Pictured Above:
2024 has been a big year for Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) as we worked across the wild and remote mountains and streams of the Klamath-Siskiyou region to protect, defend, restore, and rewild the region. For over three decades KFA has stopped public land timber sales, new road construction, post-fire logging projects, and illegal off-road vehicle trails all across the Klamath-Siskiyou. We advocate for the vast, remote watersheds, old-growth forests, and unroaded wildlands spread throughout the region, from the Eel River in California to the Rogue River in Oregon.
Supporting activists in both Arcata, California and the Applegate River watershed in Oregon, we cover large portions of Northern California and SW Oregon monitoring public land management activities, advocating for conservation, and opposing projects that would damage the unique biological diversity and ecological integrity that remains in the region. Below are major projects or campaigns we have supported in 2024 and others we intend to address in 2025.
Southwest Oregon
Secret Timber Sale
This past summer, the Secret Creek Timber Sale was proposed by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest under the already approved Upper Briggs Restoration Project. Located on Secret Creek, a major tributary of Briggs Creek in the Illinois River watershed west of Grants Pass, Oregon, the Secret Timber Sale targeted numerous stands of highly fire resistant mature, late successional or old-growth forest habitats that underburned at low severity during the 2018 Klondike Fire. In fact, despite repeated claims by the Forest Service that fire in the Briggs Creek watershed would lead to “catastrophic” fire effects, the Klondike Fire burned at 82% low severity, underburning in virtually all mature, late successional or old-growth forest habitats in the proposed Upper Briggs Restoration Project area.
These low severity fire effects proved the Forest Service dead wrong, yet after the fire, the Forest Service paradoxically claimed that too much of the habitat burned at low severity, and not enough overstory trees were killed; therefore, they justified their approval of the Upper Briggs Restoration Project and the old forest logging units in the Secret Timber Sale. When they authorized the project Forest Service officials claimed “all dominant trees” would be retained; however, when KFA surveyed the timber sale units we found many dominant, overstory trees, up to 53″ diameter, identified for removal.
We immediately contacted the media, published a series of blogs, and notified the Forest Service that the proposed timber sale mark was inconsistent with the authorizing documents and must be withdrawn. Six days before the Secret Timber Sale was scheduled to be auctioned off to timber interests, the Forest Service finally canceled the Secret Timber Sale. We were relieved, and pleased with their decision, and yet the Forest Service still intends to repackage, remark, and reoffer the Secret Timber Sale under a new name sometime next year, and they have indicated that they still intend to log large trees. We will be monitoring any future actions in the Secret Creek and Briggs Valley areas very closely and have been proactively engaging Forest Service officials to cancel all mature and old-growth logging units in any future timber sale in the region.
Cedar Flat Timber Sale
The Cedar Flat Timber Sale was proposed by the Medford District BLM in the mountains above Williams, Oregon in the western Applegate Valley. The project proposed mature and old-growth forest logging in the upper Williams Creek watershed, including units on the heavily forested northern flank of Grayback Mountain. KFA monitored every unit in the Cedar Flat Timber Sale and began to campaign in opposition to this old-growth logging project. This past fall, the Medford District BLM canceled the Cedar Flat Timber Sale; however they are planning to unveil a new proposal in the upper Williams Creek watershed in early 2025. We will be tracking this project and have proactively requested that BLM cancel all mature and old-growth forest logging from future proposals.
Siskiyou Crest OHV Trail Closures
For over a decade, KFA has been working with our allies at Applegate Siskiyou Alliance to monitor illegal and/or inappropriate off-road vehicle activity on the Siskiyou Crest, and in particular in the area’s numerous designated Botanical Areas. After years of monitoring and advocacy, we have begun seeing progress with a series of long-overdue motor vehicle closures at Sheep Camp Spring, a major water source and camping area along the Pacific Crest Trail, and a unique meadow and wetland habitat in the Observation Peak Botanical Area. We also secured a physical closure at Klamath Meridian Scenic Overlook near Siskiyou Peak on the Klamath National Forest and in the Mt. Ashland/Siskiyou Peak Botanical Area. We are also very happy that boulders were utilized to close an illegal off-road vehicle track that crossed the Pacific Crest Trail and entered the Condrey Mountain Inventoried Roadless Area near Mud Springs, a beautiful and unusual wet meadow and sphagnum bog habitat at the headwaters of Dog Fork Elliott Creek.
Additionally, we are excited that we have also gained approval on a motor vehicle closure on Big Red Mountain that affects the ecological and botanical diversity in the Big Red Mountain Botanical Area and Research Natural Area, as well as the Pacific Crest Trail. We hope to support development of an effective closure in this area and advocate for more closures in the future.
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument east of Ashland, Oregon represents the convergence of the Siskiyou Crest and the Cascade Crest, and a key linkage in the connectivity corridor connecting the major mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest, including the Coast Ranges and the Cascade Mountains.
Originally designated for its biodiversity in 2000 by President Clinton, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was expanded by President Obama to its current size of 114,000 acres in 2017. In response, the timber industry litigated the expansion of the area into O&C lands, bringing the case all the way to the Supreme Court. After the court refused to consider the case and left favorable rulings from lower courts in place, the BLM began drafting a Resource Management Plan for the expansion area and an update to the monument’s original Resource Management Plan.
Working to undermine the protections of the National Monument, the BLM proposed a management plan that looks much more like a logging, grazing, and off-road vehicle plan than a Resource Management Plan intending to address the Objects of Interest protected by National Monument designation. These Objectives of Interest include biodiversity, habitat connectivity, and old-growth forests that provide habitat for the northern spotted owl. In 2024 KFA submitted extensive (94 page) comments on the proposed Resource Management Plan for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and have filed an Administrative Objection demanding that National Monument values be protected by prohibiting public land grazing, off-road vehicle use, and commercial logging on National Monument lands.
Siskiyou Mountain Fuel Brake Project
In the Fall 2023, the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District proposed a massive fuel brake project in some of the wildest habitats in the eastern Siskiyou Crest region. This project proposed turning beloved hiking trails and intact wildland habitats like the Elliott Ridge Trail in the Elliott Ridge Roadless Area, the McDonald Peak Trail in the McDonald Peak Inventoried Roadless Area and Botanical Area, and the Sevenmile Ridge Trail in the Big Red Mountain Roadless Area and Botanical Area into fuel brakes cleared of vegetation to support fire suppression operations, rather than be managed to protect their biological values. The project also proposed fuel brake construction along the Star Gulch to Carberry Creek Road (Road 1010) and along O’Brien Creek Road (Road 1005) in the upper Carberry Creek watershed.
After submitting extensive comments on the project and initiating numerous field trips with Forest Service staff, the more controversial portions of the project where withdrawn, including those along the Elliott Ridge Trail, McDonald Peak Trail, and Sevenmile Ridge Trail, protecting the wildland values, complex habitats, intact plant communities, and roadless wildlands of the Siskiyou Crest.
Northern California
River Complex Project
Since fall rains extinguished the River Complex Fire in 2021, KFA has been working to protect fire affected forests of the South Fork Salmon River, South Fork Scott River, and upper Trinity River watersheds on the Klamath and Shasta-Trinity National Forests. The efforts of KFA and other conservation allies led to the cancellation of 1,300 acres of post-fire logging units in the backcountry along the Wild and Scenic South Fork Salmon River and adjacent to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. These logging units would have clearcut living trees that survived the fire and dead standing snags that create the foundation for future complexity as forests regenerate from the 2021 fire event.
Region 5 Project
The Region 5 Project is perhaps the largest timber project in Region 5 Forest Service history, targeting over 500,000 acres adjacent to 5,000 miles of roads for commercial post-fire logging and hazard tree removal. The project includes nine National Forests in California and would harm Wild and Scenic Rivers, threatened and endangered fish and wildlife, Critical Habitat, habitat connectivity, Riparian Reserves, Late Successional Reserves, biodiversity, post-fire renewal and forest regeneration.
In the initial planning stages of the project KFA was able to get roughly one hundred miles of roads and backcountry hiking trails, including some in or adjacent to designated Wilderness Areas, dropped from the project. We also ultimately challenged the project in court as lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit to stop the massive Region 5 Project. Following an unfavorable opinion, we have decided to take the suit to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and our opening briefs are due in early 2025.
Antelope Tennant Project
Following the 2021 Antelope and Tennant Fires, the Klamath National Forest proposed a vast, post-fire logging project. They also proposed an unprecedented 8,700 acres of herbicide use to control (i.e. poison) competing native vegetation, including shrub and hardwood species. Along with other conservation allies, KFA was successful in encouraging the Klamath National Forest to cancel the herbicide treatments, over 3,000 acres of logging in the Medicine Lake Highlands, and provide additional habitat protections for the American marten and the Pacific fisher
MacFarlane Project
Immediately after the 2021 MacFarlane Fire the Shasta Trinity National Forest approved a large Categorical Exclusion for post-fire logging on federal lands south of Wildwood, California. Due to significant negative effects to the northern spotted owl and its habitat, KFA and allies litigated the project and challenged its approval, and we will keep you posted as this legal challenge plays out.
South Fork Sacramento Project
The Shasta-Trinity National Forest recently approved a massive logging project adjacent to the Castle Crags Wilderness and in the South Fork Sacramento River watershed, called the South Fork Sacramento Project. This project proposes to permanently remove over 2,000 acres of northern spotted owl habitat, logging these forests to between 20% and 40% canopy cover, while approving 12 northern spotted owl “take” permits that allows the Forest Service to potentially kill or harm spotted owls. This includes two northern spotted owl pairs and numerous of their offspring. The owls in this area have been successfully producing offspring for the past 35 years which has been supporting owl dispersal throughout the Klamath Recovery Unit.
KFA and our allies filed suit with the US Forest Service for approving this egregious project, and the Fish and Wildlife Service for their Biological Opinion for this project. We hope to stop the South Fork Sacramento Project in 2025!
Support our work with a generous donation!
Klamath Forest Alliance depends on the support of people all across the region that love wildlands, wildlife, wild fisheries, wild rivers, and wild forests in the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion. We believe the world-class values of this incredible region deserve strong advocacy and world-class habitat protections. Support hard hitting grassroots activism in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains! Support Klamath Forest Alliance!
Make a year end donation to Klamath Forest Alliance!
