Hello planning team, Thanks for your work to make a new forest plan. After careful reading, we observe the draft forest plan fails to include any mention of fungi, and only mentions mushrooms tangentially to OFP (Other Forest Products, widely known as Non Timber Forest Products). To merely whine about absence is pointless. Therefore I’m outlining below a few specific examples of places in the draft forest plan that rely upon or impact fungi and fungal processes where these organisms are not mentioned, using acronyms as employed in the document. The USDA publications we offered the team during the assessment phase and in comments…

Our Northern Rocky Mountain Region contains thousands of unique Fungal species, many of which we haven’t officially discovered! However, some of our favorite well known Fungi are undeniably keystone species, and maintaining healthy populations is just as important as maintaining the health of our more known threatened Flora and Fauna species. Macroflora and Fauna, such as the Grizzly Bear or the White Bark Pine are known throughout Montana as threatened species. Unfortunately, none of our Fungi are even considered. Here’s 20 fungal species of special concern, and why they’re important. All of these are endemic to Region 1. These species…

A Letter from Larry Evan’s Part of our mission statement at the Western Montana Mycological Association is “to protect and preserve mushroom habitat,” and in this regard we have a long history of providing commentary for various proposed actions. A key issue for our community is the lack of language regarding fungi in policy documents and how to correct this glaring oversight. We will post updates and alerts about actions you can take to help. Dear Forest Planning Team, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to bring attention to an important aspect of forest management that…