Conservation Update Summer 2025
What We Stand to Lose
On Memorial Day, we drove into the Coast Range to see firsthand an active timber sale from the Blue and Gold project on Roseburg BLM lands. A concerned citizen had alerted us to clearcutting in the Gallagher Canyon units—despite BLM’s longstanding shift away from clearcuts due to their well-known ecological harms.
What we found didn’t match the narrative laid out in the decision documents—these were, unmistakably, clearcuts. In one unit, a single tree stood alone, with only a clump remaining at the bottom of the slope (Fig 1). Another unit, an older stand, had also been clearcut. It was all unnecessary. Large trees that had been felled were left lying on the ground. This short-term mindset—rushing to maximize profits—comes at the expense of long-term ecological stability. Haste, indeed, makes waste (Fig 2). This wasn’t a uniform plantation. This was a dynamic, complex ecosystem with layers of habitat—diverse tree species, legacy giants bearing deep fire scars, and patches of older forests on steep slopes that took centuries to establish. The BLM labeled many of these stands as ready for harvest. But to us, and to the wildlife that still depend on them, they looked like irreplaceable remnants of a vanishing world.
What was also disturbing was the blatant disregard for the land itself. Trash was scattered across the site. Trees with no commercial value had been cut and left to rot. Just outside the unit boundaries, large, healthy trees had been deliberately maimed; girdled to hold logging cables in place.
This isn’t stewardship. We need a paradigm shift in how we treat our public forests. We need careful, thoughtful people—those willing to take the time to consider the future before acting. And we need our public land managers to encourage and empower those kinds of stewards—not reward those who treat the land as expendable.
Clearcuts by Another Name
Despite updated terminology such as “Variable Retention Harvest,” many of the proposed treatments resemble—and function as—clearcuts. They target large swaths of forest, remove critical canopy cover, and leave behind a landscape of slash and sun-baked soil. These cuts create conditions that amplify wildfire risk, not reduce it. Removing big trees with thick bark, increasing dry fuel on the ground, and opening forests to the drying winds of climate change is a recipe for more extreme fire behavior—not resilience. These large openings also impact adjacent stands, as sunlight and heat penetrate deeper into the forest, creating more edge conditions and drying out the interior, robbing the stands of the moisture, that helps keep older stands fire resistant.
And let’s be clear: heavy thinning in older forests isn’t restoration. It’s degradation. Many of these stands are already on track to become the late-successional forests we so desperately need—for carbon storage, for wildlife habitat, and for clean water. Tampering with these maturing forests under the assumption that we can accelerate what nature does best is risky. And the cost of being wrong is high.
A Disappearing Refuge for Wildlife
The BLM’s own surveys of the 42 Divide Timber Sale area identified five new Marbled Murrelet sites in just two years—proving that these forests remain crucial habitat even amid ongoing loss on surrounding private lands. That’s not just chance—it’s evidence of how vital these remaining public forests are for species on the brink. And yet, logging is proposed in or near these older forests in
suitable owl and murrelet habitats, including in well-documented areas used historically by pairs of spotted owls. Some of the proposed units lie within core areas—habitat so vital it should be off-limits.
Marbled Murrelets also nest in older coastal forests like these. Although the BLM claims there’s no suitable nesting structure in certain stands, our field visits have shown otherwise. Large, mossy limbs on mature firs—perfect for murrelet nesting—are present in more units than the BLM planning documents admit.
If the remaining public lands continue to be chipped away, where will these species go?
A Call for Honest Accounting
Compounding the concern is a larger structural issue. The BLM continues to operate under outdated methods for classifying forest stands—tools that miss the ecological richness of these lands. New tools, such as the mapping from Oregon State University’s LEMMA project, can help identify forests of high ecological value. We urge the agency to use them.
Standing Together for the Future
We know what a healthy forest looks like. We’ve walked through it. We’ve seen the light filtering through high canopies, heard the calls of pileated woodpeckers, and traced elk tracks through the duff. These aren’t just “units” or “prescriptions.” They are living systems—places that give back far more than they take.
A 30-day comment period that affects thousands of acres of public land in the Roseburg District near Camas Valley closed on June 2. The sale, called 42 Divide, includes structurally complex and ecologically important stands. As we speak up for the 42 Divide area, we do so not to stop all logging, but to insist on responsibility, science, and respect. Let’s invest in restoration where it’s needed, protect what remains, and listen to those who walk the land.
Because once these forests are gone, they don’t come back within our lifetimes.