The Oregon Dunes NRA occupies a strip of coastline approximately 40 miles long and averaging 11⁄2 miles wide between Coos Bay and Florence. The community of Winchester near Reedsport is in the middle of the Dunes.
The 1995 management plan for the Dunes says the Oregon Dunes are “a rare and beautiful place. The uniqueness and variety of this extensive system of dunes, streams, freshwater lakes, wetlands, and coastal forests on the shores of the Pacific ocean, make it a world-class attraction”.
We are very lucky to have such a spectacular and unique ecosystem so close to the population centers of western Oregon.
latest news
June 9, 2011 -- The Forest Service is beginning to write the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for allowing increased legal Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) use in the remarkable and globally significant Oregon Dunes. They are asking for your opinion of what to include. Send comments to this email here. The preliminary proposal is to hand over an additional 287 acres of currently protected lands for quiet recreation to unrestricted OHV use, including vegetated areas to play in, not just travel through as the 10C designation requires. Plus, OHVs will get 3.6 more miles of trails to ride through 10C to access 10B play areas. Some of the new trails (which are existing illegal trails) are through inventoried roadless areas.
In return, the Forest Service will close off 103 miles of illegal trails through sensitive vegetated areas, 103 miles of trails that are illegal to begin with, trails that are CURRENTLY closed. So what do the quiet recreators get in exchange for giving the OHVs so much more of the Dunes? It appears nothing. 103 miles of illegal trails exist because the National Forest does not enforce the law. Tell the Forest Service that, unless they can show how law enforcement will begin to be effective, OHVs should not be given even more acres they can use to create even more illegal trails.
January 20, 2011 – Currently, it is legal for Off Highway Vehicles (OHV) to ride on about 7,350 acres of the open sand (called 10B). OHVs also have access to hundreds of acres of trails through vegetated areas (called 10C). But since 1995 OHVs have created hundreds of miles of illegal trails through rare and fragile dunes vegetation in 10C that the Dunes Plan put off-limits to OHVs. The Forest Service is going to address this by proposing to enforce the closure of some illegal trails and designate some as legal. Download our 1-18-11 comments here.
background
In 1995 the Siuslaw NF finalized a management plan for the Dunes, which says the dunes “are a rare and beautiful place. The uniqueness and variety of this extensive system of dunes, streams, freshwater lakes, wetlands, and coastal forests on the shores of the Pacific ocean, make it a world-class attraction."
The Oregon Dunes is the most extensive and unique expanse of sand dunes along the entire Pacific Coast of North America. A variety of unique geologic features occur here including tree islands, Globally Significant Plant Communities, and unique types of sand dune formations found nowhere else in the world. The Dunes include unique coastal geology, incredible scenery, varied recreational opportunities, numerous freshwater lakes, and a wide variety of unusual and rare plant and wildlife habitat.
Wildlife: The area provides critical nesting habitat for snowy plover, a threatened shorebird that depends on sandy beaches for nesting. The upland forests provide habitat for the marbled murrelet, a sea bird that nests on large tree limbs near the ocean, and spotted owls. All three birds are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Rare Vegetation: The Oregon Dunes also contains several Globally Significant Plant communities and five sensitive plant species. The definition of Globally Significant is “A plant community that is imperiled globally because of rarity (less than 20 occurrences) or because of some factor(s) making it especially vulnerable to extinction”.
Scientists from Oregon State University have nominated several areas in the Dunes as Oregon Heritage Sites. They have said that some of the globally significant areas “represent some of the rarest and most endangered plant communities in Oregon.”
They said that the “Large and intact examples of plant communities, like those found on the Dunes, are quite rare”, with some “ranked as threatened throughout their range”. Some are only known from the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The scientists called this area “a high priority for conservation.”
These globally significant, rare vegetated areas of the Dunes are under threat from Off Highway Vehicles (OHVs). The 1995 Dunes Plan classifies these vegetated areas of the dunes as 10C, and ordered them closed to cross country travel by OHVs. The Forest Service designed about 20 miles of trails through 10C so that OHVs could legally access the open sand riding areas (called 10B).
But OHVs have not stayed on legal trails through the rare vegetation in 10C. Instead, OHVs have created hundreds of new, illegal trails. Now, 15 years after the Dunes Plan protected vegetated areas in 10C, they are riddled with illegal trails. With no law enforcement, some OHV riders don’t even know they are illegal. They believe they have a “right” to ride anywhere in the Dunes, not only on the open sand, but anywhere where they can beat a trail through the vegetation, threatening wilderness and rare plant communities. Once one person creates a new trail, more OHVs follow in their path, and each expand the illegal trail a little more.
Many of the important plant communities did not have invasive plants like European Beach Grass, in 1995. But when they are invaded by OHVs, the seeds of European beach grass have been sown, and it doesn’t heal itself very well.
Now, it’s time for the Forest Service to do some serious restoration and law enforcement. In January, 2011, the Siuslaw National Forest began to consider writing an Environmental Assessment (EA) to address the degraded 10C vegetated areas. The proposal hopefully includes restoring Globally Significant Plant Communities and protecting all rare plants and wildlife. The Forest Service also wants to make some of the illegal trails legal, to make access to the open sand easier. If you would like to comment on the development of this EA, click here. (link to action alert)
Globally Significant Plant Communities on the Dunes include:
•Red fescue community
•Port Orford cedar/evergreen huckleberry
•Seashore bluegrass community
•Shorepine hairy manzanita-bear berry community
•Bog blueberry/tufted hairgrass community
•Shore pine/slough sedge community
•American dunegrass community
Rare Plants on the ODNRA
•Salt-marsh bird's beak Cordylanthus maritimus palustris
•Water pennywort Hydrocotyle verticillata
•Bog clubmoss Lycopodium inundatum
•Adder's tongue Ophioglossum vulgatum
•Pink sandverbena Abronia umbelluta breuifoliu
location
The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area extends along 40 miles of the Oregon Coast from Florence to Coos Bay.
links and resources:
Map of Dunes
Download our comments on expanding OHV trails (1-18-11)
Oregon Dunes Management Plan (link to FS site).
Forest Service Dunes web page (link to FS site).
