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Here’s a snapshot of our accomplishments from the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Protecting Special Places
- Led the grassroots coalition that helped garner 15,000 nominations to Senator Wyden for his Wild & Scenic Rivers campaign, including a wildly successful showing of support at Wyden town halls. We now stand primed for an unprecedented Wild & Scenic Rivers bill in the coming Congress.
- Led the coalition to increase protections for Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge closer to introduction of legislation that will set a new vision for conservation and recreation.
- Launched an exciting and timely new Forest Climate Program to help advance smart climate policy at the federal and state level and defend carbon-storing old-growth forests.
- Continued our court fight with allies to keep Cascade Siskiyou National Monument protections in place.
Defending and Restoring Oregon’s Forests and Waters
- After years of pressure, we struck an historic agreement to limit aerial pesticide spray in private forests and chart the path for a huge leap forward in protections for rivers and wildlife in the Oregon Forest Practices Act.
- With allies, emerged victorious in two lawsuits:
- Halting the Thurston Hills Project near Springfield and helping to protect a BLM recreation area from logging and reduce fire hazard to local residents.
- Stopping the Crystal Clear timber sale on Mount Hood and keeping the Forest Service from logging older forests under the guise of restoration.
- Launched a new coalition to defend big trees and wildlife in eastern Oregon from Trump administration efforts to dismantle the two-decade old “eastside screens” protections.
- Responded to the historic 2020 fire season, and ensuing efforts from the logging industry to cynically attempt to increase logging, by successfully shifting the media narrative around wildfire and telling the story of the fires through mapping, presentations, and digital media.
- Continued to be a vigilant watchdog for our public lands by monitoring, submitting formal comments on, and/or objecting to more than 150 timber sales and other proposed projects, including:
- Reducing the size and negative impacts of an industrial logging sale in the Lostine Wild & Scenic River corridor.
- Getting BLM to drop 178 acres of logging in suitable owl habitat in the Beaty Ryder Project and 103 acres in the Stag Timber Sale.
Helping Native Species Thrive
- Helped create and co-coordinate the Oregon Wildlife Coalition – a group of nine organizations in Oregon working together to advocate for better wildlife conservation policies.
- Stood up for gray wolves by joining a lawsuit to stop a Trump Administration plan to remove their Endangered Species protections.
- Worked with partners to advance legislation in the Oregon Legislature to end coyote killing contests throughout the state (the House passed the bill before the Senate walked out before a vote).
- Led the “Stop Extinction Challenge” in Oregon, a national lobby day for Congress about wildlife conservation policy.
- Continued to monitor a network of wildlife cameras throughout the state to document wildlife – in part to support an OSU study – and other public lands activity.
