A view across the Crawford Timber Sale area to the Marble Mountains Wilderness. Photo credit: Kimberly Baker In April, Klamath Forest Alliance and our conservation allies, EPIC and KS Wild, filed suit against the Klamath National Forest over the Crawford Timber Sale in the Eastern District Court of California. With legal representation by the Crag Law Center, the suit alleged that the timber sale violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Forest Management Act. Instead of taking its chances with this illegal project in court, last week the Klamath National Forest “withdrew” the Crawford Timber Sale, giving the old forests and cold water tributaries of the Klamath River a reprieve.   The Crawford Timber Sale would have logged off late successional forests and Northern spotted owl habitat in the Mid-Klamath River watershed downstream of Happy Camp, California. This included logging units in Crawford Creek, Coon Creek and...

The upper slopes of Bald Mountain support a diverse mosaic of habitats, including grassland, shrubland, oak woodland and dry mixed conifer forest. Bald Mountain is little known, heavily threatened and spectacularly diverse. Rising from the rugged Little Applegate River Canyon to its broad 5,500′ summit, the mountain also creates the headwaters of Wagner Creek above the small town of Talent in the Rogue Valley. Like a patchwork quilt, the area is transitional and supports a rich mosaic of plant communities spread across the face of the mountain. A stronghold for regional biodiversity, the area contains plant communities from across the West, each in its own unique microclimate or habitat.  Like much of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains the diverse soils, steep environmental gradients and complex topography of Bald Mountain create beautifully contrasting ecosystems. The mountain’s harsh south and west facing slopes support a diverse mixture of high desert...

  Beautiful fire resistant forest is proposed for group selection logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale. These units are located at the headwaters of China Gulch and in the Wellington Wildlands. The trees marked with white paint are proposed for removal and are nearly all over 30″ in diameter.  Since the fall of 2019, Klamath Forest Alliance has been working with Applegate Neighborhood Network and residents throughout the Applegate Valley to oppose the Medford District BLM’s Bear Grub Timber Sale and to protect the Wellington Wildlands. Fire resistant forest on China Gulch marked for removal. The Bear Grub Timber Sale proposes “group selection” logging, a form of staggered clearcut logging that removes whole groves of mature, fire resistant forest in patches up to 4 acres in size and across up to 30% of a timber sale unit.  By removing large overstory trees and whole groves of fire resistant forest, these habitats will be...

A stand of mature, fire-resistant forest proposed for group selection logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale. Nearly every tree in this photographs is proposed for removal in a group selection “opening.” The Klamath Forest Alliance recently teamed up with the Applegate Neighborhood Network to publish a detailed analysis of recent timber sales approved or proposed by the Medford District BLM. The report, “Medford District BLM Fire/Fuel Analysis for Timber Sales Authorized under the 2016 Resource Management Plan for Southwestern Oregon,” explores the potential impacts associated with these timber sales and highlights BLM’s own analysis, which concludes fire hazards will increase following the majority of commercial logging treatments. Read the full report at this link This report demonstrates that since 2016 roughly two-thirds of the acres approved for commercial logging by the Medford District BLM can be expected to increase fire hazards...

Unit 13-1 directly below the East Applegate Ridge Trail contains open, fire resistant forest dominated by large, old trees. The Medford District BLM recently proposed a new timber sale in the foothills of the Applegate and Rogue River Valleys within the rainshadow of the Siskiyou Crest. The arid forests targeted for logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale are the driest forest habitats in Western Oregon. Although designated for timber production, as “timber harvest landbase” by the Medford District BLM, these forests simply cannot sustain the level of logging proposed in the Bear Grub Timber Sale while still maintaining important social and biological values.  Biodiversity & Wildlife Large trees marked for removal in unit 13-6 along the East Applegate Ridge Trail. Found within a larger mosaic of chaparral, oak woodland, hardwood forests and arid grasslands, the forests of the Bear Grub Timber Sale are extremely important for their habitat...