NEST survey season is starting soon!
Contact us to get involved as there are several timber sales that we will be visiting. The 1st of which could be Trapper (read post below). Photo is from the trapper timber sale back in 2006.
Trapper Timber Sale
Trapper: Zombie Timber Sale
The Trapper Timber Sale in the Willamette National Forest just won’t go away, Josh Laughlin of Cascadia Wildlands says. “This is a like a low-grade horror movie where the zombie keeps coming back from the grave.”
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is taking comments on the old-growth logging proposal’s latest iteration, which reduces the cutting from 149 acres to 44 acres and the proposed acres to be burned from 92 to 36, according to a press release from McKenzie River Ranger District.
The release says, “impacts to northern spotted owls will be significantly less than in the previous project.” Northern spotted owls are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and Laughlin says the area of the planned logging is “a real hotbed for red tree voles and northern spotted owl activity.” Red tree voles are eaten by spotted owls.
Trapper, which originated in the late ’90s, was sold to Seneca-Jones Timber in 2003 and has been highly contentious ever since. Trapper is north of the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, and in 2010 scientists working there wrote a letter saying the logging, which had been proposed as part of study designed to use timber harvest and fire to emulate natural disturbances, “will not yield stand-level lessons of high value for contemporary logging practices.”
In 2011, a judge ordered the USFS to “review the Trapper Project and determine impacts to the northern spotted owls and the learning value of the project, as well as to bring the project up to changing standards for environmental review,” the McKenzie River Ranger District says, and the new proposal is the result. The district says the USFS “is proposing to complete this portion of the project in order to respect the contractual commitments with the sale purchaser.”
Seneca, the purchaser, has been hotly protested by Eugene activists for its proposed logging of Trapper as well as its biomass burning plant in west Eugene.
Laughlin says of the new Trapper proposal, “We will once again tell the Forest Service that the old trees in the beloved McKenzie watershed are best left standing for the recreation, air and water they provide and the unique and imperiled species they house.”
Comments on the project are due March 11. To comment go to www.fs.usda.gov/Willamette and click “Trapper.”
Winter in Cascadia
Once again, with winter upon the world, NEST is in our quiet season. Thanks, volunteers and supporters, for helping make a successful summer work season!
Please stay tuned here for updates about timber sales, information about events and benefits, and ways to get involved…
NEST Camp begins June 29th
Please contact us to volunteer: nestcascadia@gmail.com.
NEST will surveying in the field from now until September (or even later).
Tree Climb Trainings in Eugene!
When: Every Wednesday from 11-2 (or longer if trainers can stay)
Where: At the tree in front of the Lorax
What: We will be doing beginning climb trainings for those who need it, but will also focus on more advanced skills, such as lobster clawing, anchor setting, platform setting, and traversing. We have a traverse set up, and platforms already rigged. We will try to accommodate everyone’s different skill levels, but you might need to wait in line. Get there early if you want us to start on your project!
We will provide all the climbing gear. Please be prepared to sign a waiver form. If you have gear feel free to bring it, but its not necessary!
For questions/directions, call Erin at 303 905 8601.
Slideshow Event & Table at PIELC (aka ELAW)
Coming up this March 1-4 is the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (aka Elaw), held in Eugene Oregon.
The free event will feature keynote speakers, dozens of panels, workshops, meals, entertainment celebration fundraiser events, and other various activities. Long attended by both lawyers and activists, it is an excellent place to make connections, learn, share, and build bridges with organizations and individuals.
– NEST will be staffing an information table in the Main Law School building. Come check us out, if you want to talk to us, hear more about past or current activities, sign up for updates, make a donation, and/or to get involved in the future.
– Friday Evening, NEST will be hosting an informational slideshow and discussion at 6:30pm. Location: Lorax Manner Housing Co-Op (1648 Alder St, Eugene, OR)
– Later, Friday Evening, NEST will be participating in a fundraiser event. Again, details will be at our table.
Thank you for your support!
Action Alert from the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
this came out drring the internet blackout:
Wolves and lynx threatened by the “Deep” timber sale in Central Oregon
The Paulina Ranger District of Ochoco National Forest is planning to revive the “Deep” timber sale already defeated by us in court as the “Jackson’ sale, with very few changes and almost all the same commercial sale units.
This means that once again habitat for resident lynx, northern goshawk, pileated woodpeckers and for dispersing endangered gray wolves will be threatened by logging of this magnificent high elevation mixed conifer forest and that the area is at risk from “timber mining” as the forest is concentrated along stream drainages and may not recover from logging, resulting in streams drying up and permanent forest loss. Please call the Ochoco Forest Supervisor, Kate Klein, and ask that the Jackson sale be cancelled for these reasons: 541-416-6500
About Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
Since our inception in 1991 in rural eastern Oregon, our mission has been to protect, defend, and restore the natural ecosystems of the Blue Mountains and eastern Oregon Cascades bioregions. Our efforts include proactive public education on ecological issues, forest surveys and documentation of proposed public lands projects (timber sales, road building, livestock grazing, herbicide and biocide programs, etc.), training, ongoing involvement in public lands policy management decisions, and litigation in federal courts to protect the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the region.
BMBP has been hard hit by the ongoing national Depression and is in danger of going under entirely. However, thanks to a handful of dedicated major donors, support from the Fund for Wild Nature, and the passion and hard work of our summer and fall volunteer interns and dedicated activist lawyers and law students, we have managed to keep our work going, so far.
A grassroots group such as BMBP accomplishes far more in a year than seems conceivable for such a low amount of funding, with a high degree of efficiency and effectiveness compared to most of the top-heavy, bureaucratic larger environmental organizations.
The difference is our close relationship with the public lands we seek to protect, our extensive time spent in the field with the wildlife, and the passion that engenders to keep us working hard even when we are volunteering our time. We hope that you share our commitment to keeping eastern Oregon wild and beautiful for the great diversity of wildlife that live there, for future generations of human residents and visitors, and for the long-term ecological integrity of watersheds, rivers, soils, forest, high desert, and climate.
-Thank your Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
27803 Williams Lane
Fossil, Oregon 97830
(541) 385-9167
