March 8, 2024 — The Oregon Board of Forestry made a historic decision to move forward with a Habitat Conservation Plan for 640,000 acres of western Oregon state forests at its March 7th meeting in Salem. Voting 4-3 in favor of directing Oregon Department of Forestry to move forward with the draft Habitat Conservation Plan, the agency will now finalize the plan to establish a network of habitat and riparian conservation areas across roughly 300,000 acres of state forests and await federal approval. The department will also continue developing a new Forest Management Plan to guide implementation of the Habitat Conservation Plan.
