America’s public forests are under assault. We have already seen the massive timber harvests called for by President Trump’s executive order, the elimination of the Roadless Rule, and the gutting of wildlife protection efforts.

Those are the broad stokes, but there are also finer maneuvers underway, such as abandoning the traditional practice whereby forest personnel paint-mark the trees selected for cutting, handing those decisions over instead to the timber companies themselves. Or the various subsections that keep popping up in the “Big Beautiful Bill” — for example, giving timber companies an option to pay for hastened environmental review and defunding endangered species recovery efforts. It also arbitrarily requires the Forest Service to increase harvests by 250 million acres annually for nine years.

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