Within the spectacular Blue Mountain ecoregion of Eastern Oregon lie three national forests, the Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman. These three public forests encompass around 5.4 million acres of beautiful, mountainous forestlands. They contain many types of ecosystems: arid and wet, grassland and forest, important riparian areas and climate refugia. Significant wildlife migratory routes pass through the ecoregion as well. These national forests provide significant clean air and water for human and natural communities, along with recreation opportunities of many types, enhanced by the biodiversity of wild forests.
For more than 10 years, the US Forest Service has been working, with starts and stops, to amend the forest plans of these three forests in one single effort. The effort is now moving forward again—and under the Trump Administration’s watch, that can’t be good. Unfortunately, along with the many other threats to our public lands that need our attention and action, it’s important to add this to the list.
Why is the effort to amend these forest management plans a threat? Right now, there are major efforts at the federal level to push timber harvest and industrial extraction over all other values. It is highly likely that any proposed forest plan amendments will make logging (and mining) easier and expand ranching access within our public forests. That means more harvesting of large trees, and conversion of natural, wild forests to tree farms. It’s also likely that the wildlife requirements for maintaining a wild forest will be discounted—and the importance of forests for mitigating climate change will be ignored.
Volunteers within the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club are working to counter this threat, but need more volunteer help and involvement. If you are looking for a way to make a difference at this perilous time for our public lands, please consider joining this effort. Volunteers are needed to monitor the Forest Service, attend public meetings, write letters, and to publicize this threat to Eastern Oregon and counter propaganda from the timber industry.
To get involved, contact Alice Weston at alice.weston@sierraclub.org
For more information: