2025 Year in Review: Defending the Klamath-Siskiyou through dedicated activism, diligent litigation, and passionate advocacy
With the Trump Administration eroding our regulatory systems, undermining our environmental laws, and pressuring often all too willing federal land managers to increase timber production, mining, grazing and other forms of resource extraction and industrialization on our public lands, we are forced to push back. This requires a deep love and appreciation for these mountains, a strong connection to place, a dedication to the region, a commitment to the protection of the Klamath-Siskiyou, and a little bit of stubborn persistence. At Klamath Forest Alliance, a profound love for this region drives our work and an intimate relationship with these wildlands informs the positions we take, as well as the tenacity with which we advocate.
True to the history of the organization, we have asserted ourselves as passionate, scrappy, and effective grassroots activists with deep ties to the region and a deep knowledge of the land around us. Each day we work for the wildlife, the watersheds, the world-class biodiversity and habitat connectivity in the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion. In 2025, despite difficult political realities, Klamath Forest Alliance continued to successfully move conservation forward and fight the good fight in the Klamath-Siskiyou!
Below are some of the projects we have worked on in 2025, as well as emerging threats we expect to address in 2026. With the threats mounting across the region, Klamath Forest Alliance is dedicated to continuing the long-standing tradition of activism, advocacy, education, and when necessary or most effective, litigation to protect the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains.
Shasta-Trinity National Forest
South Fork Sacramento Project
KFA, along with allies EPIC, Conservation Congress, We Advocate Through Environmental Review, and the Mt. Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the South Fork Sacramento Project. Our suit challenges the timber sales approved by the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and the Northern Spotted Owl Biological Opinion issue by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The South Fork Sacramento Project is located near Lake Siskiyou in the South Fork Sacramento River watershed. The project would allow for heavy industrial logging in 8,000 acres of Critical Habitat for the northern spotted owl, the retention of canopy cover to as low as 10%-20%, and 1,366 acres of Nesting Roosting and Foraging habitat downgrades or removal. Outrageously, the agency would authorize these impacts in an area that has consistently maintained northern spotted owl reproduction for the past 35 years, and is one of the last, best strongholds remaining for the species.
Even more outrageously, the project would admittedly “take” 12 northern spotted owls, including two owl pairs and their offspring from this important habitat. To “take” northern spotted owl populations means the proposed activities will, “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” the owls. For a northern spotted owl this means displacement from clearly favorable habitat through habitat destruction and/or death. Damaging this core habitat and allowing “take” of the species in this important stronghold is unthinkable, and we hope to stop the project’s implementation.
There is also heightened attention on this particular project because it is also the first project to use “emergency authorities” under the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. The Forest Service has already sold two timber sales associated with the South Fork Sacramento Project, and with the agency threatening to start logging, we filed for and were granted a Preliminary Injunction in September of 2025. With the project on hold, we look forward to both challenging the case on its merits and stopping the South Fork Project and its associated timber sales in 2026.
North Trinity Project
The North Trinity Project is located east of the Trinity Alps Wilderness and was proposed in November 2024, but no Environmental Assessment or Decision Record has been published either analyzing the potential impacts, or authorizing project activities. In August of 2025, a lightning ignition burned 500 acres not in, but near the project area. This fire was declared 100% contained on September 15, 2025 and fire suppression resources were withdrawing from the incident; however, the Forest Service then utilized so-called “emergency” authorizations for actions implemented outside the fire’s perimeter, where no emergency has occurred, or is currently occurring.
Klamath National Forest
Humbug OHV Trails
In the fall of 2024, KFA commented on the Klamath National Forest’s Humbug OHV Trail Restoration Project. The project proposed reopening OHV (single track motorcycle trails) on Humbug Creek on Klamath National Forest Lands west of Yreka, California. The whole trail system, including approximately 39 miles of damaging OHV trails, were blown out during extreme rain events following the 2022 McKinney Fire. These blown-out trails sent mass sedimentation into the surrounding rivers and streams and contributed to debris flows in the Humbug Creek area.
In this project, the KNF proposed to reopen all 39 miles of trails, and in our comments we argued that sedimentation and mass erosion occurred partially due to poor trail construction and the compounding impacts of OHV use. We also argued that the trails had been proven unsustainable and are creating significant cumulative impacts which require closure, rather than reconstruction.
In 2025, the project was cancelled by the Klamath National Forest and OHV trail reconstruction is no longer proposed. At this time, we do not know if this means the OHV area will close, but we will continue advocating for closure of damaging OHV trails on the Klamath National Forest.
Siskiyou Crest OHV Closures & Botanical Area protection
We have been working towards the implementation of illegal OHV closures on the Siskiyou Crest for fifteen years, and are just now seeing some positive results on both the Klamath and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests.
In the past few years, our long-standing efforts led to three OHV closures on the Siskiyou Crest. Approved by the Forest Service, these closures physically block off illegal motorized routes that impact Botanical Areas, native vegetation, high elevation spring systems, wildflower habitats, and routes that illegally cross the Pacific Crest Trail.
Although we are excited by the progress made, there is still much to do to. We hope to protect more intact habitats from illegal OHV damage in 2026. We have identified potential closures on illegal OHV routes across the eastern Siskiyou Crest and will continue this work in 2026.
Fire Suppression Issues
Klamath Forest Alliance challenged fire managers in real time during this past summer’s Butler Fire over the proposal to build miles of dozerline in the Orleans Mountain Roadless Area, a vast wildland habitat adjacent to Trinity Alps Wilderness on the Salmon Divide, which divides the Salmon River watershed from the New River watershed. As soon as we saw these dozerlines proposed on incident mapping sites, we reached out to fire managers on the Incident Command Team and forest managers on the Klamath National Forest with a letter outlining our concerns. We also documented the futility of the proposal, as the dozerline was to be built directly adjacent to two large, practically unburnable recent fire footprints from the 2023 Pearch Fire and 2024 Boise Fire. Finally, we identified the proposal as a waste of taxpayer funds because the recent fire footprints would naturally contain the Butler Fire with much less impact and minimal public expense.
We also reached out to local conservation, community and tribal leaders to coordinate a letter/email writing campaign advocating against the dozerline. Just a few days later, the Incident Command Team managing the 2025 Butler Fire announced they were not building this damaging dozerline and withdrew the proposal from Operations Maps. In the end, thankfully, the Orleans Mountain Inventoried Roadless Area was not bulldozed and the fire was effectively contained using the recent fire footprints with far less environmental impact.
Categorical Exclusion Projects
It is becoming apparent that the Klamath National Forest intends to implement timber sales and meet its timber targets largely with the use of “emergency” declarations and Categorical Exclusions in 2026. The agency has already approved two roadside post-fire logging projects: one on Salmon River in the 2025 Butler Fire footprint, and another above Seiad Valley near Blue Mountain in the 2025 Blue Fire.
The agency has also approved numerous Categorical Exclusions with no public involvement, public comment or environmental analysis in the southern Cascades north and east of Mt. Shasta, and more Categorical Exclusions are rumored for projects in the Klamath Mountains. We will monitor these proposals, oppose them when necessary, and document the impact of projects that might be implemented using minimized planning and public involvement processes.
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest
Elkhorn Timber Sale
For almost a decade we have challenged the Upper Briggs Project, advocating for the protection of old-growth forests and intact habitats on Briggs Creek, an important coho salmon stream and major tributary of the Illinois River.
The Upper Briggs Project was proposed in 2016 and finally approved over KFA’s protest, three years later in 2019. The area had just burned at over 80% low severity in the 2018 Klondike Fire, contradicting the claims in the Environmental Assessment published just months before the fire. The Forest Service had claimed that closed canopy stands would burn at high severity in the next wildfire, and they therefore needed logging treatments. Yet, the watershed burned in a beautiful low to moderate severity fire mosaic that largely maintained overstory canopy and habitat conditions throughout Briggs Creek. It also reduced understory fuels and reintroduced wildfire effects on a landscape scale, all of which were goals of the project. Unfortunately, in 2019 the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was not ready to accept these realities, and cancel the sale. Instead they moved forward with the timber sale knowing that it would likely damage these natural post-fire environments.
In the summer of 2024, when the agency proposed the most controversial mature and old forest units of the Upper Briggs Project in the Secret Timber Sale, KFA worked tirelessly to monitor the timber sale mark and expose the Secret Timber Sale before a timber sale auction took place. We found trees up to 55” DBH and over 350 years old marked for removal, we publicized our findings, and we spoke out against the sale. To her credit, just days before the timber sale auction, the Forest Supervisor for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest responded to our input, conducted an internal review of the timber sale mark, and cancelled the sale.
The Forest Service then revived the sale in 2025 when the agency reworked and remarked the timber sale, and repackaged it under a new name: the Elkhorn Timber Sale. The Forest Service claimed they would increase transparency surrounding the timber sale mark, conduct public field trips, and allow for a more public discussion in the new Elkhorn Timber Sale, however, none of this collaboration occurred. Instead, the timber sale was remarked largely without public input, but the agency did remark numerous timber sale units and save many large, old-growth trees from being logged. The remark, although implemented by the Forest Service, occurred only because of our advocacy, monitoring, activism, and vocal opposition, exposing the Secret Timber Sale as an old-growth timber grab.
During the remarking process for the Elkhorn Timber Sale, KFA advocated for cancellation of the oldest and most structurally complex units, we documented the use of proposed logging units by Pacific fisher during the winter of 2024-2025 with game cameras, and encouraged the retention of even more large trees and more overstory canopy.
Ultimately, the Forest Service saved a few more trees due to our persistent input and sold the Elkhorn Timber Sale in the fall of 2025. Although we still have concerns about the sale and its impact, it is undeniably better because we fought to the very end. We believe the Forest Service could have protected even more trees, but the project was made exponentially better through our efforts, and many old-growth trees were saved through our monitoring.
Yellowjacket Project
The Forest Service has proposed a large logging and so-called “fuel reduction” project, the Yellowjacket Project, in a vast portion of the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District from Wagner Butte to Applegate Reservoir. The area contains numerous important and biologically intact habitats, roadless areas, and old-growth forests. We hope to work with the Forest Service to encourage a responsible project that maintains intact habitats, roadless areas, old-growth, mature and primary forests, supports a robust public process, and sustains the highest level of environmental standards. Although we will work with the Forest Service to make this project the best it can be, if necessary, we will also vigorously defend this landscape in 2026.
Medford District BLM
SOS Project
The SOS Project takes dishonesty to a new level with BLM claiming that living, green forests, even mature, closed canopy forests are “dead and dying” and, therefore, can be subjected to “salvage” logging. The proposal includes the extensive clearcut or “regeneration” logging in living, green forests with minimal tree mortality. It also proposes salvage logging in some units with significant mortality from recent beetle outbreaks in the Applegate Valley. Currently, the agency has approved four timber sales extending from Thompson Creek to Ruch, and east to Sterling Creek, including portions of the Wellington Wildlands and East Applegate Ridge Trail.
The SOS Project aims to re-institute clearcut logging on BLM lands in the Applegate Valley, increasing fire risks, damaging habitat, and impacting both scenic and recreational values. If implemented the beautiful forests and vistas of the Applegate Valley would be heavily degraded. Currently, KFA is working with local conservation interests in the Applegate Valley to stop these sales and we hope to report success in 2026.
Douglas Fir Mortality Complex Logging
BLM intends to keep utilizing their lies surrounding “dead and dying” trees to log off old forests throughout the region. Recently, the BLM initiated a Scoping Comment Period for the Douglas Fir Mortality Complex Project, which would log 9,000 acres across southwest Oregon, including approximately 8,000 acres in the eastern Applegate Valley. The project will likely lead to multiple timber sales in the Little Applegate Valley, in the scenic Little Applegate River canyon, on Sterling Creek, Yale Creek, Grouse Creek, on Cinnabar Ridge, Boaz Mountain and in the Upper Applegate Valley.
This is the worst timber sale proposed in the Applegate Valley in many decades and KFA will be working with conservation allies in the region to oppose, expose, and stop this massive timber grab.
Cedar Flat Timber Sale
The Cedar Flat Timber Sale is being proposed by the Medford District BLM in the West Fork Williams Creek watershed and is entirely located within Late Successional Reserve forest set aside to protect old forest habitat for the northern spotted owl.
KFA is working with partners at Applegate Siskiyou Alliance and Williams Community Forest Project to protect these habitats from BLM logging operations and have already seen numerous old-growth units canceled through our efforts. We will continue this work throughout 2026, working with allies to save old forests from logging in the Williams Creek watershed.
Fire suppression impacts
In August 2025, we published the 2024 Upper Applegate Fire Report, which explored the relatively small, but informative Upper Applegate Fire on Medford District BLM lands. The fire started as a human ignition on private lands, but soon ran uphill on unroaded federal lands consisting of oak woodland, chaparral, mixed hardwood forests, and mixed conifer forests with significant recent beetle mortality. The fire burned beautifully in this mosaic of vegetation, leaving a variety of fire effects and predominantly low severity fire in low elevation mixed conifer forest without a history of timber or “active” management. It also burned at low severity in stands with significant recent beetle mortality. Neither the closed canopy fir forests supporting northern spotted owl habitats nor the sometimes adjacent beetle mortality patches burned with added intensity or elevated levels of fire severity. The effects of the fire were ultimately beneficial, while the most pronounced impacts are associated with dozerline, helipad, and staging area construction by the Oregon Department of Forestry and BLM. Read more at this link.
Conclusion:
2025 was a difficult and eventful year with multiple conservation victories, multiple active lawsuits, and a mounting storm of timber sales proposed by regional public land managers. These timber sale proposals are increasingly vast, numerous and damaging. Additionally, environmental laws and regulations are changing, including attacks on bedrock environmental laws like NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
At the same time, the agency is dramatically reducing transparency, public accountability, public involvement opportunities, and environmental analysis. By utilizing emergency declarations where no emergency exists, by categorically excluding the public from public land planning processes, and by misleading the public about environmental conditions and project outcomes, Forest Service and BLM land managers appear both poised and all too eager to log off our natural heritage for timber industry profits.
Klamath Forest Alliance is committed to defending the wilds of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains, no matter the odds. We know we have our work cut out for us as the Trump Administration opens up our public lands for exploitation. We also know that grassroots activism and passionate advocacy will be necessary if the lands we love are to be protected. Please consider a year-end donation to Klamath Forest Alliance, our wildlands need advocates more than ever, and we need your support to continue our work!