Tag: Flat Country Timber Sale

Press Release: Over 100 “Kayaktivists” and Community Members Protest Old-Growth Logging

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 8, 2022

Leaburg, OREGON — Today, a “kayaktivist” flotilla of over 100 concerned community members rallied on the McKenzie River to protest an old-growth logging sale in the Willamette National Forest. The Flat Country project, proposed by the U.S. Forest Service, targets over 2,000 acres of old-growth and mature forests for logging across the headwaters of the McKenzie River. The agency could auction the old growth to be cut at any moment.   Attendees held up signs from boats and kayaks, and unfurled a large banner declaring “Forest Defense is Watershed Defense”, to draw attention to the logging sale’s impact on downstream drinking water.

Press Release: Mature and old-growth logging sale undermines Biden climate policy; threatens McKenzie River, habitat

August 2, 2022 — Today, old-growth forest and wildlife advocates provided the U.S. Forest Service the means to reconsider the pending Trump-era “Flat Country” timber sale in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. The vast majority of the proposed logging would be in mature and old-growth forests, with over 1,000 acres of clearcutting, even though President Biden this year ordered his administration to prioritize conserving these forests as a crucial climate protection.

Opinion: Biden’s old-growth forest executive order has giant hole

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, May 1, 2022.

Last month, in honor of Earth Day, President Biden signed an executive order on Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies. While the EO represents progress in its acknowledgement that old-growth and mature forests are essential bulwarks against the worst impacts of climate change, its stated commitment to science-based management, and its inclusion of indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge as key to sustainable forest management, it does not — yet — actually safeguard the last of these forests here at home.  

Flattening a Forest

Retired forestry professors, an environmental group and a lawmaker speak out on a proposed logging of mature forestland by Henry HoustonOriginally published in Eugene Weekly, May 13, 2021 During a … Continue reading Flattening a Forest

Protect older natural forests in the western Cascades

By Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson | Guest OpinionOriginally published in The Register-Guard April 27, 2021 Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service essentially stopped logging older … Continue reading Protect older natural forests in the western Cascades

INTERN-al UPDATE: A Snowy Field Check in Flat Country

By Courtney Kaltenbach Field Checking Intern for Cascadia Wildlands, Spring 2020 On a cool Saturday morning, over twenty people met in the Cascadia parking lot to prepare to go out … Continue reading INTERN-al UPDATE: A Snowy Field Check in Flat Country