Eugene, OR — Today, the Trump administration is advancing its repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, commonly called the Roadless Rule, despite overwhelming public opposition. The proposed rollback of the widely popular Roadless Rule threatens nearly 45 million acres of intact backcountry public forestland managed by the U.S. Forest Service, or about a third of the entire national forest system. These forests have only remained intact because of the Forest Service’s 25-year-old commitment not to build roads in these areas for harmful extractive practices like major logging operations and oil-and-gas drilling. The agency’s proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement will be available for public review tomorrow, August 19, 2026, on Regulations.gov. 

Cascadia Wildlands, a Eugene-based non-profit conservation organization that works to defend and restore Cascadia’s wild ecosystems, strongly opposes the repeal of the Roadless Rule, which protects large swaths of resilient, intact forests across the Cascadia bioregion including Hardesty Mountain east of Eugene, sections of the Pacific Crest Trail near Waldo Lake, the Oregon Dunes, and many more special places. 

Grace Brahler Newsome, Wildlands Director with Cascadia Wildlands, said the following of the Roadless Rule repeal: 

“Repealing the Roadless Rule is a net loss for current and future generations. National forests supply drinking water to millions of people, support a multi-billion-dollar outdoor recreation industry, and provide irreplaceable fish and wildlife habitat and carbon storage. Roads spread invasive species, fragment wildlife habitat, and erode the very ecological resilience we need in the face of a warming climate. Once roads and clearcuts fragment these landscapes, the damage is permanent.” 

“The Trump administration claims its repeal of the Roadless Rule will reduce wildfire risk, but that’s misguided at best and a bold-faced lie at worst. Studies show that roads lead to more fire starts. If the administration actually wanted to reduce wildfire risk, it wouldn’t be gutting federal land management agencies and ramping up logging in fire-resilient mature and old-growth forests.” 

“Enabling more road building and logging would not only cause lasting ecological damage – it would line the pockets of the industrial logging industry and add to an already massive road network across national forests, further burdening taxpayers with the ongoing expenses of building and maintaining rarely used roads and increasing fire risk. Yet again, the Trump administration is attempting to sell out public lands for short-term private gain.”

The Forest Service announced a truncated 30 day public comment period, half the usual period allowed for public engagement. Unless that period is extended, the administration will accept public comments through September 21, 2026.

The post Cascadia Wildlands’ Statement on Fed’s Roadless Rule Repeal first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

By: Noah Angell, Communications Fellow

It is no secret that the Trump administration has prioritized profit and privatization over protecting our public lands, wildlife, and climate. So it should come as no surprise that the past two years have brought some of the biggest attacks on public lands, land management agencies, and environmental safeguards in history. 

Bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been gutted or are at risk of being gutted. Foundational public land protections such as the Roadless Rule are being rolled back. Public lands agencies continue to face deep budget cuts and mass firings, while already understaffed and overstretched. Now more than ever, our public lands are at risk of being sold off to the highest bidder and/or opened to extractive activities like logging and drilling. 

Yet one of the least talked about attacks has been the underhanded and systematic attacks to limit the public’s ability to participate in public lands decisions. 

Silencing the Public

One of the biggest attacks came on February 19, 2025, when the Trump administration, in an attempt to dismantle the public’s ability to engage with federal land management decisions, removed the Council of Environmental Quality’s regulations implementing NEPA. NEPA is one of the nation’s most important environmental laws. It is a bedrock law that governs the environmental review process, in other words how federal agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management evaluate the environmental impact of proposed actions. While it doesn’t require the agency to choose the least impactful option, it does require the agency to consider a reasonable range of alternatives, evaluate potential effects of each, and show its work while doing so. 

NEPA also mandates opportunities for the public to review and comment on those decisions before they move forward. These environmental reviews have historically been released for public input, giving community members, Tribes, scientists, and conservation organizations an opportunity to identify concerns and provide input in opposition or support before decisions are finalized. This is an extremely important part of the process, as it is really the only time that the public is invited to guide a decision that may affect public lands.

Rescinding the CEQ’s NEPA implementing regulations prompted federal agencies to reform their own processes, leading to disjointed NEPA implementation and reduced opportunities for public input. The Forest Service’s changes, which took effect July 3rd, 2025, dramatically weakened both environmental review and public input in public lands decisions.

Among the changes: 

• The regulations no longer require scoping, an early and essential process where an agency provides the public with notice of a potential project and identifies potential environmental impacts, unique areas/features, or other concerns. 
• The regulations no longer require public comment periods on draft Environmental Assessments (EAs) or Environmental Impact Statements (EISs).
• The agency will also no longer be required to provide a Schedule of Proposed Actions to the public. 
• The regulations allow and encourage agencies to expand their use of “categorical exclusions” to document projects, which is a way to bypass lengthier, site-specific environmental analyses and avoid taking public comment.
• The regulations require the agencies to adhere to arbitrary page limits and deadlines for NEPA documents (75 pages and one year for EAs or 150 pages and two years for EISs). 

Making it Harder to Speak Up

That same summer, the General Services Administration (GSA) quietly made another change that received little public attention but has major implications for public participation, specifically for environmental groups. 

Regulations.gov, the federal website where the public submits comments on proposed federal rules and regulations, removed its POST function for third party organizations. 

This was a significant setback not only for environmental organizations but for any third party organization. or years, organizations collected comments and signatures from supporters through their own forms and submitted them directly to the appropriate Regulations.gov regulation page. This made it easier for organizations and for the general public to participate in decision-making processes. 

Now every individual must navigate to Regulations.gov,  a not very user-friendly site, find the correct rule, complete the online form, and provide personal information and email address to submit a comment. While this may not seem like a huge change, every extra barrier discourages and decreases public participation. 

It’s clear this was something the administration was counting on: if fewer people comment, fewer public voices are heard, and less public input is registered in opposition to this administration’s anti-environmental rules and regulations.

Shortening Public Comment Periods

More recently, the Forest Service proposed additional changes that would further reduce public engagement with forest management decisions. The February 5, 2026, rule again narrowed the public’s ability to review environmental analyses, slashing the public comment period for EAs from 30 days to 10 days and EISs from 45 days to only 20 days. 

The new rule also changed how groups and individuals can “object” to a project after a final decision is posted. Under the new rule: 

• Objections would no longer be approved by an agency official who is not involved with the project. Instead, the employee who ultimately approves the project will hold the power to grant or deny an objection.
• The requirement for the forest service to have a meeting with objectors would be optional. 
• The Forest Service would no longer publish comment and objection opportunities in local newspapers, instead just posting notices and documents on the agency website. 
• Objections have strict page limits and the agency would have less time to respond to concerns raised in objections. 

Eliminating Public Oversight of Agency Operations

Then on July 1, 2026, the Forest Service went a step further by proposing to amend rules to prohibit public notice and comment on changes to the directives that guide management and control of all agency programs including logging, grazing, and permitting across national public forestlands.

How? And what does this mean? Basically this proposal would redefine the Forest Service handbooks and manuals as merely “advisory and informational guidance” that the agency “may deviate from without documenting or justifying alternate actions.” This would allow the Forest Service to revise many of the internal policies that shape how forestlands are managed without any public input or explanations as to why it chose this approach. These handbooks and manuals govern grazing permits, timber sale analysis, wildlife habitat, recreation, and wilderness management. Changes to these regulations would change the way the agency can set standards without any meaningful public review.

The proposed rule is exactly what the private industry and extractive industries want. It would shift power away from the public by reducing public input and our ability to shape regulations and rules, giving the agency all the power to privatize public lands and bleed them for every penny they’re worth.

Why Does This Matter?

Public comment and engagement periods are not just another box to check in the bureaucratic process. It is one of the few opportunities that the public has to guide decisions on how public lands are managed.

While some agency offices are still electing to collect public feedback on projects despite the administration’s limitations, others are beginning to limit or omit these opportunities in alignment with the changes. Together, these changes eliminate several public engagement opportunities to influence environmental decisions before they are made. Instead of creating a more efficient process, they effectively force communities and environmental groups to resort to lawsuits if they want to challenge harmful projects, which is even more costly and time-consuming for agencies and communities alike. Moreover, by reducing public notice and scoping requirements, the administration is making it harder for everyday people to even know what’s happening on public lands—all while the federal government prioritizes industry profits over transparency, accountability, and environmental protection.

And it’s not just about process: time and time again, public engagement has improved federal projects and decisions, identified overlooked environmental impacts, held the government accountable, provided transparency, and protected livelihoods, communities, forests, wildlife, and clean water.

These recent efforts to eliminate notice requirements, shorten comment periods, reduce public input opportunities all have the same goal in mind: shift decision making power away from the public and concentrate it within the federal agencies while reducing accountability, transparency, and environmental protection.

This is exactly why we need to continue pushing back. Now more than ever, we have to speak up.

Although it may feel like submitting public comments falls on deaf ears, these comments remain essential because they build the public record and demonstrate how much people care. When agencies ignore and fail to address the public’s concerns, organizations like Cascadia Wildlands can use that record to hold them accountable in court.

This is also why our volunteer Cascadia Action Team (WildCATs) plays such a vital role. Our volunteers put boots on the ground to document forest conditions, gather critical evidence, and help stop destructive proposed timber sales. As agencies continue to shorten public comment periods, we need volunteers in the field more quickly than ever to take action and document what is at stake. And if that fails, our lawyers can use the public comments and forest conditions to sue.

What Can You Do?

Join WildCAT and join us in the field!  Stay informed (subscribe to our newsletter!), submit public comments right when opportunities arise. Share these issues with your friends and family, and spread the word, through conversations in person and on  social media so that more people speak up. Contact your electeds often (US Capitol switchboard (202) 224-3121) keep them on speed dial, attend their town halls, and let them know that their constituents care about these issues. Finally, support organizations that are willing to take this administration to court. The government still has to follow the law and we can hold them accountable.

The public deserves more chances for public input on how these lands are managed, not fewer. Forests over fascists!

The post Public Lands Need Public Voices. Don’t Let Them Silence You! first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Logging Plan Enjoined, Likely Violates Federal Law, Risks Loss of Wildlife Habitat and Harm to Public Interests  

Eugene, OR — In response to a challenge brought by conservation organizations, on Friday, a federal district court halted logging across Late Successional Reserve forests (LSRs) within the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) 42 Divide Project near Camas Valley, Oregon. LSRs are areas designated for protection and development of old-growth habitat and conservation of imperiled species. The Court found likely violations of federal environmental laws and irreparable harm stemming from the project and ordered a stop to logging operations in the LSRs until this case can be fully heard on the merits.

“The public depends on these forests; how the BLM chooses to manage these forests has lasting consequences for local communities as well as the imperiled wildlife that call them home,” said Peter Jensen, Staff Attorney at Cascadia Wildlands. “We are pleased that the Court has halted logging until our clients and the forest can have their day in Court.”

“Like many BLM-managed forests, units of the 42 Divide timber sale are scattered through the community of Camas Valley, sometimes directly adjacent to people’s homes. While we’re glad the court halted all the logging in LSRs, logging in the Harvest Land Base will move forward, even though BLM acknowledges it will increase fire risk for the community,” said Brenna Bell from the Crag Law Center, who is the lead attorney on this case, “We’ll keep fighting in court to get BLM to fully commit to addressing the adverse impacts to public health and safety caused by this project.”   

BLM’s 42 Divide Project, which spans nearly 7,000 acres in western Douglas County, authorized logging across multiple land designations, including the Harvest Land Base (HLB) and LSRs. Plaintiffs alleged the project would decimate wildlife habitat and old-growth conditions where it exists today and prevent the forest from developing those conditions where they are not yet present due to the severity of the logging treatments. The Court agreed with Plaintiffs that BLM’s analysis left serious questions about how the project would maintain and develop forest conditions across LSRs in the Project Area, as required by its own management plan. 

“LSRs are for conservation. Yet again BLM has sought to squeeze commercial timber volume out of every inch of our public lands, including protected reserves,” said Janice Reid, Conservation Chair for Umpqua Watersheds. “It’s unfortunate that BLM so consistently deprioritizes all other uses of our public forests in the name of heavy industrial logging.”

“The forests in the 42 Divide area are extremely diverse and offer important habitat for many wildlife species, habitat that has already been reduced and heavily fragmented by industrial logging,” said Chandra LeGue with Oregon Wild. “The remaining mature and old-growth forests in this area deserve protections from the kind of aggressive logging favored by the Trump administration. This ruling is an important recognition that BLM cannot ignore environmental policies that protect our wildlife, water sources, and other community values,” LeGue added.  

The Court did not resolve questions about the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims centered around the interplay of BLM’s selected logging methods and increased wildfire risks, and uncertainty about the outcomes of this wildfire season remain. But today, with the Court’s order, the majority of the destructive logging within this Project area is enjoined while the legal case proceeds. 

### 

Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Umpqua Watersheds were represented by attorneys from Cascadia Wildlands and Crag Law Center. 

Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands defends and restores Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forests, in the courts, and in the streets. The organization envisions vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, a stable climate, and vibrant communities sustained by the unique landscapes of the Cascadia bioregion. 

Oregon Wild’s mission is to protect and restore Oregon’s wildlands, wildlife, and water as an enduring legacy for future generations. 

Umpqua Watersheds is dedicated to the protection and restoration of the ecosystems of the Umpqua watershed and beyond through education, training, advocacy, and ecologically sound stewardship. 

The Court’s Order enjoining the project can be found here. 

Plaintiffs’ legal complaint can be found here.  

The post Court Stops Fed’s Destructive Logging Plan first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

For Immediate Release:

July 15th, 2026

San Francisco, CA — Yesterday, conservation groups and a fishing guide filed suit in federal court in San Francisco to challenge the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that “harm” to species does not include destroying their habitat. The decision reverses 50 years of bipartisan agreement that protecting species’ habitat is at the heart of the ESA and, without it, many species will go extinct.

The conservationists assert that no matter how the administration contorts the legal term “harm,” it’s plain meaning, as confirmed by the Supreme Court in Babbitt v. Sweet Home, includes destroying species’ habitat. Indeed, the ESA itself states its first purpose is “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”

“This is war on the forests and rivers of the West,” said Pete Frost, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene. “No longer protecting where grizzlies, salmon, and owls live will make them extinct. We’re hopeful the court will clarify what the ESA has always meant.”

Chris Daughters, a licensed fishing guide on Oregon’s famed McKenzie River, joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff because “my business depends on cold clean water in which salmon thrive. Without good habitat, we won’t have salmon, and I won’t have customers.”

“Marbled murrelets depend on coastal old-growth forests,” said Tom Wheeler of EPIC. “The administration’s twisted interpretation of the ESA means ancient forests could be logged—and the murrelet doomed to extinction. Not only is that a wrongful interpretation of the law, it’s   reprehensible position for the administration to forward.”

“Removing habitat protections for spotted owls would not only mean a death sentence for spotted owls, but a death sentence to old-growth forest ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest as we know them. What’s at stake isn’t just one species, but the entire web of life that countless other wildlife depend on,” says Sydney Wilkins, conservation attorney for KS Wild.

Lost habitat is the very reason most species are listed under the ESA. And habitat loss causes more species to go extinct than any other single factor. To illustrate, the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, which is now 90% gone, is nearing extinction due to its alpine lake habitat being destroyed, not because people are stomping on frogs. Similarly, spotted owls and murrelets are not directly harmed by logging – these birds are not crushed by logging equipment. Rather, logging removes viable habitat for vital life activities such as nesting and foraging, leading to the slow unraveling of entire populations as breeding and nesting areas disappear, prey becomes scarce, and the ecosystem balance they depend on quietly collapses.

Likewise, the four recent dam removals in the Klamath River Basin are for the first time in decades allowing wild salmon to swim hundreds of miles upstream to reach historic habitat. But this may not have been possible without the prior longstanding, sensible interpretation of the ESA: habitat matters.

“The idea that burning down a person’s house does not ‘harm’ that person defies all logic,” said Bethany Cotton, conservation director with Cascadia Wildlands, “The Trump administration’s interpretation that destroying an imperiled species’ habitat is not harmful is absurd and will not stand.”

The conservationists are asking the court to set aside the administration’s new rule and require it to first evaluate what this radical change will mean for protected species analysis, which it illegally failed to do for this major change in interpreting and applying the ESA.

Conservation organizations Cascadia Wildlands, KS Wild, and EPIC and Mr. Daughters are represented by attorneys at the Western Environmental Law Center.

The post Lawsuit Challenges Trump’s Attempt to Stop Protecting Imperiled Species’ Habitat first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

By: Jack Dodson, Summer Field and Events Coordinator

At the end of June, Cascadia Wildlands hosted our largest WildCAT (Cascadia Action Team) event of the year: Field Checking Basecamp. Over the course of five days, from June 18-22, around 50 volunteers field checked units in the contentious 42 Divide timber sale near Camas Valley in Oregon’s Coast Range. In this project, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposes to aggressively log 7,000 acres of diverse forest stands, even though more than half the land is in reserves set aside for wildlife habitat conservation. The area targeted for logging is located within the “checkerboard” of public and private lands in Douglas County, already heavily impacted by private industrial clearcuts. The timber sale is located within the homelands of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, one of nine federally recognized Tribes in Oregon. The Tribe and their ancestors have lived in and traveled throughout the Umpqua River Basin since time immemorial.

After a hot Thursday afternoon setting camp, WildCATs spent the evening hanging out and getting to know each other as we anticipated the days to come. When Friday morning came, we settled into what would be the daily flow for the remainder of Basecamp. Each morning, we collectively made breakfast (with delicious vegetables graciously donated by local farms), before splitting into field-checking groups of 5-10 people and exploring units of the 42 Divide timber sale. Field checking is the process of documenting the on-the-ground conditions of a forest, such as old-growth trees, unmarked streams and waterways, and rare plant and animal species, to challenge, modify, or stop harmful logging projects.

While field checking, we look for, measure, and document forest conditions, keeping our eyes peeled for important habitat features, including old-growth trees, downed logs and woody debris, snags (standing dead trees) with broken-off tops used for nesting, and large upper branches essential for species like the federally threatened marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl. Using survey sheets to guide us, we keep track of the numerous plant and fungi species we encounter, and take note of environmental conditions including slope, aspect, soil, fire history, and other evidence of disturbance.

This year, to help new and returning WildCATs bolster their skills, we launched the WildCAT Learning Ladder: as beginners, people are “housecats,” then, as they develop more skills, they move up the ladder becoming “bobcats,” then “Canada lynx,” and finally “cougars” where they are equipped with the expertise to successfully lead others in field checking.

Throughout Basecamp, folks of all levels explored the incredibly diverse and increasingly rare mature and old-growth forests found in the 42 Divide timber sale. We saw massive Douglas fir trees (including one that was seven and half feet wide), zig-zagging branches of old madrones reaching for the sunlight, clouds of spores released by puffball mushrooms, a garter snake resting on a log, and groves of oaks and boulders tucked away on a hillside. At times, we had to navigate patches of poison oak, but it was worth it to see these magnificent forests.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all unimpaired old-growth forest we saw. It was saddening to see the massive trees cut down to build new logging roads through these timber sale units, the horrific clearcuts on adjacent private lands, and the trees slated to remain standing bearing bright orange spray paint from the Bureau of Land Management timber marking crew. However, it was inspiring to know that our observations of these incredible forests would help protect them.

After field checking from around 11 am – 4 pm each day, we made it a habit to stop by the local reservoir for a refreshing swim and before heading back to Basecamp to start making dinner. Those not on the dinner crew got to hang out (or play frisbee) in the gorgeous meadow below Callahan Ridge. Our delicious meals included curry with rice and tempeh, and a big barbecue spread, and the conversations flowed freely over dinner.

While our days generally followed that schedule, each day had its own unique activities. On Friday, one volunteer led us on an early-morning bird walk to identify the songbirds around camp. On Sunday night, we set up a projector under the starry sky and watched a documentary that one of our hosts made about the 2005 women’s protests against post-fire salvage logging in the Siskiyou National Forest.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the many WildCAT volunteers who helped with planning food, activities, field checking, transporting supplies, setting up, breaking down, and more. This year’s Field Checking Basecamp was a resounding success. We field checked multiple units, connected with one another and bonded over our shared passions to defend and restore the vital ecosystems of Cascadia. A special shoutout to Mazamas for their generous grant to support this year’s event and to Groundwork Organics, Earthvox Farm, M & A Farms Molalla, Horai Bakery, Wild Child Farm, Horton Road Organics, Fairytale Farms, Hummingbird Wholesale, and La Mouette Bakery for their donations to the kitchen.

To get involved in WildCAT, visit our website for more information.

Update: Represented by our in-house legal team and lawyers with the Crag Law Center, Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Crag Law Center were in District Court in Eugene on June 30 to argue our motion for a Preliminary Injunction against the 42 Divide timber sale. We expect a decision in the coming weeks.

The post Annual Basecamp Inspires Forest Defenders first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Aloha Trout Timber Sale issued without valid management plan, violating key procedural law; precedent sows doubt about  thousands of acres of timber harvest, leases, and permits across West

Portland, OR — Cascadia Wildlands, represented by Silvix Resources, filed a lawsuit alleging that a federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale in Western Oregon, the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project, was issued without a valid underlying resource management plan, violating the Administrative Procedure Act. 

The lawsuit asserts that the applicable resource management plan is likewise invalid based on  federal lawmakers’ recent use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to disapprove land use plans in other Western states opening the door to today’s legal action. 

The CRA, signed into law in 1996, requires that federal agencies, including the BLM, submit all federal rules to Congress after they are finalized, allowing legislators the opportunity to disapprove them by simple majority vote. In 2025, congressional Republicans escalated the use of the law to overturn public land management plans for the first time (management plans have not traditionally been considered “rules” and were never previously subjected to disapproval under the CRA). 

Conservation groups and legal experts warned about the precedent set by this approach: If land management plans are subject to the CRA, then no land management plan adopted after 1996 (the date of the enactment of the CRA) is in effect unless and until it has been submitted to Congress. Today’s suit claims that because the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan was never submitted to Congress for approval after it was finalized in 2016, it has never gone into effect, and timber sale contracts flowing from that RMP (including the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project) are similarly void and not in effect.

Two Western Oregon BLM RMPs – the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan and the Southern Oregon Resource Management Plan – cover 2.6 million acres of productive timberland managed by the BLM. Since 2016, the BLM has authorized the harvest of more than 2.2 billion board feet of timber on these lands across 449 timber sales with a cumulative value of more than $577 million.

Recent congressional CRA action casts doubt on the viability of future land management decisions, opening the door to similar challenges of BLM timber sales, oil and gas leases, and permits across the country.

Spokespeople from Cascadia Wildlands and Silvix Resources made the following statements about the lawsuit:

The post New Lawsuit Claims Oregon Timber Sale is Invalid After Congressional Overreach  first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

By: Noah Angell, Communications Fellow

As I stepped out of the car that recent cold, foggy morning, the first thing I noticed was the silence. 

However, not complete silence. As I quietly walked through the forest I noticed it was alive with the calls of varied thrushes, dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, and red-breasted nuthatches. I could hear and feel the steady drops of moisture falling from the trees and see the mist rolling over the surface of Betty Lake. There was no yelling, no music blasting from speakers, no sirens, and no crowds. 

That feeling of solitude and remoteness, however, was no accident. I was in the Willamette National Forest, specifically a section protected by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This Roadless Area just east of Waldo Lake is part of Oregon’s nearly two-million acres of roadless forestland and part of the 45-million acres nationwide protected from logging, road building, and other destructive extractive practices. These roadless forests provide much-needed wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, opportunities for recreation, and some of the last truly wild and undeveloped places where people can experience real backcountry solitude on public lands. 

Before joining Cascadia Wildlands as the communications fellow, even as a passionate public lands user and advocate, I had never heard of the Roadless Rule. Like many people, I only really knew about the protections that came from public lands being designated as National Parks, National Forests, National Monuments, or National Wildlife Refuges — basically all of the more popular and well-known “National” designations. I had no idea that some of our last remaining intact and remote public lands had been protected for decades by a Clinton-era policy specifically designed to keep roads and industrial development out of these areas. 

That changed during my first year working with Cascadia Wildlands.

In the summer of 2025 during my first few weeks at Cascadia Wildlands, I visited this same Roadless Area, but a bit to the north near Charlton Lake. The forest was still showing signs of a recent wildfire, and the experience changed how I thought about both fire and roadless forests. While some people see wildfire as purely destructive, I quickly noticed signs of life returning to the burned landscape. Fireweed was blooming along the trail, and woodpeckers were hard at work on the standing dead trees. Both are species that are well adapted to wildfire in the Cascades. Fire has long been a dynamic and necessary part of healthy western forest ecosystems, helping sustain biodiversity, and a key management tool deployed by Indigenous people who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial. Many plants and animals have evolved to coexist and thrive with fire. 

I have also learned that Roadless Areas aren’t the wildfire hazard some people claim they are. In fact, research compiled by our friends at the Wilderness Society found that wildfires are four times more likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts. This helped me realize just how resilient these ecosystems are and why protecting them is so important, especially as the twin climate and biodiversity loss crises unfold.

A year later, I returned to this Roadless Area east of Waldo Lake to visit Betty Lake, summit The Twins at 7,300’ and capture some photos and videos of the surrounding area. I was also hoping to hike a section of the Pacific Crest Trail that traverses the Roadless Area, given that backcountry trails like the iconic PCT rely on these landscapes remaining free from industrial development.

My morning began under a thick layer of mist and low clouds as I stood at Betty Lake at 5,500’ hoping to recreate a sunrise shot by Andrew Kumler, an amazing photographer and Cascadia Wildlands supporter, taken at Sparks Lake on the Deschutes National Forest south of Bend. I was pretty disappointed to find that instead of a clear sky painted with golden pink hues, I was met with gray clouds and a moody, mist-covered lake. Not a complete loss but also not the photo I was hoping to capture. 

From there, I made my way to the Twin Peaks trailhead, hoping to get a shot from the top overlooking the surrounding Roadless Area. Pine siskins, golden-crowned kinglets, and brown creepers echoed through the trees. Sunbeams eventually broke through the clouds just as I reached a small meltwater lake that seemed to be calling my name as sunlight reflected off its surface. As I hiked farther and higher, the forest seemed to grow older, with large mature trees lining the trail and fallen giants lying across it. 

As I climbed the steep, final 400’ to the summit, I caught a brief glimpse of the surrounding roadless landscape just before the clouds rolled back in, and I was once again swallowed up by mist. I realized that the experience wasn’t about the viewpoint or capturing the perfect photograph. It was about being immersed in an area that still felt wild and remote – and realizing it is both a privilege and a choice to continue to protect these areas to ensure future generations can experience the same.

On my hike back down, I heard a rhythmic “thump, thump, thump” echoing through the forest. Using my Merlin app, I was able to identify the culprit as a hairy woodpecker. Moments later, I spotted fresh evidence of its work on a nearby tree, something I had completely missed on the climb up. 

Incredibly, I went the entire day without seeing a single person. 

That’s what these roadless areas protect. Not just forests, wildlife, and clean water, but solitude. The opportunity to get away from it all and spend time in a place free from roads, noise, and development. 

But now, designated Roadless Areas in Oregon and across the country ARE AT RISK!

The Trump administration is working to eliminate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule,  commonly referred to as the Roadless Rule. The rule was adopted in 2001 after 600 public hearings were held across the nation, and the public provided more than 1.6-million comments in support – more comments than any other federal rule in the nation’s history at the time. 

The Trump administration first announced its intent to eliminate the Roadless Rule on June 2025 and later opened an initial public comment period on the proposal. During that period, advocates submitted more than 600,000 comments, with the overwhelming majority opposing the administration’s plan to rescind the rule. 

Now we need to do it again. 

The U.S. Forest Service is expected to release a Draft Environmental Impact Statement that outlines and analyzes the environmental impacts of the proposed rollback this summer. This upcoming comment period will give the public another opportunity to speak up for our forests and oppose this attack on roadless protections. 

Whether you’re a hiker, hunter, angler, camper, climber, birdwatcher, paddler, scientist, or someone who simply values wild public lands, roadless areas belong to and benefit all of us. The quiet forests, wildlife habitat, and sense of remoteness that make these places special exist because they have remained largely intact. 

My recent trip reminded me exactly what is at stake: Once the roads go in, the wild doesn’t come back. Defend the Roadless Rule!

The post Roadless Is Priceless: Defending the Wildly Popular Roadless Area Conservation Rule first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

For Immediate Release
May 15, 2026

Contacts:
Nick Cady, Legal Director, Cascadia Wildlands, (314) 482-3746
John Persell, Senior Staff Attorney, Oregon Wild
Janice Reid, Conservation Chair, Umpqua Watersheds
Meriel Darzen, Senior Staff Attorney, Crag Law Center

Eugene, OR — Late yesterday, the US District Court ruled the Blue and Gold timber sale project on Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-administered land west of Yoncalla, Oregon, violated a suite of bedrock environmental laws and halted any further logging. Conservation organizations have vociferously opposed the 3,200-acre logging proposal, which contains many old-growth forest units, for more than six years.

“Concerned community members worked tirelessly to document in detail the old-growth present in these forests and, in doing so, saved this unique area from the chopping block,” said Nick Cady, Legal Director at Cascadia Wildlands. “The Court’s recognition of their contributions and condemnation of the BLM’s dismissal of these efforts is an enormous relief and is also a reminder of the critically important role the public plays in the oversight of these outstanding public forestlands.”

On Tuesday, plaintiffs Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Umpqua Watersheds filed for a temporary restraining order after volunteers discovered illegal old-growth logging in the timber sale area, something the BLM said would not happen, both in its planning documents and in court. However, yesterday’s ruling — a decision on the entirety of the lawsuit originally filed in September 2024 — superseded the request for a restraining order. The court determined that the agency violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act by failing to comply with its own requirement to retain old-growth trees, defined as at least 40” in diameter and more than 175 years old. 

“Wild, ancient forests, like those targeted for logging in the Blue and Gold project, are exactly the type of places our public land agencies should be protecting to provide clean drinking water, refuges for imperiled wildlife, and natural fire resilience,” said John Persell, Senior Staff Attorney for Oregon Wild. “Instead of managing for these values for the whole public, the BLM and the Trump administration are trying to exploit these precious and rare forests for maximum, short-term benefits of just a few logging corporations.” 

The Court also ruled the agency failed to take a “hard look” at forest conditions in the contested area, including old-growth forests that dominate many of the proposed logging units, a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act. Due to the significance of the timber sale project and its impacts on old-growth forests and endangered species, including the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet, the Court ruled that the BLM should have prepared an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement to more fully analyze the timber sale project’s impacts on the environment.

“It was the hard work of community members who care deeply about these forests that brought to light the agency’s shortcomings in approving this ill-conceived, unlawful project. As the Court found, if the agency wants to log our public forests, it has an obligation to show how it is going to protect the oldest trees, the ones that the community had spent years visiting and documenting, and the Court correctly halted BLM’s effort to sidestep that obligation,” said Meriel Darzen, Senior Staff Attorney at Crag Law Center. 

Central to the claims in the case were declarations by former federal biologists stating that the agency intentionally misrepresented the age of the forests in planning documents to facilitate the illegal logging of this unique block of old-growth. Additionally, field visits and documentation efforts by members and staff of plaintiff organizations and records obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests confirmed that far older forest dominated substantial portions of the project area than what BLM disclosed.

“These remaining parcels of old-growth forests in the Coast Range are critical for the habitat values they provide, the clean water they filter, and the carbon they store to help mitigate climate change,” said Janice Reid, Conservation Chair of Umpqua Watersheds. “Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management has shirked its legal duties to protect the old-growth, so this Court decision is very welcomed.”

While Blue and Gold is just one of many mature and old-growth timber sale projects currently proposed by the BLM, the Trump administration is working to revise the agency’s 2016 Resource Management Plans that govern the management of 2.5-million forested acres in western Oregon. The agency aims to quadruple the cut with the revision and make logging the sole focus of these lands over other values, such as recreation, habitat, carbon storage, and clean water. The proposal to ramp up logging levels across the western Oregon BLM estate is expected this summer and is being watched closely by conservation interests.

The organizations have been represented by attorneys from Crag Law Center, Cascadia Wildlands, and Oregon Wild in this case.

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* Photos for press use. Find high-resolution photos of the illegal logging and the threatened forests in the Blue and Gold timber sale here. Photo credits: David Herasimtschuk and Cascadia Wildlands. 

The post Conservation Organizations Hail Ruling That Halts Old-Growth Forest Logging at the Blue and Gold Timber Sale in the Oregon Coast Range first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

For Immediate Release
May 12, 2026

Contacts:
Nick Cady, Legal Director, Cascadia Wildlands, (314) 482-3746
John Persell, Senior Staff Attorney, Oregon Wild
Janice Reid, Conservation Chair, Umpqua Watersheds
Meriel Darzen, Senior Staff Attorney, Crag Law Center

Yoncalla, OR — In response to illegal logging of old-growth forest recently documented in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Blue and Gold timber sale located in the Oregon Coast Range, conservation organizations Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Umpqua Watersheds filed a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction in District Court to stop any further cutting. Volunteers documented the logging of old-growth trees, some of which are estimated to be 250-years old and are required to be protected by the BLM’s own rules, while camping near the contested area in the lower Umpqua River watershed this past weekend.

“The Bureau of Land Management initially denied that this old-growth forest even existed in the project area, but this was proven untrue by our volunteers and agency whistleblowers. After being caught in that lie, BLM pivoted and assured the Court that the agency would take measures to protect these unique legacy trees,” said Nick Cady, Legal Director at Cascadia Wildlands. “This unsurprisingly was also a fabrication; the BLM simply cannot be trusted to oversee our public forests.”

The conservation organizations initially filed a lawsuit against the Blue and Gold timber sale, which proposes to log 3,200 acres of public forest, in September 2024, argued the case in November 2025, and have been awaiting a decision from the District Court. The recent observation of the illegal old-growth logging and subsequent filing for a restraining order comes on the heels of a discovery that BLM had fabricated or manipulated the underlying timber sale data to make the project appear feasible. The motion filed today will expedite a ruling.

Plaintiffs have alleged numerous violations of federal environmental laws in their case, including the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Central to the claims are impacts to old-growth forests and species that require older forest habitat for their survival, including the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet, both which are listed on the federal Endangered Species Act. The unit where old-growth logging was recently documented is home to an occupied northern spotted owl site, which BLM is failing to protect despite its obligations under the bedrock statute.

“These remaining parcels of old-growth forests in the Coast Range are critical for the habitat values they provide, the clean water they filter, and the carbon they store to help mitigate climate change,” said Janice Reid, Conservation Chair of Umpqua Watersheds. “Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management is shirking its legal duties to protect the old-growth with its mission to ramp up the cut.”

Per its own forest management plan, the Bureau of Land Management is not legally permitted to log old-growth forests, and specifically those trees established before 1850 and larger than 40” wide at breast height. The logging documented this past weekend included trees that fit this criteria, including some up to 67” in diameter.

“Even if the agency can somehow explain why logging these ancient trees is allowed under its plan, it was required to let the public know as part of the project planning process, and explain what the effects of cutting those trees would be on the surrounding forests and habitats. BLM instead said the forests were much younger, obfuscating the impacts that we are now seeing as these ancient trees are being cut,” said Meriel Darzen, Senior Staff Attorney at Crag Law Center, which represents the plaintiff organizations along with their own in-house attorneys.

Additionally, former agency personnel who worked on the Blue and Gold timber sale have come forward, stating that the agency intentionally misrepresented the age of the forests to facilitate the illegal logging of this unique block of old-growth.

“The BLM is failing to uphold even the most basic safeguards for our largest and oldest trees. They’re cutting down old-growth when they think the public isn’t paying attention,” said John Persell, Senior Staff Attorney for Oregon Wild. “This is just a preview of the destruction we’ll see across western Oregon’s ancient forests as the Trump administration pursues its reckless logging agenda.”

Even as the Bureau of Land Management is attempting to push through reckless timber sales like Blue and Gold under existing policy framework, the Trump administration is working to revise the agency’s 2016 Resource Management Plans for 2.5-million acres of western Oregon forests. It is hoping to quadruple the cut with the revision and make logging the sole focus of these lands over other values, such as recreation, habitat, carbon storage, and clean water.

The organizations are represented by attorneys from Crag Law Center, Cascadia Wildlands, and Oregon Wild in the matter.

The declarations with the documentation of the old-growth logging can be found here and here. 

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Photos for press use. Find high-resolution photos of the illegal logging and the threatened forests in the Blue and Gold timber sale here. Photo credits: Cascadia Wildlands.

The post Conservation Organizations File for a Temporary Restraining Order in Response to Bureau of Land Management’s Illegal Old-Growth Forest Logging Near Yoncalla first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 22, 2026 

Eugene, OR — Today, on Earth Day, Advocates submitted a petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting a cost and viability comparison of volitional passage at the Trail Bridge Dam on the McKenzie River, and interim improvements to temporary fish passage protocols pending the long-delayed installation of permanent fish passage. The dam, operated by public utility the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB), is a caption total barrier to fish passage into the cold upstream stretches of the iconic McKenzie River.

For over seventeen years, EWEB has been out of compliance with federal laws requiring it to provide safe and effective fish passage for imperiled Chinook salmon and bull trout at the Trail Bridge dam, part of EWEB’s Carmen-Smith/Trail Bridge Hydroelectric Project. Both fish species are listed as ‘threatened’ under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The dam obstructs migration of both species, limiting spawning opportunity for Chinook and bull trout and preventing isolated bull trout populations above and below the dam from achieving genetic exchange, decreasing the chance of recovery. Scientists have identified the Upper Willamette River Chinook salmon subpopulation in the McKenzie as a stronghold for this threatened species, but lack of fish passage and other environmental stressors have caused further declines over the past seventeen years. 

“Our goal is to ensure imperiled Chinook salmon and bull trout regain access to miles of pristine McKenzie River habitat above the Trail Bridge dam,” said Bethany Cotton, conservation director for Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands. “The fact that we’ve been working for years now to get our public utility to live up to its commitment to ‘reduce our impact on the environment and to protect energy and water resources for generations to come,’ is deeply frustrating.”

EWEB’s FERC-issued dam license is conditioned on the construction of permanent fish passage at Trail Bridge dam. In 2008, EWEB agreed to install a fish ladder at the dam, but years later asked permission to install an inferior trap-and-haul system to reduce expense. In 2018, the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to the less effective plan largely because EWEB promised to build that facility within three years of receiving its license. EWEB then missed multiple deadlines and has yet to break ground on a permanent trap-and-haul facility that was required to be completed in 2022. In addition to the ongoing harm caused to Chinook salmon and bull trout, the myriad delays have likely increased costs to ratepayers and the overall expense of bringing the Project into compliance with federal law. 

“The compromise EWEB made with the fish agencies in 2018 had a ten spawning season timeline for EWEB to show that the inferior trap-and-haul worked well enough that a fish ladder was not needed, if not, EWEB was still required to install a fish ladder. Instead of being deep in the monitoring period, EWEB is still at the starting line and prices have skyrocketed, wildfire risk has increased, the road to the dam has been shut down multiple times, and the species have further declined,” said Lindsey Hutchison, staff attorney with Willamette Riverkeeper. “It’s long past time for EWEB to implement fish passage that does not depend on human presence.”

In 2023, on-the-record statements from a former EWEB employee-turned-whistleblower came to light, alleging that EWEB never intended to implement fish passage and that its excuses for delays were not valid. Both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service subsequently withdrew from the 2018 joint settlement agreement with EWEB and other stakeholders. The expert fish agencies also notified FERC that EWEB could no longer rely on their 2018 Biological Opinions and Incidental Take Statements without reinitiating consultation under the ESA. In April 2024, FERC put EWEB on formal notice of noncompliance with its license terms, noting the potential for civil penalties “exceeding $27,893 per day, per violation.” EWEB has also publicly admitted that its temporary mitigation efforts have either entirely or nearly completely failed and have killed and injured both Chinook and bull trout. 

Cascadia Wildlands brought its concerns about EWEB’s failure to achieve fish passage to FERC and EWEB’s board of commissioners in May 2024. In March 2025, the petitioning organizations filed suit seeking enforcement of the ESA. Not reaching the merits of the case, the court held that FERC was the appropriate venue to raise the non-compliance issues. In December 2025, EWEB asked FERC to reopen its license and announced it would further delay completion of a trap-and-haul system at the dam to 2032. That request made no mention of volitional passage and implied that even more delay is possible.

“Wild salmon and bull trout are incredibly resilient, but seventeen years of delays and failed trap-and-haul efforts have shown us what doesn’t work,” said Jennifer Fairbrother, legislative and policy director at Native Fish Society. “EWEB owes it to ratepayers, to Oregonians, and to these imperiled species to fully evaluate volitional fish passage, and to give these fish a real shot at returning in abundance for the communities and ecosystems that depend on them.”

Cascadia Wildlands, Willamette Riverkeeper, and Native Fish Society are asking FERC to ensure that all viable alternatives for achieving fish passage at Trail Bridge are fully considered, specifically seeking contemporaneous cost analysis of a fish ladder. The request is informed by several years of failed temporary trap-and-haul efforts at the dam due to design flaws and closures of Highway 126 because of wildfires during spawning season, as well as EWEB’s stated intent to further delay permanent fish passage. Trap-and-haul facilities require daily human presence during spawning season, which is not possible if the only access road to the dam is closed. Wildfire season overlaps with spawning season, and this year’s drought and record low snowpack raise the very real concern that wildfire will impact the McKenzie watershed again this year and in the future. The petition also seeks improvements to the failing temporary trap-and-haul facility in advance of the 2026 spawning season to help mitigate the harm caused by the dam. 

The petitioning organizations are advised by attorneys at Advocates for the West, Public Justice, Cascadia Wildlands, and Willamette Riverkeeper.

*** Still images and footage of bull trout and Chinook salmon in the artificial spawning channel below Trail Bridge dam are available for use upon request. Email noah@cascwild.org

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Cascadia Wildlands works on behalf of its over 18,000 members and supporters to defend and restore Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forests, in the courts, and in the streets.

Willamette Riverkeeper is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1996 with thousands of members in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Willamette Riverkeeper focuses on protecting and restoring the resources of the Willamette River Basin in Oregon and works on programs and projects ranging from the Clean Water Act compliance and river education to Superfund cleanup and restoring habitat.

The Native Fish Society is a conservation nonprofit with a mission to restore abundant wild fish, free-flowing rivers, and thriving local communities across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

Advocates for the West is a non-profit, public interest environmental law firm that works to defend public lands, water, fish, and wildlife throughout the American West.

Public Justice takes on the biggest systemic threats to justice of our time – abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights and liberties, and the destruction of the earth’s sustainability. We connect high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems and win social and economic justice. 

The post Advocates Ask Feds to Make EWEB Consider Volitional Fish Passage at Trail Bridge Dam first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.