A Green New Deal for America’s Forests: Protection and Reparations
In 2012 the UN designated March 21st as the International Day of Forests to raise awareness about the importance of forests. This year’s theme is “Forest Restoration: A Pathway to recovery and well-being”. This theme is on point as our nation seeks to heal from the pandemic, extreme weather, racial injustice, and economic traumas of the past year.
America’s forests are among the most diverse and beautiful on Earth. From the giant redwoods of California to the bald cypress forests of the Southern Coastal Plain, our forests are key to ensuring a healthy, secure future for us all. When left standing, forests remove and keep vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon out of the atmosphere. They provide natural protection from wind, extreme droughts, and flooding. They support a diverse web of life vital to the health of the planet. Spending time in forests:
- reduces blood pressure
- alleviates stress
- combats depression; and,
- quiets anxiety.
Forests calm our spirits and make us happier and healthier.
While tree mortality from climate change, wildfire, drought, pests and development threaten our nation’s forests, the leading cause of tree mortality in the US is logging.
The US is a global leader in the production and consumption of wood products. The rate and scale of Southeastern US logging is roughly four times that of South American rainforests. Accelerated, unabated expansion in logging has steadily eroded forests’ ability to:
- stabilize the climate
- provide natural flood control
- contain wildfire
- purify water
- filter the air; and,
- sustain biodiversity.
Meanwhile, large wood product factories foul the air and water. Like so many other dirty and destructive industries, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) bear the brunt of the environmental costs of our nation’s wood production. Industrial logging and pollution have degraded our forests and our communities.
For example, low income, BIPOC communities across the rural Southern Black Belt are at the epicenter of our nation’s industrial logging and wood production. The Black Belt is home to the highest percentage of Black population in the nation. Here there is a disproportionately high concentration of poverty, unemployment, and other indicators of socioeconomic stress. Over 85% of the land is privately owned with 99% in the hands of white landowners. A long history of genocide, slavery, and discriminatory policies and practices has restricted Black and Indigenous ownership of forestland throughout the region. Logging and wood production has simply not delivered equitable economic or community health benefits.
Meanwhile, logging tops the list as the most dangerous job in America. Workers in commercial tree plantations and in wood product facilities such as paper mills are regularly exposed to hazardous toxic chemicals that cause serious health problems. On the other hand, outdoor recreation which relies on standing forests, creates five times more jobs than the forest industry and can also help improve community health and well-being.
Right now we should focus on protecting as much of our forests as possible. But industrial logging accelerates as governments around the world look to wood pellets to replace coal as a “renewable” fuel for producing electricity and as a “natural” alternative to steel in construction even though scientists warn that these are not climate solutions. We don’t need more logging. We need to protect the best of what’s left of our forests and start the long process of repairing the damage that has been done.
That’s why today grassroots organizations from across the nation are lunching a petition tageting President Biden demanding that he hold the forest industry accountable for the impacts of industrial logging and invest in repairing communities that have paid the health, economic, and ecological costs of an ever-expanding forest industry.
From the recently released Southern Communities for a Green New Deal to the Green New Deal for Pacific Northwest Forests, hundreds of groups across the country are joining forces. Together we’re calling for a new approach to federal forest policy in the US that prioritizes:
- stopping the use of forests as fuel for electricity and the expansion of polluting mills in environmental justice communities;
- holding the forest industry accountable for carbon emissions from logging;
- redirecting public dollars away from logging to support local, healthy, nature-based jobs such as outdoor recreation; and,
- advancing a new generation of protected forests across the country grounded in equity and justice.
From protecting public lands that hold the lion’s share of our nation’s old growth and primary forests, to protecting wetland forests and establishing BIPOC community forests throughout the coastal plain of the South, we can heal our nation’s economy, health, and well-being.
