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• General Location of hike: Siuslaw National Forest, Coast Range near Mapleton
• Estimated time of departure and return from meeting location: 9:30am-4:00pm
• Carpools leave from central Eugene, meet at Oregon Wild’s Eugene office, 1238 Lincoln Street.
• Leaders for the day will be Chandra LeGue with Oregon Wild and Madeline Cowen with Cascadia Wildlands.
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Distance (round trip/total): 4.4 miles
• Elevation Gain: 800 feet
• Max attendance: 20

Description: The Central Oregon Coast Range hides gorgeous forests, clear streams, a tangle of early spring vegetation and wildflowers, and big waterfalls like Kentucky Falls. Luckily Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands staff know how to find them! Discover (or revisit!) this true gem on what will no doubt be a beautiful spring day. On the way, we’ll see a mix of forest management – from clearcuts to hands-off – and spend some time discussing important campaigns to protect mature and old-growth forests, wild and scenic rivers, and preserving the core elements of the Northwest Forest Plan. We’ll complete the day by writing postcards and comments advocating for the forest.

This Event is Hosted and Led by:

The post Kentucky Falls Earth Day Hike — Sunday, April 21, 2024 first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Contacts:
Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463
Meg Townsend, Center for Biological Diversity

Renewed Cook Creek Logging Will Harm Coho Salmon, Marbled Murrelets

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Center for Biological Diversity and Cascadia Wildlands filed a notice of intent today to sue the Federal Emergency Management Agency for funding the reopening of Cook Creek Road in the Oregon Coast Range.

Reopening the road will allow renewed logging and harm Oregon Coast coho and marbled murrelets, both of which are protected as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

“If FEMA is going to pay to rebuild a logging road, it has to consider how logging will hurt the species that live there, plain and simple,” said Meg Townsend, senior freshwater attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Cook Creek provides excellent habitat for coho salmon and marbled murrelets, not to mention clean water and a place of solace for all Oregonians.”

The road has been closed since a portion washed out during storms in December 2015. Cook Creek is relatively intact and borders areas proposed for protection by the Oregon Department of Forestry. It’s also a prized fishing stream. Last year, fishing groups joined other conservation groups in opposing logging in the Cook Creek watershed, which is designated as critical habitat for Oregon Coast coho.

Under the Endangered Species Act, federal agencies, including FEMA, are required to ensure that the actions and projects they fund do not jeopardize threatened species. FEMA wrongly concluded that reconstructing the road wouldn’t affect coho. In doing so the agency only considered the road itself and not the logging made possible by the road and planned by the Department of Forestry. This is a clear violation of the law.

“Oregon should not be using disaster relief funds to subsidize commercial timber operations, particularly not where it will harm threatened species and their habitat,” said Nick Cady, legal director of Cascadia Wildlands.

The Department of Forestry has two timber sales planned for 2024 in the Cook Creek watershed. The sales involve clearcutting nearly 700 acres and constructing more than 3 miles of new logging roads. These activities have the potential to seriously harm coho and murrelets.

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The post Press Release: Lawsuit Launched Against Road Reopening in Oregon’s Tillamook State Forest first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Contacts:
Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463
Erin Hogan, Crag Law Center

Federal Agency Plan Would Intensively Log Remaining Spotted Owl Reserves

Eugene, OR — Today, Oregon-based conservation organizations Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild challenged the Bureau of Land Management’s (“BLM”) Siuslaw Field Office’s plan to log 13,225 acres of public forests in the coast range foothills west of Eugene. The agency’s Siuslaw HLB (“Harvest Land Base”) Project will clearcut these mature and old-growth forests that border many communities and residences west of Eugene. The BLM admits that this logging will increase fire hazard risks, slope instability and landslide risks, and drinking water contamination for these communities, but dismissed concerns raised about these impacts as insignificant.

“The BLM cannot continue to chase timber volume production at the expense of our communities,” said Nick Cady with Cascadia Wildlands. “Not only are we losing the few older forest stands that remain in the coast range, but admittedly the agency is putting us at increased risk from forest fires and landslides, and jeopardizing water quality. The little timber volume being generated from these mature, public forests is just not worth it.”

The targeted forests are home to at least four federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed species: northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, and Chinook and Oregon Coast coho salmon, along with listing candidate species the red tree vole, which is a candidate for ESA listing. Most of the forests slated for logging are mature and old-growth forests that provide suitable habitat for these species, but the agency dismissed impacts to these imperiled species as insignificant without any actual review of the impacts the logging would have on the ground. 

Many of the local residents strongly oppose the logging, as they believe its negative impacts–including drinking water contamination, increased wildfire hazard, loss of recreation opportunities, soil erosion, further road construction, and outright habitat destruction–strongly outweigh any benefits associated with timber production.

“If they remain standing, our public forests provide so many important public services, including clean water, habitat for fish & wildlife, climate stability, fire resilience, recreation and quality of life. Clearcut logging will sacrifice all these values, and for what? The private profits of a few in the timber industry. BLM has a responsibility to tell the truth but they are hiding the fact that the public is getting a rotten deal here,”  said Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, including failure to take the requisite “hard look” at environmental impacts and failure to conduct any site-specific analyses or prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. The BLM is required under federal environmental law to consider the negative impacts the proposed logging will have on our communities and weigh those impacts against the alleged benefits of timber volume generation logging. Many of the local residents strongly oppose the logging, which they believe will create that the negative impacts–including contamination of to their drinking water, increases in fire hazard, loss of recreation opportunities, soil erosion and stability, further road construction, and outright habitat destruction–that which elimination strongly outweighs any benefits associated with timber production.  

“The BLM is attempting to evade its legal obligation to consider and publicly disclose the impact these clearcuts will have on sensitive wildlife species, forest health, carbon storage and climate change, water quality, and wildfire hazard,” said attorney Erin Hogan. “The agencies tasked with managing our public lands must be accountable to the public they serve.”

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

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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 Press Release: Conservationists Challenge Coast Range Logging Plan  first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Contact:
Josh Laughlin, Cascadia Wildlands, 541.434.1463

Washington, DC — The US Senate has approved the creation of the 30,500-acre Devil’s Staircase Wilderness through unanimous consent, marking a major milestone in the long-running effort to protect this spectacular wild area in Oregon’s Coast Range.

The Devil’s Staircase area is named after a series of stair-step waterfalls carved into the sandstone bedrock of Wasson Creek, the main waterway which passes through the proposed wilderness.  The area of spectacular old-growth forest, located approximately 10 miles northeast of Reedsport, is home to a host of endangered species, including Oregon coastal coho salmon, marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl, and provides an unparalleled experience for backcountry

adventurers.

“Yesterday’s vote in the Senate was a significant hurdle, and an important benchmark on the Devil’s Staircase’s road to full Wilderness protection,” said Josh Laughlin with Cascadia Wildlands. “Generations to come will be forever grateful for the permanent protection of this unique area.”

Conservation organizations have long sought Wilderness protection for the old growth temperate rainforest of the Devils’ Staircase, dating back to the 1970s after federal logging proposals were planned in the area. Although originally included in the 1984 Oregon Wilderness package, which protected several nearby locales in the Coast Range like Drift Creek and Cummins Creek, the Devil’s Staircase was later stripped out of the bill during negotiations.

“The Devil’s Staircase is a classic example of a long-ago vetted Wilderness bill with broad public support,” said Tommy Hough, Communications and Outreach Associate at Oregon Wild. “So much of the Coast Range has been denuded by clearcuts and turned into a monospecies farm of crowded tree plantations, it’s a marvel to see how the Coast Range once was at the Devil’s Staircase. It’s like something you’d find in Olympic National Park.”

A renewed wilderness campaign for Devil’s Staircase resumed in 2007 after the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that manages the eastern quarter of the proposal area, outlined plans to log the area during a forest plan revision. Over the past six years, hundreds of citizens have been guided into the remote area to see it first hand and have advocated for its permanent protection.

The effort has been championed through the Senate by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) in the House of Representatives, and each elected official or his key staff has been guided into the proposed wilderness area to see it firsthand.

The Senate approval yesterday also designated 14 miles of Wasson and Franklin Creeks in the proposal area as Wild and Scenic and was part of a larger package that advanced 14 public lands bills across the country.

Steve Pedery, Conservation Director of Oregon Wild said, “Yesterday’s Senate approval of not only the Devil’s Staircase, but Wilderness proposals in Michigan and Washington, are already further than any Wilderness bills went in Congress last year, which was the first year no Wilderness bills were passed since 1966. Hopefully the Senate approval of the Devil’s Staircase is a sign of better things to come from this Congress.”

Conservation groups are encouraging re-introduction of companion Devil’s Staircase legislation in the US House of Representatives.

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The post Press Release: Devil’s Staircase Wilderness Passes Senate Through Unanimous Consent first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.