Protect Habitat in the Blue Mountains and Hells Canyon!
The forests between the Wallowas and Hells Canyon are among the most important unprotected landscapes in the Lower-48. Send a message to the Forest Service to ensure the Morgan Nesbit project focuses on restoration, not exploitation.
The Northern Blue Mountains are home to endangered wildlife and rare plants, it is also the site of some of the oldest known evidence of human habitation on the continent. Rather than focusing on ecological restoration, the nearly 100,000 acre Morgan Nesbit logging project initially included proposals for near-clearcuts in a National Recreation Area.
Roads would fragment habitat. Sensitive riparian areas would be logged. Meanwhile overgrazing, unregulated ATV use, and other threats would go unchecked.
Thanks in part to public feedback, the Forest Service has scaled the project back. Some roads are being closed, some wildlife corridors are being protected, and some acres are off the chopping block.
The agency’s final proposal is still destructive. Industrial logging miles from the nearest paved road doesn’t keep communities safe, protect natural values, or boost the local economy.
To avoid litigation, we are asking the Forest Service to adjust the project to focus on conservation actions that follow all laws and protect natural values. The logging industry, rural politicians, and their collaborators will be putting tremendous pressure on them to move in the wrong direction.
- Be civil and constructive. Let them know you support conservation organizations like Oregon Wild. Encourage them to address our concerns.
- Share why you care about our public forests. This landscape is especially important as a corridor between the Rocky Mountain and Oregon forests.
- Suggest the project focus on restoration and protect natural values rather than meeting arbitrary timber targets or a misguided fear of backcountry fire.
- Don’t log or build roads in forests that remain intact, are near streams, or on steep slopes. Close roads on parts of the landscape that are already fragmented.
- Wildlife need messy forests! Don’t just meet minimum requirements that protect habitat.. Thinning must not be uniform. It should include leave patches and complexity.
- Reduce the commercial logging footprint and road building. Increase legitimate restoration activities like protecting aspen stands, wet meadows, and moist forests from livestock and vehicles.
