The Medford District Bureau of Land Management's old-growth logging program is relentless and uncompromising. Currently, the 8,150-acre "Last Chance" timber sale calls for logging most of the remaining mature and old-growth forests in the foothills between Sunny Valley and Galesville. Click to learn more.
Read MoreThe northern spotted owl is a Pacific Northwest forest icon. The species relies on old-growth forests to survive, and much of its habitat is threatened by loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation due to logging. Learn more about this imperiled species of the PNW in this blog.
Read MoreLast week, I ventured into the field with George, our Conservation Director, to groundtruth a Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale called Mill Rat within the Poor Windy project just north of Grants Pass, Oregon. What we found was heartbreaking. Click to read the full field report.
Read MoreThe Biden Administration has announced a federal rule for how the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) mission addresses the climate and biodiversity crises, attempting to re-balance BLM’s multi-use mandate for managing public lands, which for decades has favored resource extraction over any other use.
Read MoreThe Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues to propose timber sales and contend they are retaining (rather than logging) old-growth, and conservation organizations and the BLM’s neighbors will argue that the BLM is in fact logging old-growth. So, who is right and what’s behind the conflicting claims?
Read MoreSerious barred owl encroachment on northern spotted owl habitat has led the US Fish and Wildlife Service to propose a management plan to right the dynamic. Read more about the need for the plan and what the implications could be if the situation is not addressed.
Read MoreThe Northwest Forest Plan is the largest, truly science-based forest and ecosystem management plan in the country, affecting 19 million acres of public lands across western Washington, Oregon, and northern California, and it’s getting an update. Learn more here.
Read MoreThe Medford District BLM Poor Windy Timber Sale allows logging on more than 15,000 acres, including cutting down 4,573 acres of mature and old-growth trees.
Read MoreFederal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are legally required to consider public opinion. When you or your community join the decision-making process through contributing substantive public comments, you have the opportunity to influence the actions of the agency involved. Learn how to make comments on federal projects in this blog.
Read MoreThe US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the first ever national inventory of mature and old-growth forests. Want to know what this all means for the protection of forests in the Pacific Northwest?
Read MoreSome timber advocates within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) simply cannot abide the idea that there are old-growth forests designated as protected on public lands, so they’ve designed a new program called “Integrated Vegetation Management” to target Late Successional Reserves for logging. Learn more about the IVM project in this blog.
Read MoreThe Forest Service is currently in the beginning phases of updating the Northwest Forest Plan, the first large-scale, bioregional forest plan incorporating conservation biology. We will be working with partners to ensure an updated plan reflects the current issues our forests face in the era of climate change. Read our Climate Program’s latest blog post about these critically important NFP updates.
Read MoreThis October, KS Wild hosted our first ever Forest Defender Training Series to help community members learn how to advocate for our forests and take action to protect them through writing letters, LTEs, taking action on social media, and more.
Read MoreOld-growth forests are dominated by ancient trees and have been shaped by natural processes over the course of hundreds of years. There are several types of old-growth forests throughout the Pacific Northwest marked by dynamic ecosystems supporting biodiversity that relies on the unique environment created only in these ancient forests. Learn more about what features make an old-growth forest.
Read MoreKS Wild and our allies recently challenged the BLM’s (now withdrawn) Lost Antelope timber sale. This timber sale would have contributed to increased fire hazard near or within the WUI through regeneration harvest in an area where many untreated slash piles remain from a previous timber sale.
Read More"Integrated Vegetation Management for Resilient Lands" (IVM) sure sounds great doesn't it? Unfortunately, those flowery words are agency-speak for logging old-growth forest reserves down to 30% canopy cover and creating four-acre mini-clearcuts across the landscape in southwestern Oregon.
Read MoreFollowing decades of fire suppression and logging that created dense young forests, a return to ecosystem resiliency requires thinning second-growth plantations, retaining large trees and forest canopy, and returning the role of fire to these fire-dependent forests.
Read MoreIncreasingly timber interests, conservationists including KS Wild, scientists and federal land management agencies are coming together to focus logging activities on thinning previously logged plantations and in fire-evolved forest stands in which fire suppression has resulted in encroachment by less resilient off-site conifers.
Read MoreUnlike most of North America, we are extremely fortunate to live in a region in which five major wildland complexes have thusfar survived the pressures from logging, mining and road construction. It is our job and responsibility to protect these special places for the those who come after us and for their intrinsic value.
Read MoreThe 1937 O&C Act overhauled the timber management and revenue distribution scheme. It allowed the federal government to pay fifty percent of gross timber revenues directly to the O&C counties, plus twenty five percent (for unpaid Railroad property taxes) to O&C lands. In 1953 Congress directed 25% of the revenue to road building and other capital improvements on the O&C lands, leaving only 50% paid to counties. These payment schemes tied timber harvests to county revenues and made county government a champion of increased logging.
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