Author: Luke Ruediger

Far from catastrophic, the Buckskin Fire burned at predominately low severity in the Baldface Creek watershed, a wild tributary of the North Fork Smith River in the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area.          Each summer fires burn in the wildlands of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains and across the west. Each summer long-term impacts to old-growth forests, native plant communities, roadless areas, wilderness areas, endangered species habitat and salmon bearing streams are sustained. Often fire suppression activities leave more lasting impacts then the fires themselves. These activities take place with no environmental oversight, analysis, or public input. Fire suppression actions are the least regulated federal land management activity and include very little opportunity for public oversight, analysis or input.  Fire suppression is also big business; hundreds of millions of public dollars are spent every summer fighting forest...

Josh Weber and Luke Ruediger hiking the Applegate Ridge Trail. This last week Josh Weber and I, board members of the Applegate Trails Association (ATA), hiked across the ridges of the Applegate Valley from Ashland, Oregon to Grants Pass, Oregon. We traced the route of the proposed Jack-Ash Trail and the Applegate Ridge Trail. The mostly trail-less journey took us through wild forest, oak woodland, grassy ridgetop balds, chaparral, and through numerous small and unroaded sections of BLM land in the Applegate watershed. These trails provide a glimpse into the beauty and connectivity these unroaded wildlands provide. The further we hiked, the more clear the vision became. Together these trails will provide an incentive to protect these small, unroaded wildlands that link together, creating a broad corridor across the Applegate/Rogue River Divide. Each wildland flows into the next, creating a spectacular low elevation, long distance trail system that could benefit the many...

A view from the beautiful upland prairie near the summit of Wellington Butte in the Wellington Lands With Wilderness Characteristics (LWC).  The BLM recently released its Proposed Resource Managment Plan (PRMP). The plan is a template for public land management throughout BLM lands in Western Oregon. Like its former incarnation, the WOPR, the PRMP proposes to drastically increase timber production. The increased logging would include an emphasis on clear-cut logging in the moist forests of the Coast Range and Cascade Mountains, and heavy thinning in dry forests in the Siskiyous and southwestern Oregon. Heavily influenced by the timber industry and Association for O&C Counties, the PRMP will maximize timber production throughout the state, while significantly impacting other important natural resources and local communities. In southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley the BLM is proposing to manage large portions of the dry, eastern portions of the Applegate...

A view from the Applegate Ridge Trail into the Wellington Butte Roadless Area. The Applegate Trails Association (ATA) is a non-motorized trail organization dedicated to creating and preserving non-motorized trails in the Applegate Valley, while encouraging respect for our natural environment. Having started five years ago today, on April 23, 2011, the group has become a strong local voice promoting non-motorized recreation and advocating for protection of the Wellington Butte Roadless Area. In 2013 the BLM designated the Wellington Butte Roadless Area as “Lands with Wilderness Characteristics.” This designation can largely be attributed to ATA’s unrelenting advocacy for the Wellington Butte Roadless Area.  ATA’s largest project is the creation of the Applegate Ridge Trail (ART). The ART is a 40-mile-long, non-motorized trail proposed to extend from Jacksonville, Oregon to Grants Pass, Oregon. Numerous miles of the trail would skirt the...

Extensive blowdown in unit 61-1 of the O’Lickety Timber Sale. Canopy reduction was drastic in many logged units in the O’Lickety Timber Sale, leaving the remaining trees more susceptible to mortality associated with blowdown, drought stress and beetle infestations. The BLM’s O’Lickety Timber Sale was logged by the Murphy Company in November of 2013. The BLM’s Environmental Assessment (EA) for the sale claimed all logging units would “treat and maintain” northern spotted owl habitat, meaning existing habitat designations would not be compromised by logging treatments. Analysis in the BLM’s EA and United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) consultation was based on a presumption that “treat and maintain” prescription parameters would be met. Unfortunately, the prescriptions and tree removal mark approved by the BLM failed to meet the requirements identified to “maintain” northern spotted owl...