Missing the Forest for the MOG: Why We Can’t Afford to Ignore Post-Fire Habitats

What Glossy Campaigns Miss: The Forest’s Future Depends on Defending Its Wild, Messy Beginnings

In the growing movement to protect Mature and Old-Growth (MOG) forests, one truth keeps getting left out of the room: The MOG we’re scrambling to defend today began as post-fire habitat.

Yes, there’s very little MOG left, and protecting what remains is urgent. But the louder the calls get from large, well-branded “bright green” NGOs to “save the old-growth,” the more it feels like the rest of the forest is being written off–especially the wild, rebounding ecosystems born from fire.

These early-stage habitats–often dismissed as “burn scars” or logged as “dead stands”–are the ecological nurseries for tomorrow’s giants. They hold space for natural regeneration, biodiversity, carbon storage, and resilience. In fact, many studies show that these post-fire habitats are very carbon rich and are as bio-diverse as MOG, sometimes even more bio-diverse. But you wouldn’t know that from the glossy MOG campaigns dominating press releases and congressional sound bites.

It’s easy to understand why MOG is the centerpiece. It’s photogenic. It polls well. It feels timeless. But there’s a troubling shallowness to this framing–a kind of ecological amnesia that ignores where MOG comes from and how forests actually work.

The Deep Green Disconnect

Too many bright greens chase political wins and symbolic designations, but miss the slow, living processes that generate real forest longevity. They have big budgets, big platforms, and often, big gaps in ecological depth.

Meanwhile, deep greens–from grassroots groups to local defenders–do the hard, unglamorous work of protecting forests at every stage of life: the snag-rich post-fire landscapes, the dense adolescent stands, the tangled regrowth pushing through disturbance. These are the stages the forest must pass through to ever become “mature” or “old-growth.” And they deserve just as much protection as the big trees.

Instead, we’re told that these regenerating ecosystems need to be “managed.” That they’re too dense, too messy, too flammable. Democrats, federal agencies, and even some conservation NGOs are pushing euphemisms like “ecologically appropriate thinning”–which in practice usually means preemptive, industrial logging.

Call it what it is: chainsaw forestry dressed up in scientific jargon. It doesn’t protect MOG. It delays and degrades it.

The Forest Doesn’t Need Managing. It Needs Remembering.

If we’re serious about defending forests in a time of ecological crisis, we need to unlearn the idea that forests are problems to be solved. We need to stop pretending that post-disturbance landscapes are wastelands in need of restoration. And we need to stop drawing hard lines between what we’re willing to defend and what we’re willing to sacrifice.

Because the truth is this: if we’re not fighting for post-fire habitats, we’re not fighting for old growth. We’re just protecting the past, while quietly giving up on the future.

Let’s Start Unmanaging the Forest

If we really want MOG to persist–not just as a symbol but as an ecological reality–we must also protect the wild, unruly, regenerating places that make it possible.

Bright green NGOs, federal agencies, and lawmakers–especially Democrats–need to hear that logging by another name is still logging. “Ecologically appropriate thinning” is not a forest solution. It’s a marketing strategy for business-as-usual.

Here’s what you can do:

• Speak out. Write a letter to the editor or an op-ed in your local paper. Defend post-disturbance habitats and natural regeneration. Call for an end to logging on public lands.
• Call your members of Congress. Demand an end to logging on public lands–especially in mature and old-growth forests. Remind them that these forests don’t come from chainsaws–they come from fire, wind, time, and patience.
• Hold organizations accountable. Ask your favorite environmental groups how they’re protecting the next generation of mature and old-growth forests. If they don’t have a clear answer, they’re not doing enough.

This post is part of a developing series: Unmanaging the Forest.

If you believe forests don’t need more interference–they need more freedom–stick around. Let’s re-wild our assumptions, and our advocacy.