Northwest Forest Plan Amendment Update

Recap: Public Meetings – Your Voice, Your Forests

This past winter, communities across the Northwest Forest Plan area engaged in conversations about the future of their national forests. Whether you joined an in-person meeting, participated in a webinar, or shared your comments online, your input is helping shape the proposed amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP).

More than 525 people attended 13 in-person meetings and two public webinars. These conversations gave local residents, stakeholders, and community members a chance to ask questions, share insights, and hear directly about the proposal and what it could mean for the forests you live near, work in, or care about.

Additional webinars were held specifically for Tribal Nations and staff, as well as for County Commissioners and Supervisors across Washington, Oregon, and Northern California-creating space for more direct engagement with communities and governments most connected to this landscape.

Your Comments: What We Heard

Between November 15, 2024, and March 17, 2025, we received more than 3,400 comments to the proposed amendment for the NWFP and the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). You shared your knowledge, your concerns, and your priorities-and those voices are shaping the next steps of this process. In general, public feedback reflected the following themes:

• Forest Stewardship
• Tribal Knowledge & Indigenous Knowledge
• Socioeconomics and Communities
• Fuel Management and Fire Resiliency
• Biological Resources
• Aquatic Species & Habitat/Aquatic Conservation
  Strategy and Riparian Reserves
• Survey and Manage Requirements
• Monitoring and Adaptive Management
• Climate Change
• Definition and Clarification

Where Things Stand

Currently, the Forest Service is organizing and analyzing the feedback you provided. Each comment is being reviewed and considered as the planning team works to revise the proposed amendment and refine the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). All public input will be summarized in a Public Comment Summary Report, which will be shared alongside the final environmental impact statement (FEIS). This summary will help reflect the diversity of voices that participated and the common concerns that emerged

To learn more or follow progress, visit the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment website:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/planning/about-northwest-forest-plan-amendment

Stay Connected

If you received this newsletter, you’re already on our distribution list. Thank you for your interest! Know someone else who wants to follow the amendment process? Feel free to share this link or QR code so they can sign up too: https://forms.office.com/g/rr7xyqqZMh?origin=IprLink

source- Northwest Forest Plan Amendment Newsletter

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