According to a 2024 USDA and USDI Report, "Mature and Old-Growth Forests: Analysis of Threats on Lands Managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management," from 2000 through 2023 about 9,000 acres of US old-growth were logged; more than 180,000 acres were lost to bugs and disease; and 700,000 acres of old-growth were lost to wildfire.
That is, more than 20 times more old-growth were lost to insects and diseases than by logging; and more than 75 times more old-growth were lost to wildfire than to logging; or, in the previous 24 year period, 78% of nearly 890,000 acres of public old-growth trees were lost to wildfire; about 21% were lost due to insects and disease, and only about 1% was logged.
These numbers depend, of course, on the government's definition of "old-growth," which is based on tree species, age, and physical locations. It originally was a "logger's term," and in the Douglas Fir Region of northern California, and western Oregon and Washington it originally meant trees that had acquired a massive size and deeply furrowed bark -- typically 350 years or more in age.
In time, general consensus seemed to arrive at a minimum figure of 200 years of age for Douglas fir, but maybe less for fast-growing spruce, and maybe more for slow-growing cedar and oak. Other trees, such as hemlock or alder, rarely reached such a condition.
Much of the native forest in western Lane County was burned in catastrophic wildfire during the late 1800s. This area regenerated naturally and is now is part of the Siuslaw National Forest. This mature second growth forest includes individual areas of older growth in isolated canyons that escaped the historic fires.
The Siuslaw is reserved from commercial timber management by the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994. Between the Willamette Valley and Siuslaw Forest was historically a mosaic of second-growth and old-growth forests. From the eastern edge of the Willamette Valley these forests transition westward from oak, Ponderosa pine, and Douglas fir savannas and prairies into wetter, denser coastal forests. In the past century, agriculture, wildfire, logging, and reforestation have greatly influenced forest conditions.
The largest single environmental event of the last century was the 1966 Oxbow Fire that burned 42,000 acres of mature timber on public BLM O&C and private lands. Timber harvest on the O&C has been historically important to produce lumber and plywood and to fund public services in Lane County. Most of the old-growth timber in the Coast Range has been harvested over the past century. The presence of old-growth forest is much more common in the Cascade Mountains of eastern Lane County.
A 1993 report from the US Forest Service showed 594,000 acres of old growth on the Willamette National Forest, eastern Cascades, and 37,000 acres of old-growth on the Eugene BLM District. Harvesting of old-growth in these public owned forests has been mostly prohibited since the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was enacted in 1994. The stated objectives of NWFP were to preserve and protect old-growth forests from logging. In the last 30 years loss of old growth forests to wildfire has been the predominant factor in destruction of this habitat. Vast expanses, including hundreds of thousands of acres of mature National Forest, have been lost to wildfire since 2000.
These older trees had lived in stands and groves in predictable locations, separated by vast oak savannas, beargrass and peavine ridges, berry fields, and riparian meadows. They were most commonly found in steep, isolated canyons, on northern slopes, and scattered as single trees or small groves in more open areas.
A good argument can be made, supported with documentation, that public efforts to "save the old-growth" from logging the past 40 years have directly resulted in far greater loss of trees from wildfire than could have ever been logged. In any instance, there are far fewer old-growth today than at any point in the past 150 years.
These remaining trees have become increasingly susceptible to deadly crown fires in recent decades due to the build-up of ladder fuels; the encroachment of competitive second-growth trees for light, water, and nutrients; the forestation of formerly open ridgelines, meadows, fields, and riparian areas; and the great and increasing proliferation of air-dried, pitch-filled snags left standing from earlier fires.
This can be fixed. The remaining old-growth can be saved through restored road and trail access, mapping, thinning, weeding, and active management of competing vegetation -- which can all be accomplished at a profit to US taxpayers and Lane County if projects are designed with that objective.
Conversely, it is unlikely that existing "monoculture" stands of plantations can be developed into old-growth for a wide number of reasons, mostly related to vulnerable locations, excessive stem counts, and loss of landscape diversity.
If we are to restore old-growth and related native biodiversity to our lands for future generations, then detailed research is needed and a commitment to restoration must be made.
All dead trees should be sold and salvaged ASAP wherever profitable. Local decisions as to whether to leave remaining snags as “habitat” or sufficiently safe to leave in place until a later date would be situational.
Named creeks and remaining pre-statehood trees in excess of 160 years of age should be mapped and maintained ASAP. Older-growth trees, stands, and groves that remain should be given top priority for removing ladder fuels, threatening ground fuels, and competing vegetation — hopefully at a profit — as a top priority.
Industrial plantations should be used as intended -- for jobs and products for American families -- and then transformed into early historical conditions and future old-growth for future generations through planting, seeding, prescribed burning, weeding, and regular maintenance. Again, this process can be done at a profit to US taxpayers and Lane County if properly designed.
The net result of these actions would be hundreds of full-time jobs for decades, millions of dollars in tax revenues for our schools and roads, a great reduction in deadly wildfire risks, and a great increase in landscape access, native plant and animal biodiversity, beauty, and safety.
Campaign Website: https://www.zybachforlane.com/old-growth-restoration
Platform Menu: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachforLane/Platform/
Books and Articles by Dr. Zybach
Zybach, Bob 2012. "Forest Restoration: Problems and Opportunities," Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2: 15-27.
Zybach, Bob 2018. "Oregon Coast Range Old-Growth: The 1945-1947 Weyerhaeuser Coos Bay Study," Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2: 31-39.
Zybach, Bob 2025. Forest Reforestation & Restoration: An Anthology, NW Maps Co., Cottage Grove, Oregon USA: 136 pp.
Video 2002 Biscuit Fire Aftermath (Zybach and Meredith 2005)
Conifer Invasions and Old-Growth Mortality at Babyfoot Lake (3:12)