Oregon is home to some of the most spectacular forests in our country.  These public forests provide clean drinking water, beautiful places to get away from the hustle and bustle, and jobs in management, fire safety and tourism. Due to a back-door deal with the timber industry, over 2 million acres of Oregon’s national forests - managed by the Bureau of Land Management - are at risk. The federal government is attempting to remove environmental protections from public lands in the Cascade, Siskiyou and Coastal mountains.

Help stop the Bush Administration’s plans to clearcut Oregon’s forest heritage - Draft plan released, and its a whopper! 

The comment period for the BLM's Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the "Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR)" ended January 11, 2008. The preferred alternative would increase logging of trees 200 years and older sevenfold over the next decade. Click here to read more about the draft plan.

Stiff and diverse opposition from the public has shone a light on what the WOPR has in store for remaining ancient forests, clean water and community stability. Despite this, certain timber interests have launched a full court press on the WOPR and are lobbying to enact the extreme logging plan.

Advocates of the WOPR have offered the logging plan as a solution to the county funding crisis in Oregon, where libraries and other public services are threatened by a lack of county revenue. However, federal forest managers would need to return to the peak levels of clearcutting from the 1980s to achieve the bloated level of federal funding that county governments came to rely on. Over 100,000 acres of old-growth forest would need to be clearcut every decade for rural counties to recoup enough federal timber receipts to fund services. At that rate, many of BLM’s old-growth forests would be gone in a few decades.

Right now, Congress is working to renew payments from the federal treasury to the counties on a four-year “ramp-down,” after which time Oregon counties would need to generate their own revenue.

Time to Turn To Congress

Your voice makes a big difference. Communicating with public officials is an important way to protect our public lands. Please tell your Congressional representatives to appropriate money to accomplish fire safety and forest restoration work, while protecting watersheds and ancient forests. The WOPR is a step backwards and is sure to negate recent progress in restoring public forests and the public’s trust in federal land management.

Contact Representative Peter DeFazio, Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith by calling the Capital Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Ask that they step up to protect our nation's remaining older forests and restore salmon populations in Oregon.

Top Ten reasons why WOPR is a bad idea

Click here to read a "Guide to WOPR"

Click here for the BLM WOPR website.

Click here to read the Community Conservation Alternative