Looking Back: Northwest Forest Plan Introduced New Conservation Paradigm

It’s been more than twenty years since the Northwest Forest Plan set out to ease tensions in the “Timber Wars” of Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The plan signaled a historic shift in how public lands were managed – focusing efforts on maintaining biodiversity instead of keeping timber production high. Now the Forest Plan is up for revision, a process Northwesterners will be hearing about often in the coming years. But how did we get here?