldberg, vice president of landscape conservation for Defenders of Wildlife. “We are encouraged by the President’s executive order and hope it leads to vital habitat protections for recovering federally threatened and endangered species from the red-cockaded woodpecker of the Southeast to the marbled murrelet of the Pacific Northwest.”

Examples of other wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act that depend on federally managed old-growth forests for their continued survival include Pacific pine martens in Washington, Oregon and northern California and Canada lynx which den in roughly 40 national forests in the Northeast, Upper Mid-west, Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest.