Jamie Barbour

Jamie Barbour

Science Lead on Mature and Old-Growth Forests - USDA Forest Service

Implementing Executive Order 14072: Mature and Old-Growth Definitions, Inventory, Threat Analysis, and Policy?

Virtual Event

November 21, 2024 - 12:00 PM

Executive Order 14072, Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies, among other things, instructs the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to define mature and old growth forests, inventory them, conduct an analysis of threats to them, and develop a policy to conserve them. With considerable input from external stakeholders, a group of agency scientists accomplished the first three tasks, and each agency has proposed policy solutions to promote conservation.  Key findings from the inventory were that about two-thirds of the forested land managed by each agency contain forests with mature or old growth conditions (MOG) with more than half located on non-reserved land.  The threat analysis showed that over the past two decades, by far fire, insects, and disease are the major reasons why MOG forests were reset to a younger condition.  Tree cutting was a minor threat. Projections of changes in climate raised concerns that threats to MOG will increase greatly over the rest of the century although the vast amount of mature is expected to fuel an increase in old growth for at least the next 50 years.  The Forest Service’s proposed National Old Growth Amendment (NOGA) has four main elements: 1) increase consistency among the 128 planning units, 2) recognition that past management practices have changed the distribution of old growth in ways that make it difficult to achieve ecological integrity as envisioned by the 2012 planning rule (36 CFR part 219; 3) a clear intention by the Forest Service to proactively (includes ecologically appropriate active or passive techniques) manage old growth to support ecological integrity; and 4) to use collaborative processes to establish Adaptive Strategies for old growth conservation covering each national forest either individually or in logical groups.

Speaker Biography

Jamie Barbour has a BS in Botany from Washington State University and MSc and PhD in Wood and Fiber Science from the University of Washington. While at the UW, he periodically lived and worked on the Makah reservation in Washington State.  He spent his early career at the Weyerhaeuser Technology Center and FORINTEK Canada Corp doing wood products research.  Since 1993 he has worked for the USDA Forest Service.  The first 20 years were with the Pacific Northwest Research Station where he managed the Social Science, Economics, Ecosystem Services, and Science Delivery Research Programs and acted as the Assistant Director for Research from November 2012 to November 2013.  In 2013, he moved to the Forest Service’s Headquarters (Washington Office) where he served as Senior Policy advisor to the Deputy Chief for National Forest Systems advising on the Agency’s Inventory, Monitoring, and Assessment Strategy.  In August 2017 he became the Assistant Director for Adaptive Management, Monitoring, and Analysis in the Ecosystem Management and Coordination Staff.  Since April of 2022, he has led the analysis team for the Forest Service’s response to the Mature and Old Growth sections of Executive Order 14072 Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies.