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Biden forest plan stirs dispute over what counts as “old”

FILE - In this Aug. 24, 2020 photo, fire burns in the hollow of an old-growth redwood tree in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Calif. President Joe Biden has ordered federal officials to inventory old growth and mature forests on federal lands and develop policies to conserve them. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) FILE - In this June 25, 2004 photo, old growth Douglas fir trees stand along the Salmon river Trail on the Mt. Hood National Forest outside Zigzag, Ore. President Joe Biden's recent order to protect the nation's oldest forests against wildfires and other problems that are devastating vast woodlands is raising a simple yet vexing question: When does a forest grow old? (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) FILE - Climbing assistant Lawrence Schultz ascends the Three Sisters sequoia tree during an Archangel Ancient Tree Archive expedition to plant sequoia seedlings on Oct. 26, 2021, in Sequoia Crest, Calif. As federal officials launch an effort to inventory and protect old-growth and mature forests, there's disagreement over how "old" should be defined for a forest and which stands should be counted. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) FILE - Assistant Fire Manager Leif Mathiesen, of the Sequoia & Kings Canyon Nation Park Fire Service, looks for an opening in the burned-out sequoias from the Redwood Mountain Grove which was devastated by the KNP Complex fires earlier in the year in the Kings Canyon National Park, Calif., on Nov. 19, 2021. Thousands of sequoias have been killed by wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian, File)