2009: Through grassroots organizing and legal challenge with conservation partners, we halted the Bureau of Land Management's misguided Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR), a Bush-era logging proposal that would have opened up old-growth and streamside reserves across western Oregon to clearcutting.
Through grassroots organizing and a legal challenge with conservation partners, we halted to 2008 Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan from proceeding. The plan would have weakened protections for northern spotted owls and was found to have been manipulated by political insiders within the Bush administration.
2008: Avoiding litigation, we brokered a settlement agreement with the timber industry and Malheur National Forest that protected thousands of acres of wilderness quality lands burned during the the 2006 Shake Table wildfire complex near John Day.
A breeding pair of gray wolves was documented in Oregon for the first time in over 60 years. Recall in 2005 we worked to pass a state wolf plan that allowed for the migration of the species into Oregon from the Rocky Mountains. And through a legal injunction in 2008, we stopped a Bush administration proposal to delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act in the northern Rocky Mountain area. If delisted, management of wolves would be turned over to western states, many whom have proposed public hunts to drastically cull the population.
We halted the Five Buttes timber sale located in the Crescent Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest through a legal challenge. The timber sale proposed to log hundreds of acres of older forest in an old-growth reserve set aside for the recovery of the northern spotted owl. The Forest Service proposed the timber sale to allegedly reduce the chances of future wildfire in the area.
We worked with the Eugene City Council to pass a resolution opposing the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR), which would increase the cut by nearly 400% on BLM lands in western Oregon. The resolution passed 5-2.
In the aftermath of the largest clearcut in Alaska (20,000 acres!), we advanced a restoration plan and completed our pilot restoration projects at the Lost Coast near Yakataga. Projects included photopoint installation, streambank stabilization and riparian plantings.
After significant grassroots organizing, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced "Oregon Treasures" legislation into Congress. The bill would protect 143 miles of tributary streams to the lower Rogue River in Southwest Oregon through the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and expand the Oregon Caves National Monument.
We were notified that plans to build the infamous Shepard Point Road into virgin rainforest along Prince William Sound, Alaska, were cancelled. We have been fighting this "road to nowhere" for years.
Our annual Hoedown for Cascadia's Ancient Forests in October and Wild Wonderland Auction in December were the most successful to date in terms of dollars raised and community members turned out.
We stopped a proposed 300-acre subdivision on wild Hawkins Island, in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The plan was withdrawn by the State of Alaska due to grassroots opposition. Hawkins Island is a critical area for local subsistence hunters, and the proposed subdivision threatened prime winter deer habitat.
Along with 16 other river stakeholders, we signed a settlement agreement relicensing the Carmen-Smith hydropower complex in the headwaters of the McKenzie River. Amongst other beneficial mitigation measures attached to the relicensing, the agreement calls for the construction of an upstream fish ladder and downstream passage at Trailbridge dam, which will open up miles of spawning habitat. For the past 50 years, the dam has been an obstacle for migrating fish, including federally listed Chinook salmon and bull trout.
2007: We halted the Black Crater post-fire timber sale near Sisters, Oregon, on the Deschutes National Forest through a settlement agreement that protected nearly 200 acres of burned forests that lie in a designated late successional reserved and within critical habitat for threatened northern spotted owls.
We won a lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that challenged a US Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion that approved older forest logging in southwest Oregon. The appeals court found that the agency failed to quantify how many endangered northern spotted owls the logging would kill and invalidated the biological opinion.
We worked with the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw on a management strategy for a proposed Coos Tribal Forest on 40,000 acres of what is now the Siuslaw National Forest in the Oregon Coast Range.
Represented by the the Western Environmental Law Center, we won a lawsuit that challenged the Bush administrations National Forest Management Act regulations that would have weakened environmental protection measures in the statute.
In response to a 2004 petition and two lawsuits brought by Cascadia Wildlands and partner conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in March 2007 that the Siskiyou Mountains and Scott Bar salamanders may warrant protection as threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and initiated a 12 month review of their status.
Following the lead of our allies at Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, we won the government’s appeal of our Timbered Rock salvage logging lawsuit, setting precedent that restricts logging of burned forests in old-growth reserves.
2006: Represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, we halted six old-growth timber sales in the Mt. Hood and Willamette National Forest with a successful lawsuit. We had been fighting many of the sales on the Willamette for years, including Clark, Straw Devil, East Devil and Pryor.
Represented by the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, we forced the withdraw of six biological opinions issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency in charge of recovering endangered species. This victory halted plans to log tens of thousands of acres of older forest essential to northern spotted owl recovery.
Through organizing and advocacy efforts, we helped kill a bill in Congress introduced by Greg Walden (R-OR) that would have sidestepped environmental law to facilitate clearcutting after all natural disturbance events on public lands, including wildfire, hurricanes, tornados, insect outbreaks, and even volcanic eruptions.
Represented by Erin Madden, we won a lawsuit that stopped three southern Oregon BLM timber sales that were illegally planned by not surveying for the elusive red tree vole, a small arboreal mammal that lives in the upper canopy.
We pressured Oregon Governor Kulongoski to oppose the roadless area logging in the aftermath of the 2002 Biscuit fire. His lawsuit challenged logging at the Mike's Gulch timber sale area and led to the re-instatement of the popular Clinton-era Roadless Rule, which the Bush administration had repealed.
2005: We united diverse stakeholders, from local businesses to university professors, which compelled the Eugene City Council to adopt a resolution urging the US Forest Service to end ancient forest logging on public lands in the McKenzie River watershed. This watershed provides unparalleled recreational opportunities, essential habitat for a host of endangered species (including the northern spotted owl and bull trout), and municipal drinking water for over 200,000 residents downstream.
We helped pass a state plan to recover wolves in Oregon by mobilizing hundreds of Oregon citizens to write letters to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and testify and public hearings. Recently it was reported that wolves have successfully traveled from Idaho into Oregon for the first time in over 60 years.
We halted all of the egregious timber sales associated with the East Fork Coquille Project, which would have logged nearly 400 acres of 300-500 year old coastal rainforest, through a grassroots organizing campaign and a lawsuit where we were represented by the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center.
We helped advance collaborative restoration projects on the Cottage Grove District of the Umpqua National Forest, including thinning in tree farms and decommissioning roads. Four years ago, the Cottage Grove District was focused primarily on logging mature and old-growth and has done and about-face due to our successful outreach and litigation efforts.
We stopped a government/industry plan to build a strip mall outside of Palmer, Alaska along the banks of the Little Susitna River, a stronghold for wild salmon runs.
We worked with Rep. Peter DeFazio's office to introduce a bill into Congress that would permanently protect remaining old-growth forests in western Oregon and Washington and facilitate restoration thinning in tree farms to increase diversity and employment opportunities.
2004 and earlier: We shut down logging in critical habitat for bull trout. More than 4200 acres of mature and old-growth forest on the southern end of the Willamette National Forest are now off the chopping block, and almost 25 miles of new logging road construction was stopped. The Middle Fork Ranger District on the Willamette National Forest has since wisely avoided proposing old-growth timber sales.
Our grassroots citizens campaign in Cottage Grove, OR has led the Forest Service to withdraw planning on all old-growth timber sales on the Cottage Grove Ranger District. Click here to learn about the timber sales that were stopped.
Litigation and grassroots pressure led the Willamette National Forest, once the largest single producer of old-growth timber in the country, to stop planning of all old-growth clearcuts.
Working with the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, we won a district court victory stopping logging of the Timbered Rock Salvage sale.
Our grassroots organizing efforts led the Willamette National Forest to withdraw plans to salvage log in the Fall Creek roadless area southeast of Eugene after the 2003 Clark Fire.
Our Alaska field staff stopped oil exploration on the Katalla River near the Copper River Delta, some of the richest waterfowl and salmon habitat in the world.
