The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages over 2.6 million acres of public forests in western Oregon and has recently undertaken efforts to revise all of its forest plans. These plans aim to dramatically increase timber harvests by 60% and ressurect the archaic practices of clearcutting older forests. The draft of the proposed plan … Continue reading Last Chance to Comment on BLM’s Western Oregon Plan Revision
Lawsuit Launched to Protect Northwest Prairie Bird Species
August 5, 2015 — Four conservation groups filed a formal notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today seeking to strengthen protections for the streaked horned lark, which has lost 98 percent its grassland habitat. The lawsuit will challenge an October 2013 decision by the agency to protect the lark as “threatened” rather than the more protective “endangered” status and to exempt all agriculture, chemical spraying, and airport activities from the prohibitions of the Endangered Species Act regardless of whether they harm the lark.
Legal Battle Results in Protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
August 29, 2015 — In a major victory for America’s last great rainforest, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a Bush administration exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the “Roadless Rule,” a landmark conservation rule adopted in 2001 to protect nearly 60 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from new road building and logging. The Court held the Bush administration failed to provide a reasoned explanation for reversing course on the Tongass. It concluded the Roadless Rule “remains in effect and applies to the Tongass.”
Blog: Loaf(er)ing around the North Umpqua
by Jaclyn Hise and Amanda Martino, Cascadia Wildlands summer legal interns Our first overnight field excursion as summer interns was visiting the Loafer timber sale in the Umpqua National Forest in the southern Oregon Cascades near the Umpqua Hot Springs. The units to be logged span both sides of the North Umpqua River, … Continue reading Blog: Loaf(er)ing around the North Umpqua
Press Release: Logging Industry Lawsuit Thrown out by Federal Appeals Court
June 12, 2015 — A logging industry lawsuit that sought to force the Bureau of Land Management to increase logging on public lands in southwest Oregon was thrown out today by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling vacates a 2013 decision that would have forced the Bureau of Land Management to sell timber even when those sales would have harmed salmon and had detrimental impacts on water quality and recreation.
BLM Public Meetings and Workshops on Western Oregon Draft Resource Management Plan
The Bureau of Land Management is hosting a series of open houses and workshops throughout western Oregon for the public to learn about the planning updates to the Resource Management Plans for western Oregon, or the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR Jr.). The recently released Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) details the BLM's alternative proposals for … Continue reading BLM Public Meetings and Workshops on Western Oregon Draft Resource Management Plan
Lawsuit Challenges Plan to Log Old-growth in Alaska
Cascadia Wildlands yesterday filed suit against the Forest Service challenging approval of the Mitkof Island timber sale, a 4,117-acre old-growth logging project on the Tongass National Forest, near Petersburg in Southeast Alaska. This lawsuit comes close on the heals of our challenge to the Big Thorne timber sale, another big old-growth sale that is currently on … Continue reading Lawsuit Challenges Plan to Log Old-growth in Alaska
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: The Abuse of “Ecological Forestry” on our Public Lands in Western Oregon
By Nick Cady, Legal Director The conservation community in the Northwest was incredibly excited by Cascadia’s legal victory over the White Castle timber sale. Not just because of the couple hundred acres of old growth forest that were saved from clearcutting, but because of the potentially important precedent the case set concerning logging old … Continue reading Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: The Abuse of “Ecological Forestry” on our Public Lands in Western Oregon
Attend Upcoming Forest Service Forest Plan Revision Meetings
Cascadia Wildlands is actively engaged in the conversation with the Forest Service regarding the revisions to the forest plans guiding national forest management in Oregon and Washington. National Forests all operate under individualized Land Management Plans, as required by the National Forest Management Act. These “Forest Plans” direct management of national forestlands over a given … Continue reading Attend Upcoming Forest Service Forest Plan Revision Meetings
Cascadia Halts Huge Public Lands Clearcutting Outside Eugene
March 23, 2015 — Public opposition and a legal challenge from Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild has prompted the Eugene Bureau of Land Management to place on hold its plans to clearcut 259 acres of public lands just outside of Springfield, Oregon near Shotgun Creek. The “Second Show” timber sale would have been the largest clearcut on federal lands in Lane County in 20 years.