FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2023
PORTLAND, Ore.— Eleven conservation groups today sent a letter calling on Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and the Board of Forestry to protect additional acres of forest lands in the proposed Western Oregon State Forest Habitat Conservation Plan. Their proposed increase in protected mature and old-growth forest land would help safeguard imperiled species like the threatened Oregon Coast coho salmon and marbled murrelet.
— written by WildCAT, Abe. On a bright October morning I had the honor of joining a group of volunteers and staff from Cascadia Wildlands for a day of field … Continue reading BLOG: Field Notes from the Calloway Timber Sale
Press Release: Conservationists Challenge BLM Clearcut of Endangered Species Habitat
Eugene, OR — Today, conservation groups challenged a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) logging project that would clearcut mature and old-growth forests and degrade protected wildlife habitat for endangered species. The Big Weekly Elk logging sale, proposed by the BLM’s Coos Bay District, includes logging over 3,500 acres of forest, including areas supposed to be set aside to protect marbled murrelets.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Public comment period concludes for pathway to rulemaking on how Forest Service manages national forests
Eugene, OR — More than 500,000 people have submitted public comments to the U.S. Forest Service calling for the agency to adopt a rule that protects mature and old-growth trees and forests on federal land as a cornerstone of U.S. climate policy. Activists were joined by organizers from the Climate Forests Campaign, a coalition which includes Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, and WildEarth Guardians, to deliver some of these public comments at an event at the Wayne Morse Federal Courthouse in Eugene on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 18, 2023
Agency to Reevaluate Harm to Coho, Murrelets
PORTLAND, Ore.— In response to a lawsuit Monday by the Center for Biological Diversity and Cascadia Wildlands, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has pulled its authorization of federal disaster relief funding to rebuild Cook Creek Road. The road would have been used for logging in Oregon’s Tillamook State Forest.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2023
On April 20, 2023, the two federal agencies charged with overseeing federally-managed public forests in the US released a much-anticipated report defining, identifying, and producing an initial inventory of mature and old-growth forests. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) inventory, which will continue to expand, identified more than 32 million acres of old-growth and around 80 million acres of mature forest across 200 types of forests.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April, 10, 2023
Medford, Oregon — Today a coalition of conservation organizations filed a legal complaint challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “Integrated Vegetation Management” (IVM) program that would aggressively log forest stands located within Late Successional Reserves, areas purportedly set aside for forest conservation. In particular, IVM authorizes so-called “gap creation” and “open seral” logging prescriptions within mature and old-growth forests that are fire-resilient and provide important habitat at-risk wildlife species.
by Henry Houston
Originally published by EugeneWeekly.com on January 12, 2023
The U.S. Forest Service ended 2022 with a decision that local environmentalists are celebrating.
The federal agency decided to withdraw its plans for the Flat Country timber sale, which would have affected some more than 100-year-old trees in a nearly 75,000 acre project area in the Willamette National Forest near McKenzie Bridge.
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.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 4, 2022
Late Friday, a judge in the District Court for the District of Oregon ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) justification for Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) timber sales totaling nearly 18,000 acres including in old growth forest violated the Endangered Species Act. The judge ruled against the Service’s claim that old-growth logging in the Poor Windy and Evans Creek timber sales on 15,848 acres of threatened northern spotted owl habitat would not harm the imperiled bird species.
