"Visiting a freshly logged forest in western Oregon earlier this fall, retired federal wildlife surveyor Erich Reeder stepped over mangled tree roots and dead limbs scattered across a denuded slope that was once an evergreen forest. He squatted over a foot-tall Douglas fir stump to count its rings: 120 years old.

Reeder, who spent decades counting endangered species for the Bureau of Land Management, has seen centuries-old forests targeted for destruction as President Donald Trump’s administration accelerates logging on federal lands nationwide. Earlier this year, loggers cleared out most of the forest in Galagher Canyon, part of a federal timber sale an hour south of Eugene, Ore., leveling thousands of trees for lumber likely destined for new homes and other construction.

Just two miles from Galagher Canyon, in a lush remnant old-growth forest carpeted in ferns shaded by centuries-old Douglas fir trees, Reeder showed what’s at stake: The tiny tract of forest has never been logged. But it’s next in line for the ax.

“The Trump administration is ordering the last of our publicly-owned mature and old-growth forests to be cut off and sold,” Reeder, 59, said. “All of this forest—nature has been working for thousands of years to make it the way it is. There’s nothing we can do to improve it.”"

Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment December 3, 2025. [2]