A federal blueprint for the long-term future of America’s most popular national forest proposes cutting down more trees and reducing protections of old-growth areas, critical “carbon sinks” in battling the climate crisis.

Logging would be set to quadruple in North Carolina’s Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest with more than half of the public land – half a million acres – opened up, environmentalists have warned.

The new logging zones contain more than 12,000 acres of existing old-growth forests. Significant portions of world-famous hiking routes, like the Appalachian Trail, also will be opened to logging.

The USFS Final Environmental Impact Statement lays out how Pisgah-Nantahala will be used and protected for up to three decades. It is the most popular national forest in the country, with nearly 5.2 million visitors last year, and a key source of drinking water across the southeast.

The plan appears to fly in the face of the global deforestation pledge formally unveiled by President Joe Biden at Cop26 this past November.

At the Glasgow summit, world leaders, representing 85 per cent of […]