Oregon
-
In recent weeks, misinformed Douglas County politicians have expressed opposition to the 500,000 acre Crater Lake Wilderness proposal based on the misguided belief that wilderness designation poses a wildfire threat. They argue that “active management,” meaning logging, can preclude or prevent such blazes. But this demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand fire ecology. Just as…
-
Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley have introduced the ‘‘Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act’’ (MCEOA). The senators can be commended for taking on such a controversial issue and trying to find a solution to public lands protection. While the bill would designate more than a million acres of new wilderness, and among other positive…
-
The Fish and Wildlife Service will soon be reviewing a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for Oregon’s Deschutes River written by contractors working for the Central Oregon irrigators. The HCP will dictate the future of the river. The goal of the irrigators is to obtain a “get out of jail free” pass for their impacts on…
-
The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is proposing to log the Lostine Wild and Scenic River corridor. The basic justification is to reduce the potential for large wildfires. Yet according to the Oregon Department of Forestry, in 2019 only acres 67,795 acres burned in the state, compared to 846,411 acres burned last year. Why the big difference?…
-
In a message on wildfires I just got from Congressman Greg Walden, he asserts, “A lack of management has left us with overstocked federal forests full of fuel just waiting to burn.” Unfortunately, his statement is full of misinformation. He neglects to put this into context. In the decades between the 1940s and 1980s, the…
-
In June the BLM released a draft EIS Programmatic EIS for Fuel Breaks in the Great Basin. The proposal would authorize the creation of 11,000 miles of fuel breaks primarily in sagebrush ecosystems across parts of Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/71149/175534/213852/FuelBreaksDraftPEIS_Bulletin.pdf This plan is a government boondoggle that will cost a significant…
-
Mountain Biking is a significant threat to our wildlands—both in designated preserves like national parks, wilderness areas, and the like, but also Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) and roadless lands that may potentially be given Congressional protection under the 1964 Wilderness Act. Wilderness designation is one of the best ways to protect biodiversity, watersheds, wildlife habitat,…
-
Juniper are more common on slopes and rocky terrain. Photo George Wuerthner The recent article on juniper mortality in central Oregon demonstrates how most forestry professors have little ecological understanding of ecosystem processes nor even the latest ecological science. In the RG article, an Oregon State University forestry professor suggests a lack of low severity…