Old growth employee engagement sessions
Washington, DC—This summer, the Forest Service began collaborating with the Bureau of Land Management to achieve the goals outlined in Executive Order 14072: “Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies,” issued April 22, 2022. EO 14072 Section 2(b) requires the Forest Service and BLM to define, identify, and complete an inventory of old-growth and mature forests on federal lands in one year, by April 23, 2023.
To address the first part of the task—defining mature and old-growth forest—it is critical that employees across the agency have an opportunity to provide input, in addition to tribes, partners and stakeholders. Please consider participating in one of two employee engagement sessions:
Choose the session that works best for you and register in advance to learn more about this effort and share your perspective.
We also invite written employee input either individually or as part of consolidated feedback from units. We encourage leaders across the agency to support district, forest, lab, region and work-group level coordination, where unique local conditions and practices can be identified and comments prepared for collective submission.
Please submit either individual or collective employee comments to Deb McGlothlin, project manager, Deborah.mcglothlin@usda.gov, no later than Sept. 2, 2022, with “mature and old growth employee comment” in the subject line. This collective and individual feedback will give us a sense of the diversity of ideas internally and inform definition development efforts.
For more information about this interdepartmental effort, the employee engagement webinars, and how to submit your feedback, please visit Old-growth and Mature Forests Definition Development—Request for Information.
This employee engagement opportunity coincides with a public comment period announced via a July 15 Federal Register Notice. For more information about the public commenting opportunity, please visit our Old Growth Forests page.