Forest Service to Close Offices, Endangering Archives
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- U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced a major restructuring at the end of March that includes closing all ten regional offices.
- The regional offices house archival documents spanning the agency’s 120‑year history and include records dating back to the 1800s, many of which are not digitized.
- The archives contain photographs of forest landscape changes, scientific research data, land‑management records, and water and plant samples.
- Brian Nowicki of the Center for Biological Diversity said the records outline recent climate‑change history and are crucial for ongoing adaptation.
- The Forest Service has not yet disclosed a plan to preserve the non‑digitized archival information after the office closures.
Why it matters: The archives hold climate‑change history and adaptation data; without a preservation plan, researchers and policymakers lose a vital resource for understanding past forest conditions and guiding future responses, while the agency's inability to safeguard them also risks erasing a century of documented forest management practices that inform current land‑use decisions.
