Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new report from researchers at the U.S. Forest Service has found that the Northwest Forest Plan has shifted the threat to old-growth forests. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Used to be, loggers were the biggest threat to old-growth forest habitat in Oregon and the Northwest.

But, now it's 14 years since the passage of the NW Forest Plan.  And a study published this month in the journal Ecosystems finds that wildfires take down more of the precious old-growth annually than do chain saws.

Researchers say forest policy needs to better address the threat of wildfires by thinning and other methods.

Timber industry consultant Chuck Burley says that's obvious.

Chuck Burley: “Any of us that live in this central Oregon area, we didn’t need the Pacific Northwest Research Station to tell us that, because every fire they’ve had on the Sisters Ranger District has burnt up many, many square miles of old-growth forests.”

Environmentalists say they aren’t against thinning as a concept but that a lot of the time, loggers use thinning as an excuse to clearcut more old-growth.