By: Noah Angell, Communications Fellow

In these trying times it’s easy to feel helpless, as if our voices don’t matter, our efforts too small, or the systems we’re up against too deeply rooted to change. I’ve felt that too. Working in conservation, especially as a Latino who has had to learn and navigate these systems that weren’t built with our communities in mind, those moments of doubt can feel overwhelming.

But that feeling, although very real and understandable, isn’t the truth. One thing I have always done is to show up, to create that space, to engage no matter what, because showing up is sometimes the hardest part. That is exactly what we need now. There are many ways to engage, ways that go beyond just simply voting, and when we do, collectively, we will be able to see and feel the impact of our actions. Change doesn’t always start big, it starts when people decide they will no longer stay silent and continue submitting to the status quo. However, change cannot start and will not happen unless we are loud and show up, together.

Here in Eugene, Oregon we are surrounded by natural beauty and a strong culture of environmental values and appreciation for nature. But these values and appreciation only matter if we actively engage, and in this case if we actively participate and advocate, especially at a time when environmental protections are being rolled back at a federal level, our neighbors and immigrant communities are being systematically targeted, and frontline communities are feeling these impacts the most.

This blog is meant to provide a quick guide to engagement— what it is, how you can engage, what it can look like, and where you can plug in locally.

What is Civil Engagement and Why Does it Matter?

Civil engagement is how the general public, both as individuals or groups, can participate in shaping decisions and addressing concerns that affect our communities. The first example you may think of is voting, and you would be correct. However, while voting is incredibly important, it’s really just the beginning.

Civic engagement can include things such as:

Local organizations you can support and resources you can share/Organizaciones locales que puedes apoyar:

Participando en Estos Tiempos Difíciles

En estos tiempos difíciles es fácil sentirse impotente, como si nuestras voces no importaran, como si nuestros esfuerzos fueran demasiado pequeños o como si los sistemas contra los que estamos luchando estuvieran demasiado arraigados para cambiar. Yo también lo he sentido. Trabajando en conservación, especialmente como latino que ha tenido que aprender y navegar sistemas que no fueron construidos pensando en nuestras comunidades, esos momentos de duda pueden sentirse aplastante.

Pero ese sentimiento, aunque muy real y comprensible, no es la verdad. Algo que siempre he hecho es presentarme, crear ese espacio, participar sin importar qué, porque dar el paso y hacerse presente a veces es lo más difícil. Y eso es exactamente lo que necesitamos ahora. Hay muchas formas de participar, más allá de simplemente votar, y cuando lo hacemos colectivamente, podemos ver y sentir el impacto de nuestras acciones. El cambio no siempre empieza en grande; empieza cuando las personas deciden que ya no se quedarán en silencio ni seguirán aceptando el estado de las cosas. El cambio no puede comenzar, y no ocurrirá, si no alzamos la voz y nos hacemos presentes, juntos.

Aquí en Eugene, Oregon, estamos rodeados de belleza natural y de una fuerte cultura de valores ambientales y aprecio por la naturaleza. Pero esos valores solo importan si participamos activamente, si nos involucramos y defendemos lo que creemos, especialmente en un momento en el que las protecciones ambientales están siendo debilitadas a nivel federal, nuestras comunidades vecinas e inmigrantes están siendo sistemáticamente atacadas, y las comunidades de primera línea son las que sienten estos impactos con mayor fuerza.

Este blog busca ofrecer una guía rápida sobre la participación cívica: qué es, cómo puedes involucrarte, cómo puede verse en la práctica y dónde puedes conectarte a nivel local.

¿Qué es la Participación Cívica y Por Qué Importa?

La participación cívica es la manera en que el público en general, sea de forma individual o en grupo, puede influir en decisiones y abordar problemas que afectan a nuestras comunidades. El primer ejemplo que puede venirte a la mente es votar, y es correcto. Sin embargo, aunque votar es sumamente importante, es solo el comienzo.

La participación cívica también puede incluir:

The post Engaging During These Trying Times / Participando en Estos Tiempos Difíciles  first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 21, 2026 

Roseburg, Oregon — Today, a coalition of conservation organizations filed suit challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “42 Divide Forest Management Plan” (42 Divide) near Camas Valley, Oregon. The agency proposes to aggressively log thousands of acres of diverse forest stands, even though more than half the land is in reserves set aside for habitat conservation. The area targeted for logging covers nearly 7,000 acres of public lands within the checkerboard of public and private lands in Douglas County, already heavily impacted by private industrial clearcuts. 

The forests and waterways within the project area are home to federally protected northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, Oregon Coast coho salmon, and BLM designated sensitive species western pond turtles. The targeted area contains healthy, diverse stands of mature forest, including Douglas fir, cedar and madrone, and is home to a great diversity of plant, animal, and fungal life. Not only will the project negatively impact these species, the BLM itself recognizes that it will increase fire risk in the area by creating hundreds of tons of post-logging slash.

Heavy thinning and clearcutting will make these forests more vulnerable to wildfire. Logging removes large trees with thick bark and protective forest canopies. This tends to make the forest hotter, drier, and windier, drying out fuels and driving more extreme fire behavior. Logging also stimulates the growth of hazardous surface and ladder fuels. Despite community concerns, BLM wants to conduct logging that makes wildfire risk and hazard worse for surrounding communities for decades. 

“Our organizations are challenging 42 Divide out of great concern that it does not advance BLM’s purported purposes of restoration and resilience, instead threatening imperiled wildlife, increasing fire hazard, and decreasing these forests’ resilience to disturbance,” said Peter Jensen, staff attorney with Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands. “The fish and wildlife within the area, as well as the communities in and around these public lands, are put at greater risk by BLM’s timber-centric agenda and disregard for ecosystem needs, public outcry, and federal environmental law.”

The lawsuit alleges the project violates federal law and the agency’s own regulations by failing to protect older forest stands in late successional reserves (LSRs). Late successional reserves are designed to protect remaining older, structurally complex forest–the highest value spotted owl nesting and roosting habitat, and to promote forests maturing into the types of habitat essential to spotted owls where the forest does not currently function as such. BLM’s analysis and ultimate conclusion that this project would not significantly affect the environment failed to address key issues, omitted necessary analysis of critical resource issues and wildlife management concerns, and ultimately left more questions than answers and more controversy than collaboration with the public. 

”BLM continues to wrap large logging projects targeting mature and old-growth forests in a veneer of ‘restoration’ and “resilience”, despite the research showing the logging would negatively impact protected wildlife and increase wildfire risk, and despite the clear legal mandate to protect these forests,” said Brenna Bell, senior staff attorney, Crag Law Center. “It should not require legal action to get this federal agency to follow its own management plan and manage public lands to benefit more than just the timber industry.”

BLM first proposed the 42 Divide in November 2021, subsequently issuing draft planning documents and pausing the project a few times, most recently for further study and endangered species analysis before ultimately issuing the December 2025 decision. The conservation organizations, along with local community members, engaged at every public comment opportunity, voicing their concerns. To the agency’s credit, BLM deferred over 400 acres of logging in occupied northern spotted owl habitat, but myriad other concerns raised by the plaintiffs and community members remained unresolved. 

“In such a diverse and important ecosystem, home to sensitive and imperiled wildlife species, BLM must do better,” said Janice Reid of Umpqua Watersheds. “The agency must conserve and protect imperiled wildlife species and their habitats, and demonstrate compliance with federal environmental laws before authorizing such large-scale industrial forestry practices on public lands.” 

“The BLM continues to shirk its obligations to the public and the law in its pursuit of large commercial logging projects,” said John Persell with Oregon Wild. “Aggressive logging in these protected areas not only endangers fish and wildlife, but it also adds to the cumulative destruction of the landscape already ravaged by the surrounding private-land clearcuts. Public lands are supposed to be a refuge from this kind of destruction, not an extension of it.”

The organizations are represented by attorneys from Crag Law Center and Cascadia Wildlands. 

The post Conservation Groups Challenge Feds’ Illegal 42 Divide Logging Plan in Western Oregon first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

By: Madeline Cowen, Field and Organizing Manager

In May of 2018, the Willamette National Forest first proposed the egregious Flat Country old-growth timber sale. The project proposed aggressively logging 2,000 acres of older forests in the McKenzie River headwaters, which provide fresh drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the Willamette Valley. Astonished by the proposal’s targeting of pristine, carbon-rich old-growth and mature forests in the renowned McKenzie River watershed, our community came together and began what would turn into a five year fight. 

When I first started volunteering as a WildCAT with Cascadia Wildlands, I spent virtually all my free time going out to the Flat Country project, field checking and getting to know fellow forest advocates in the community. This project, and my time spent there, is how I deepened my love and passion for defending the forests of Cascadia. With new friends and old, I wandered through moss-covered Douglas firs and western hemlocks growing more than 200 feet tall and six feet wide. I gazed up in astonishment at cathedral-like western red cedars surrounded by delicate vine maple, and interlaced with Pacific rhododendron flowering magenta in the summer. In autumn, we WildCATs would field check as many units as possible, leave with baskets brimming with chanterelles and head to Bigelow hot springs to soothe sore muscles. The ecosystems in this area inspired me to learn, and knowing it was under threat drove me to fight.

In addition to almost five years of extensive field checking and writing public comments, we wrote opinion articles and letters to the editor, and highlighted the project in the national Worth More Standing report to draw the attention of policy makers. We further grew public awareness through community-centered events like the first ever Flotilla on the McKenzie, and rallying at the Forest Service’s doorstep. The robust Deep Roots Trainings for Forest and Climate Action series, now in its fourth year, kicked off at Flat Country, and unaffiliated community advocates even hung a banner across highway 126 and put up a tree sit. Advocates, community members and rabble rousers put in blood, sweat and tears to protect these ancient forests and the communities that rely on them…and we won! At the end of 2022, the Forest Service announced its decision to withdraw the Flat Country timber sale. Thankfully, my and so many other people’s efforts resulted in the cancellation of this terrible project, keeping these irreplaceable forests standing. However, when it withdrew Flat Country, the Forest Service stated it planned to revisit the project. For the past three years we’ve been watching. 

Under the Trump administration, we are facing unprecedented attacks on public lands. The administration has demanded public land agencies increase the cut from national forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) managed public lands, with hardly any environmental review and reduced public involvement opportunities. This means we are likely to see horrendous projects like Flat Country popping up across the nation. We must remain resilient, keep a keen eye on projects, and be even more nimble with our field checking and organizing. When the Forest Service’s McKenzie District announced two projects around the same area as Flat Country in 2025, major alarm bells went off. The two projects are called the South Fork Delta Expansion and the Tie Project, and both have direct overlap with previous Flat Country units. With the help of our friends at Oregon Wild and WildCAT volunteers, we’ve taken a close look at these two proposals. The bottom line is that thankfully, they are not targeting the highly important mature and old- growth stands in Flat Country we were initially concerned about. However, the projects still do have some concerning aspects. Let’s break them down:

Tie Project

On Nov. 21st, 2025, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Forestry using the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA), the McKenzie District of the Willamette National Forest announced it was beginning scoping the Tie Project. According to the initial scoping notice, the Forest Service plans to “treat” i.e., log, 7,898 acres. The stated purpose and need for the project is:

• Providing a sustainable timber supply to support local economies,
• Reducing wildfire risk through strategic thinning and shaded fuel breaks,
• Improving forest health and resilience by enhancing forest structure, species diversity, and stand density, and
• Maintaining and improving road systems for management, recreation, and wildfire response.

When I opened the map for the Tie project to see where it is located, my heart sank. I could immediately tell that the units are in the same area, and spreading across similar boundaries, as Flat Country. Were we really about to fight this old-growth logging project again and so soon? Before panicking, I needed to take a closer look. And as it turns out, the project is not as bad as it seems, at least in terms of targeting mature and old-growth. While the project is quite massive, with 7,898 acres of logging proposed, it appears that the majority of the project consists of previously clearcut plantations that have now grown into dense, relatively young forest stands. An area that legitimately could benefit from thinning. Also, of the 209 units proposed in the project, only 38 of them directly overlap with those from Flat Country. Of course, field verification is almost always necessary to determine how accurate this is. That checking will happen after winter snows melt. 

South Fork Delta Expansion

The second project in the Flat Country area is the South Fork Delta Expansion, first proposed in early July 2025 by the McKenzie District in the Willamette National Forest. This project is meant to “provide recreational opportunities near the Delta Campground area” which burned in the 2020 Holiday Farm fire, and also expand the restoration area in the 2018 Lower South Fork McKenzie River Floodplain Enhancement Project. Restoration and floodplain enhancement is absolutely a great use of agency and taxpayer resources, and oftentimes these projects need to use larger diameter trees and their rootwads to meet the goals of the restoration. Unfortunately, the fact that the agency wants to source trees directly from Flat Country, which is over 20 miles away from the restoration area when those efforts usually use trees from much closer, raised some flags, especially because the project boundaries are identical to some of the older units in Flat Country. 

The over 300 acres of old-growth forest where logging would occur is far more valuable as an intact ecosystem. The forest is currently providing habitat value not only to those species who are living there, but also to the salmon, bull trout and other aquatic life living downstream in the floodplains. These increasingly rare forests help mitigate runoff during extreme weather events, filter sediment, and ensure steady stream flows. Why degrade this habitat in order to restore habitat elsewhere? Why sacrifice old-growth forests in the uplands to restore floodplains and lowlands? The Forest Service did not disclose if these units are part of another timber sale that got cancelled and they failed to address the potential impacts to imperiled species utilizing the habitat, most notably the northern spotted owl. The Forest Service canceled the Flat Country project in the face of overwhelming public opposition. Why bring that controversial mess into this otherwise appealing project? 

Cascadia Wildlands and our partners at Oregon Wild brought these concerns and others to the Forest Service directly in an effort to identify a better way to move forward with restoring important floodplain habitat while minimizing impacts to older forests and protecting habitat for northern spotted owls in the Flat Country area. We are still in negotiations and are hopeful we can get to a place where we can support this project. 

Overall, I feel better about the South Fork Delta Expansion knowing that it will improve floodplain conditions and have minimal impacts to the mature and old-growth forests in the Flat Country area. And for the Tie project, knowing that the essential and incredibly valuable forests are not a part of it is definitely a better outcome.  Both of these projects are a stark reminder of how important it is for us to maintain a close watch over proposed projects, and the value of on the ground field checking. Want to get involved? Check out our Field Checking 101 video, and sign up for WildCAT (Cascadia Action Team), and reach out if you have any questions about these or other projects. 

The post Flat Country Repackaged? Thankfully, no. first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

By: Flora Booker, 2025 Summer Field and Events Coordinator

On July 30th, Cascadia Wildlands staff and WildCAT volunteers joined a tour hosted by the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative and the U.S. Forest Service to take a look at the proposed Dead Mountain Project. The collaborative is a mix of agency staff, environmental groups, timber industry representatives, and local community members who live in and around Oakridge and Westfir, Oregon. While Cascadia Wildlands is not a part of the group, we joined them to walk through sections of the Willamette National Forest near Oakridge, around 40 miles east of Eugene, to view current conditions and imagine what these ecosystems could look like in the years ahead with increasingly intense climate-driven wildfires. 

With recent changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) under the Trump administration limiting public comment, this project shows how agencies can still engage the public in shaping land management. Federal directives to prioritize timber revenue can undermine ecological goals and local needs, highlighting the importance of careful evaluation to sustain ecosystems for human and more-than-human communities. 

Early on during the tour, we reached a ridge top and looked down at Forest Service managed public lands that had burned in past years. Sarah Altemus-Pope, the Executive Director of Southern Willamette Solutions, which manages the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative program, pointed to a swath of trees scorched just last summer. She reminded us that this community has faced high-severity fire every year for five years. The urgency to reduce community wildfire risk became all the more real when, just days after our tour, the Aubrey Fire broke out along highway 58 just outside Oakridge. Burning just south of the Dead Mountain project area identified for future thinning and controlled burning treatments, the new start is a reminder that fire is a continual presence, shaping lives and forests. The project must ensure that the work done here prepares the forest and the community for what may come, through public involvement and careful planning to promote fire resilience.

Throughout the tour, collaborative staffers handed out a stack of maps: treatment units, proposed burn blocks, road plans, and land designations. They looked like standard planning documents but carried a larger story. We were told that those maps and plans for forest treatments had been developed through a process called Potential Operational Delineations, or PODs. In practice, it means land managers, local residents, and other interested stakeholders sit down together and weigh in on where fires are most likely to be contained, what community and resource values are at greatest risk, which ridges or rivers might serve as natural boundaries, and where firefighters could move safely. Forest Service representatives emphasized that POD planning highlights the need to thin forested areas near town and open the tree canopy to reduce crown fire risk, where flames climb up understory plants into the tops of trees, burning quickly and at extreme temperatures difficult to stifle. Local residents, many with direct experience of wildfires, stressed the urgent need for more controlled burns, and staff pointed out on our maps the areas where these treatments are proposed to take place.

The first site we walked through exemplified what these treatments can mean. Sarah Altemus-Pope grew up in Oakridge and ran regularly on the Dead Mountain trails. She told us she remembers when the forest was so dense the trails were quiet. After thinning opened the forest, she began to hear birdsong on her runs, filling the silence that had been there before. Community members nodded in agreement, noting that the trails have become more popular for recreation since then. The ground beneath us seemed to confirm her story: chinquapin, incense cedar, and madrone were sprouting in the understory, a richer mix of species than the uniform Douglas fir plantation that once dominated the hillside.

Later in the day, we stood in a different kind of forest. This one had been clearcut in the past and replanted densely with conifers, creating an even-aged stand that has grown without thinning or other caretaking. The trees were crowded, the air was still, and there was little sign of the diverse plant life we had seen earlier. Here, proposed treatments would thin the stand to create space for light, water, and nutrients to reach the understory, allowing biodiversity to return. When done thoughtfully, these treatments can create healthier forests that are less vulnerable to severe fire, while also offering better habitat and more resilient ecosystems.

The promise of healthier, more fire-resilient forests is clear when you stand among the trees, but profit rather than science-driven policy pressures complicate the picture. Management direction and laws like the National Forest Management Act of 1976 push the Forest Service to prepare parcels for timber harvest on a strict timeline, raising a critical question: how much of this management is about ecological and community wildfire resilience, and how much is about meeting timber targets?

Thinning can improve forest health, but its benefits depend on how the forest is accessed and managed. Roads bring soil erosion, altered hydrology, habitat fragmentation, and increased fire risk (Connor and McCoy 2013). The Dead Mountain project currently proposes to decommission four miles of road, restore up to ten miles, maintain or reconstruct 34 miles, and build three miles of temporary roads. Decommissioning roads can help reduce the oversized road system and encourage healthy waters, soils, wildlife, and resilient forests. Road decommissioning also reduces the risk of invasive species introduction and accidental human caused fires. Opening “light gaps” up to three acres can benefit meadows or oak savannas if paired with caretaking such as recurring controlled burns, but replanting them with uniform seedlings creates stands of dense, even-aged trees vulnerable to high intensity crown fires. Old-growth forests show resilience through structural complexity that buffers wildfire and supports biodiversity (Betts et al. 2017). 

Many elements of the Dead Mountain project have the potential to support resilience, but its success will depend on careful implementation. To meet community priorities and ecological goals, management must move beyond timber quotas and focus on cultivating healthy, fire-adapted forests that can withstand changing fire regimes. Equally important is investing in home hardening and other strategies for living with fire. Collaborative members are already advancing this work through fuel reduction near homes, maintaining a five-foot buffer, and other practices that strengthen firewise communities.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the Dead Mountain project is the depth of public engagement throughout the planning stages. The incorporation of community input through the PODs and NEPA processes show a genuine effort to reach informed decisions that reflect both ecological and local priorities.

The highlight of the tour, however, was seeing how my own community responded. At one point, I spoke with two WildCAT volunteers: one who is a seasoned field checker familiar with these forests, the other a newer volunteer, an artist with a fresh perspective. The experienced volunteer admitted he had not expected to be impressed, but the level of collaboration and the way participants genuinely listened to one another gave him hope. The newer volunteer agreed, noting how the project seemed to account for diverse perspectives and marveling at the contrast between forest stands we had walked through. Their reflections reminded me that fire planning isn’t just technical; it’s relational. Building trust and making space for different experiences is an essential part of the forest management process.

Projects like Dead Mountain can succeed when sound ecological management is paired with inclusive community engagement. Fire is a constant presence on the landscape, and making respect for and adaptation to these natural processes is essential. By centering local input, focusing treatments near communities, and balancing ecological goals with policy realities, this project — if actually implemented as planned — shows what thoughtful forest management can achieve.

The post Fire, Forests, and Collaboration on Dead Mountain first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which governs the environmental review process for public land management decisions and mandates public input in the review process, has been a repeat target for the administration. On June 30th, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released an interim final rule changing NEPA implementation procedures for all of its agencies, including the Forest Service. These regulations come in response to the administration’s rescission of the Council of Environmental Quality’s NEPA regulations earlier this year (spurred by EO 14154, Unleashing American Energy) which prompted each agency to craft its own NEPA regulations without meaningful public or Tribal input during the development of the rule. 

Sign our petition below to tell the US Department of Agriculture — Don’t Shut the Public Out of Public Lands.

The USDA NEPA implementation regulations strip away mechanisms for public input. The implementation regulations no longer require scoping, an early and essential process where an agency provides the public with notice of a potential project and identifies the potential environmental impacts. The regulations also no longer require public comment periods during the draft Environmental Assessment (EA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) stages. The agency will no longer be required to provide a Schedule of Proposed Actions to the public. These changes, which took effect July 3rd, 2025 with the interim final rule’s publication in the Federal Register, impact all 193 million acres of land that the Forest Service manages, including Mt. Hood, Willamette, Umpqua, Siuslaw, and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests.

SIGN THE PETITION BELOW TO TELL TRUMP — PUBLIC INPUT FOR PUBLIC LANDS!

The post Forests Over Fascists—Don’t Shut the Public Out of Public Lands. first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

For immediate release: May 28, 2025 

Contact:

Josh Laughlin, Executive Director, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463

Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it has issued a required permit to the Oregon Department of State Lands in order for the recently created Elliott State Research Forest to become operational. Approval ensures Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed terrestrial wildlife found on the 83,000-acre public forest located northeast of Coos Bay are adequately protected for the next 80 years through a Habitat Conservation Plan. A similar required permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service covering ESA-listed salmon on the forest has yet to be issued.  

After over six years of advocacy and negotiation to establish the Elliott State Research Forest, conservationists welcome this next step towards implementation.  

“There are hard-fought protection measures built into the Elliott’s Habitat Conservation Plan to ensure critically imperiled species, like the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl, are given the necessary safeguards to persist into the future,” says Josh Laughlin, Executive Director of Cascadia Wildlands. “The issuance of the permit today is one of the final steps toward this plan becoming a reality.” 

The Habitat Conservation Plan establishes a 34,000-acre protected area on the Elliott’s west side, where remining older forests will be protected and young, plantation forests will be restored to help create more complex forest structure in the future to benefit imperiled species. Smaller protected areas are strategically designated throughout the rest of the forest as well.  

Public controversy around cutting the Elliott’s remining mature and old-growth forests and short-sighted privatization efforts marred this outstanding public forest for decades. The public and conservation organizations have repeatedly pushed back against these schemes, and a new paradigm for the forest has emerged in recent years. 

“Not long ago, Oregonians successfully fought off a privatization scheme that would have resulted in the forest being clearcut and the public being locked out,” says Laughlin. “Now, we have an enduring plan in place that keeps the forest in public ownership and embraces the conservation values that Oregonians hold closely.” 

Under the newly created Elliott State Research Forest’s 80-year plan, logging will primarily be focused in young plantations forests, and a major emphasis will be placed on salmon and wildlife habitat protection, cutting-edge forest and watershed research, Tribal knowledge and involvement, recreation, education, and carbon storage to help blunt the climate crisis. 

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Additional background:  

Cascadia Wildlands and partners have successfully confronted efforts in the past to privatize the Elliott, including securing an Oregon Supreme Court victory in 2019 halting the sale of the 788-acre East Hakki Ridge parcel to the timber industry. This privatization scheme was in direct response to a successful 2012 lawsuit brought by Cascadia Wildlands and legal partners. That case halted dozens of old-growth timber sales on the Elliott, Clatsop and Tillamook state forests, where threatened marbled murrelets were nesting. 

Additionally, the State Land Board, which oversees the Elliott, advanced a plan to privatize the entire forest beginning in 2015, but that decision was reversed in 2017 after significant public opposition. Instead, the forest was maintained in public ownership after the Oregon legislature appropriated $221 million to buy-out the forest’s obligation to the Common School Fund. 

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. www.cascwild.org

The post US Fish and Wildlife Service Issues Permit to Advance Oregon’s Elliott State Research Forest  first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

May 21, 2025

Eugene, Ore.— Conservation groups intervened today in a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and counties seeking to strip northern spotted owls of protections for their critical habitat across millions of acres of forests in California, Oregon and Washington.  

The industry lawsuit attempts to reinstate a critical habitat rollback issued in the final weeks of the first Trump administration that removed nearly 3.5 million acres from the 9.6 million acres that were protected for spotted owls in 2012.  

“The forests these precious owls depend on also provide all of us with benefits like clean water, recreation, jobs and climate resiliency,” said Chelsea Stewart-Fusek, an endangered species attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Given Trump’s relentless assaults on our most cherished wildlife and public lands, it’s no surprise that corporate timber interests are resurrecting their attacks on northern spotted owls and the places they live in the name of short-term profit.”  

The northern spotted owl first gained critical habitat protection in 1992, and those were adjusted in 2012 under the Obama administration. That rule was challenged in court by the timber industry, resulting in a settlement and a January 2021 designation excluding 3.5 million acres from critical habitat protection, nearly all on public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.  

Just 10 months later, the Biden administration rescinded the final designation and instead finalized a proposed rule that excluded 204,294 acres instead of 3.5 million acres. That Biden administration rule is being challenged by the timber industry’s current lawsuit, which is seeking to reinstate the expanded Trump administration revision.   

“This latest attempt by the timber industry to remove protections for northern spotted owls is a cynical move that perpetuates not only the biodiversity and extinction crises, but also the pendulum swing regarding management of the owl’s habitat,” said Susan Jane Brown, attorney with Silvix Resources that represents some of the intervenors. “Rather than accept that the best available science requires the protection of millions of acres of spotted owl habitat to prevent the extinction and foster the recovery of the owl, industry’s lawsuit seeks to unnecessarily stoke controversy.” 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected the northern spotted owl, a bird found only in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. In 2020, because of continued loss of the old forests they need to live and competition with the invasive barred owl, the Service found northern spotted owls should now be classified as endangered but has yet to provide stronger protections for the species. 

“This is a tired story: the timber industry attempting to game the legal system in order to expand logging on our public lands,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center. “Unfortunately for them, they have to come through us first. We have stood up for the northern spotted owls and science for decades and we aren’t backing down.” 

Additional quotes: 

“The lawyers for Big Timber are cherry-picking a courthouse across the country to attack old-growth spotted owl habitat in our neck of the woods,” said George Sexton, conservation director for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “So we’re intervening to stand up for science and our forests.” 

“Drastically reducing spotted owl habitat protections is not only antithetical to the best science we have for allowing the imperiled species to recover, but puts at risk all the other benefits that protecting these public lands provide to Oregonians, the very people that these lands are supposed to be managed for,” says Nick Cady with Cascadia Wildlands. “Aggressive logging increases wildfire risk, threatens drinking water sources, recreation opportunities, and much more all for the benefit of corporate timber barons.” 

“With northern spotted owl population numbers in precipitous decline, the timber industry seeks to remove protections from a full third — 3.5 million acres — of the species’ critical habitat,” said David Woodsmall, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “This is a choice by the industry to drive the northern spotted owl to extinction for private profit, antithetical to the American values of conservation embodied in our laws. Western Environmental Law Center has fought for northern spotted owl recovery for decades, and we will use the power of the law to thwart any action that threatens the survival of this iconic species.” 

“The logging industry wants to frame this lawsuit as just about the northern spotted owl, but what’s really at stake are our oldest, most resilient forests, forests that also provide cold, clean rivers for salmon, drinking water for communities and cherished places for countless people,” said John Persell, staff attorney for Oregon Wild. “Trump administration officials have made it clear they view these lands as little more than a source of profit. It’s up to all of us to stand up — for owls, salmon, clean water and carbon-storing forests — and say no.” 

“With less than 3,000 spotted owls left and a population that is declining precipitously, this challenge is a slap in the face to conservation and the survival of this species. Any reduction in acreage of critical habitat could be this species’ death knell,” said Joe Liebezeit, statewide conservation director for Bird Alliance of Oregon. 

“Everything needs a home to survive,” said Dave Werntz, science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest. “The northern spotted owl is no exception.” 

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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. www.cascwild.org

The post Legal Intervention Defends Northern Spotted Owl Habitat  first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Eugene, OR — Conservation groups secured a victory as a federal court rejected the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) controversial Siuslaw HLB (“Harvest Land Base”) Project. The court held the agency’s proposed multi-decadal and aggressive logging plan near several communities west of Eugene, violated critical environmental review requirements.

Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild, with attorneys at Crag Law Center, brought suit arguing that the agency ignored the project’s potential impacts on soils, drinking water, invasive weeds, and threatened wildlife. The organizations also raised concerns about the cumulative effects of the Siuslaw HLB Project and the overlapping N126 Project, another Bureau of Land Management logging proposal a different judge ruled unlawful in late March. Federal law requires the agency to weigh the negative effects of logging  against any claimed benefits from timber production — a step the Bureau of Land Management neglected.

“The Bureau of Land Management routinely disregards the serious risks that many of their logging projects impose,” said Nick Cady with Cascadia Wildlands. “We lose valuable, rare ecosystems and with it, wildfire resilience and drinking water quality, every time these mature forests are irresponsibly logged.” 

The Court ruled in favor of the conservation groups, finding that the Bureau of Land Management did not take the legally required “hard look” at the environmental impacts. Further, in his Opinion, Judge Kasubhai concluded that “This is not a case where the Court was unable to determine whether there may be significant effects. Rather, the Court has explicitly found [] that substantial questions exist over whether the Siuslaw Plan may have significant impacts. Under the clear rule set forth in the case law cited above, an EIS [environmental impact statement] must be prepared in light of that finding.”Accordingly, BLM’s choice not to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of its decision and prepare an environmental impact statement violated federal law.

“The Judge offered a strong rebuke of the agency’s shell game analysis, wherein the BLM refused to analyze impacts to key issues like sensitive soils, imperiled species, and invasive species, claiming that such impacts were either already addressed or would be in the future. But in truth, the agency’s approach meant that these critical issues would never be addressed in the manner that the law requires,” said Oliver Stiefel, Senior Staff Attorney Crag Law Center.

The Siuslaw HLB Project sought to log 13,225 acres of public forests in the Coast Range foothills. The Bureau of Land Management’s own planning documents acknowledged that the project would increase spread of invasive weeds, decrease slope stability and destroy soil health, and risked serious harm to numerous protected species (special status, bureau sensitive, or endangered), decrease fire resilience, and contaminate and degrade drinking water contamination. Notwithstanding, the agency dismissed these risks as insignificant.

“Whether it’s due to poor analysis or attempts to log old-growth trees for profit, the courts continue to reject the BLM’s unlawful logging projects,” said John Persell of Oregon Wild. “Clearcutting public lands, destroying wildlife habitat, endangering local communities — this is exactly the type of logging President Trump and his allies are now pushing on a larger scale. It’s not legal, it’s not what the public wants, and we’re going to keep fighting it.” 

Local residents have also voiced strong opposition, citing risks such as drinking water contamination, increased wildfire hazards, soil erosion, invasive species introduction and the destruction of wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities. The agency was unfazed by these concerns. It is encouraging to see federal courts in Oregon recognizing the problems associated with poor environmental analysis and serious risks those shortfalls pose to our forests.

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The organizations are represented by attorneys from the Crag Law Center and Cascadia Wildlands.

Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands is a 501c3 non-profit with over 12,000 members and supporters whose mission is to defend and restore Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forests, in the courts, and in the streets. We envision 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 represents 20,000 members and supporters who share our mission to protect and restore Oregon’s wildlands, wildlife, and water as an enduring legacy. Our goal is to protect areas that remain intact while striving to restore areas that have been degraded. 

Crag Law Center is a nonprofit environmental law center based in Portland, Oregon that  supports community efforts to protect and sustain the Pacific Northwest’s natural legacy. Implementing a unique model of legal aid for the environment, Crag balances the scales of justice by offering free and low-cost legal services to people who are working on the ground to protect our environment, climate and communities.

The post Court Rejects Coast Range Clearcutting Project first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 22, 2025

Roseburg, OR — Today, Earth Day April 22nd, 2025 activists rallied in opposition to a Bureau of Land Management plan to log old-growth forests on federally-managed public lands in the Umpqua River watershed. Conservation groups filed suit against the Bureau of Land Management in September 2024 over the controversial  Blue and Gold logging project. The non-violent rally, organized by Cascadia Wildlands and Umpqua Watersheds, coincides with an auction of several of the logging units within the project dubbed the Yellow Panther Sale. The protest is focused on the project as a whole. 

Originally proposed under the Biden administration, the Blue and Gold project targets thousands of acres of the last remaining old-growth forest in the region. The project is in an area that is ecologically significant for the imperilled spotted owl and marbled murrelet. Science shows old-growth forests are more resilient to wildfire, while logging increases wildfire risk for decades. Conservationists and community members opposed the project then, as they do under the Trump administration. 

“Today, our community is telling the federal government that we will not tolerate illegal old-growth logging on public lands,” said Madeline Cowen, Grassroots Organizer for Cascadia Wildlands. “Logging old-growth and mature forests increases risks to communities — everyone should be angry about this project.” 

The Trump administration has shown their support for industrial logging projects, issuing executive orders to increase industrial logging on federal lands. Researchers have sounded the alarm pointing to science showing that aggressive logging in backcountry forests and old-growth forests increases wildfire risk.

Certain areas of the Blue and Gold Project fall under this category, with well-spaced, age-varied trees throughout the project. A former Bureau of Land Management contract surveyor who worked within the project concluded that trees in and around the project likely reach and exceed 1000 years in age. Cascadia Wildlands volunteers who surveyed the area recorded similar findings. This differs from what the agency claims is present in the project, with the Environmental Assessment, stating that the trees “range from 40 to 140 years old.”The EA found “no significant impact,” a finding that conservation groups are challenging. 

The project has some of the last remaining unlogged, carbon-storing older forests in the region.The Bureau of Land Management plans to aggressively log and build roads in old-growth habitat essential to imperiled species and fire resilience. Agency road building plans are one of the loopholes used to log old-growth trees that would otherwise be illegal to remove in most circumstances. 

“We are protesting because this project targets old-growth forests in Douglas County,” said Francis Etherington, a longtime forest advocate and local resident. “Motivated by arbitrary timber targets, the government is putting our communities, clean drinking water and wildlife habitat at greater risk.”

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More information about the Blue and Gold project can be found in ProPublica’s investigative piece, Despite Biden’s Promise to Protect Old Forests, His Administration Keeps Approving Plans to Cut Them Down.

PHOTOS: to be updated throughout the day and evening of April 22, 2025 HERE. 

PHOTOS of threatened forests within the Blue and Gold project area from summer and fall of 2024. 

The post Federal Land Agency Auctions Old-Growth Forest on Earth Day, Protesters Rally in Roseburg to Oppose the Project first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 11, 2025

Eugene, OR — Today, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) released in its annual report of the minimum 2024 gray wolf population and pack count for the state, which shows encouraging growth after years of stagnation. In both 2022 and 2023 the minimum wolf count was just 178. From 2019-2023, Oregon’s minimum wolf population increased by just 5. The 2024 minimum count is 204, the largest in the state’s history, and the first time the population tops 200 since wolves began naturally returning to the state in 2008.

“After several years of very concerning population trends for Oregon’s wolves, the significant growth in our minimum wolf population is very welcome news,” said Bethany Cotton, conservation director for Cascadia Wildlands. “As wolves face serious threats at the national level and Washington state’s population declined for the first time, it’s heartening to have positive news in Oregon.”

Additional positive news in the report includes seven breeding pairs documented in western Oregon and 25 total packs, an increase from 22 in 2023. Wolves in the western third of Oregon enjoy federal Endangered Species Act protections and are primarily managed by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Illegal wolf killings remain a significant threat to wolves in Oregon, with at least seven wolves killed by poachers in 2024. While the news that Oregon now has seven breeding pairs in the western portion of the state is encouraging, it is tempered by the recent poaching of the Metolius pack breeding male. That death is not reflected in the 2024 report. Of the 26 documented wolf deaths in 2024, 22 were caused by humans. It is illegal to kill a wolf anywhere in the state of Oregon without authorization. Killing a wolf in the western portion of the state is both a federal and state crime.

As the report notes “[w]ith seven breeding pairs documented in the West Zone in 2024, Phases 2 or 3 [of the Oregon Wolf Plan] could be reached as early as 2027. But for a poaching incident in 2023 that reduced the number of breeding pairs that year, the West Zone would have moved to Phase 2 this year.” 

“Poaching remains a primary threat to Oregon’s wolves, yet the Governor’s draft budget for the agency cuts all anti-poaching funds,” said Cotton, conservation director for Cascadia Wildlands. “We call on the legislature and the Governor to ensure those funds are restored so that our state’s progress toward wolf recovery is not further undermined by the poaching crisis.”

Additionally, predation incidents decreased in 2024, with 69 total events, down from 73 in 2023. Oregon is home to over 1.38 million cows and sheep. Wolves present a very minor impact to this population, with weather and disease responsible for orders of magnitude more deaths and injuries. The Oregon Department of Agriculture’s compensation program granted all requests for livestock confirmed or deemed probably killed or wounded by wolves at fair market value in full in 2024. The program granted a total of $789,565 in public funds across 13 counties. Of the requests made to the program, 61% were for non-lethal coexistence tools assistance. That figure decreased from 2023 when 84% of the requests were for coexistence tools.

The post After Years of Stagnation, Oregon’s Wolf Population Grows first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.