Press Release: Groups Challenge BLM Commercial Logging in Conservation Reserve

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2024

Medford Oregon —Today a coalition of conservation organizations again filed a legal complaint challenging the Medford District Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) efforts to aggressively log forest stands located outside of Gold Hill, Oregon. The Rogue Gold Forest Management Project (“Rogue Gold”) authorizes heavy commercial logging within Late Successional Reserves, areas expressly set aside for old forest conservation. The BLM is targeting mature and old-growth forests that are fire-resilient and provide important habitat for at-risk wildlife species. BLM admits that the purpose of the heavier logging prescriptions being authorized is the generation of commercial timber volume despite locating these logging activities within areas set aside for conservation, called Late Successional Reserves.

Press Release: Victory for the Elliott State Forest!

March 3, 2022 — Today, the Oregon House of Representatives voted 50-8 to approve SB 1546 to create the Elliott State Research Forest and appropriate $121 million to decouple the 82,500-acre forest near Coos Bay from the Common School Fund (CSF). The vote follows the Oregon Senate’s approval of the legislation 22-4 on Tuesday.

BLOG: Environmental Rollbacks Gut Core Conservation Laws

Trump Administration Pushing Through Environmental Rollbacks During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Gene McCarthy Cascadia Wildlands Legal Intern, Summer 2020 It can be exhausting keeping up with the constant barrage of unfortunate news covering the current administration’s breakneck efforts to remove environmental safeguards. Unfortunately, the past six months during the COVID-19 pandemic have been no exception. … Continue reading BLOG: Environmental Rollbacks Gut Core Conservation Laws

Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Votes to Weaken Oregon Wolf Plan

June 13, 2019 — On June 7, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, whose members are appointed by Governor Kate Brown, adopted revisions to the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. This plan is required to be updated every five years, but this latest update was over four years late given the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) efforts to remove wolves from the state list of threatened and endangered species. Although wolves in Oregon are slowly recovering from their extirpation in the 1940s, the updates to the plan dramatically increase the situations in which wolves can be killed both by ODFW and members of the public.

Wolves Under Assault on Multiple Fronts, Your Help Needed!

Both Washington and Oregon have released their 2018 wolf numbers and the Pacific Northwest has demonstrated minor gains in the face of continued poaching and state-funded wolf killing (Oregon’s wolf population increased from 124 wolves to 137 wolves statewide and Washington’s wolf population increased from 122 to 126). California’s wolves continue to live on the … Continue reading Wolves Under Assault on Multiple Fronts, Your Help Needed!

Press Release: State of Oregon Suspends 10 State Forest Timber Sales in Marbled Murrelet Habitat

July 2, 2012 — The State of Oregon has suspended operations on 10 timber sales in marbled murrelet habitat one month after Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Audubon Society of Portland filed a lawsuit alleging the state’s logging practices in the Tillamook, Clatsop, and Elliott State Forests are illegally “taking” the imperiled seabird in violation of the Endangered Species Act. To prevent additional murrelet habitat from being lost while the case works its way through the court system, the conservation groups filed an injunction request in federal court to halt sales and logging in the occupied murrelet habitat pending the outcome of the lawsuit.