The Good, The Bad & The Ugly….
Conservation Committee Update:
Janice Reid & Angela Jensen
Let’s start with a few “good” news items. In 2019, Oregon conservation groups filed ballot initiatives to reform Oregon’s outdated Forest Practices Act (Act). Concerned with the lack of environmental and habitat protection afforded by the Act, conservation groups signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with [...]
Umpqua Watersheds Executive Director talks about the Forest Accord
Lone Rock land management crew member Jose Calvillo plants 2-year-old Douglas fir seedlings in the Callahan Mountains west of Roseburg in 2017. Photo credit by MICHAEL SULLIVAN/The News-Review
Robyn Bath [...]
UW joins with other Conservation Groups to question Danger Tree removal on the Umpqua National Forest
Last month Umpqua Watersheds filed a complaint against the US Forest Service challenging their decision to indiscriminately remove trees along 65 miles of public roads comprising nearly 2600 acres of the Umpqua National Forest.
On Aug 18, 2021, the Forest Service issued a final decision on its proposed Archie Creek Fire Roadside Danger Tree Project [...]
Restoration Update Fall 2021
PROTECTING HOMES AND NATIVE FORESTS FROM WILDFIRE:
Challenges and Opportunities
Since the early 2000s, wildfires have been getting larger, faster moving, and more destructive to homes, infrastructure, and forestlands. This is partly due to climate change and partly due to the legacy of the wholesale conversion of native forests to highly flammable tree [...]
Conservation Committee Update Fall 2021
Public Trust and Oregon’s Private Forests, Part 1… Angela Jensen
Environmental groups, like-minded individuals, and families in rural Oregon have long been concerned about industrial logging practices on private lands. With the unrestricted leveling of forest habitat and ecosystems, the ubiquitous use of pesticides, and the disregard for neighboring citizens sharing water and atmosphere, [...]
National Geographic highlights latest Spotted Owl Research
A threatened owl could disappear from much of its range unless old-growth forests are protected and invasive barred owls are controlled.
BYKYLA MANDEL PUBLISHED JUNE 24, 2021 • 9 MIN READThe northern spotted owl has long been [...]
From the Conservation/ Legal Director Summer 2021
Angela Jensen
Conservation is a broad topic. Yet I often find that I center my newsletter articles on topics related to forestry and climate change. So, for this newsletter I am going to address a different issue entirely- the ubiquitous use of herbicides. More specifically, I want to reach out to our readers with something [...]
Action item for native fish preservation
Right now, Oregon’s state legislature is considering a bill, HB 3150, that will require ODFW to utilize hatch boxes in southern Oregon, a strategy that is ineffective at bolstering commercial and recreational fisheries and threatens the conservation and recovery of wild fish populations. Hatch boxes place fish eggs from a fish hatchery directly in a river instead [...]
Umpqua Watersheds joins lawsuit to Protect Salmon
Environmental Groups Threaten To Sue To Protect Chinook Salmon Published April 22, 2021 at 10:31 AM PDT LISTEN • https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2021-04-22/fri-8-am-environmental-groups-threaten-to-sue-to-protect-chinook-salmon Riccardo Rossi, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15140983 /
It can be hard to keep track of all the various species and runs of fish that do and do not have federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
From the Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
There are many reasons why people may wish to salvage trees after wildfires like those that occurred in the western Cascades last September, including getting [...]
