Talking points about Devil's Staircase:
1. The Devil's Staircase area is the wildest and most remote roadless country left in the Oregon Coast Range and the largest roadless area in the Washington/Oregon Coast Range between the Olympic peninsula and the Rogue River. There is almost no other roadless land of 5000 acres or more remaining in the Coast Range.
2. Approximately 11% of of the Oregon Coast Range remains unlogged (Wimberly and Spies, 2000). The Devil's Staircase area is one of the largest remaining mature and old-growth forests left.
3. The Devil's Staircase area is an historical and ecological gem. It is one of the last and best remnant reminders of what much of the Oregon Coast Range used to be like, and what type of fish and wildlife habitat it offered.
4. The Devil's Staircase area provides critical habitat for threatened northern spotted owls and is the best habitat remaining for them in the central Oregon Coast Range. It also provides habitat for threatened marbled murrelets, coho salmon, and other wildlife.
5. The old forests of the area store and sequester large amounts of carbon, an essential function that mitigates global warming. This function would be lost if they ever were logged. These older forests also provide clean, colder water needed by salmon.
6. The Devil's Staircase is a very scenic and diverse area, with beautiful vistas, groves of huge trees, and miles of wild streams.
