The Wild and Scenic Chetco River watershed is being targeted by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest for post-fire, clearcut logging. This beautiful watershed deserves better. It is up to us to protect the clean, clear waters of the Chetco River. Please comment on the project now! The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest has released its Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Chetco Bar Fire Salvage Project. The proposal includes 4,090 acres of post-fire logging, most of which will be implemented as vast clearcuts on steep, unstable slopes. Although you may have heard that the project will log only previously logged plantation stands, this claim is far from the truth. Of the 4,090 acres proposed for logging and replanting, 2,222 acres, or 54% of the proposed logging and artificial reforestation, is located within unmanaged stands (i.e forests that have never been logged). These unmanaged stands contain a variety of habitats and structural conditions, but many of them...

Upper Horse Creek, the Condrey Mountain Inventoried Roadless Area, Johnny O’Neil Late Successional Reserve, and the Abney Fire viewed from the Siskiyou Crest. The burned forest at the center of this photograph is proposed for clearcut logging by the Klamath National Forest. The 2017 Abney Fire burned for over two months in both the Applegate River and Klamath River watersheds. The fire burned nearly 40,000 acres on both sides of the Siskiyou Crest, including some of the wildest country in the Siskiyou Mountains. The Abney Fire burned in a characteristic, mixed-severity fire mosaic, creating diversity and habitat heterogeneity on the landscape scale. After the smoke cleared, the Klamath National Forest (KNF) did what they do following almost every fire season—they proposed to clearcut vast swaths of fire-affected forest in sensitive land management allocations. This year’s damaging proposal is located high on the slopes of the Siskiyou Crest and adjacent to...

Quail Prairie Creek is a beautiful tributary stream in the South Fork Chetco River watershed. The stream contains large swaths of old forest, unique geologic diversity and high water quality. These values are threatened by post-fire logging proposed by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Recently Klamath Forest Alliance and the Siskiyou Crest Blog visited the Chetco Bar Fire area to explore the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest’s proposed Chetco Bar Fire Salvage Project. The Forest Service has proposed 13,626 acres of post-fire, clearcut logging and plantation development in the lower Chetco River watershed.  Much of the project proposes to log fire-affected, old-growth forests and intact native ecosystems. Because the project is currently proposed in “matrix” land designated for logging in the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, some have assumed that the proposed logging treatments are located in previously logged plantation stands — this is...

  The Klamath Forest Alliance works hard to protect, restore and rewild the Siskiyou Crest as a vital connectivity corridor Please donate to the Siskiyou Office of  Klamath Forest Alliance!  The Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) has been advocating for the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains for 29 years. Specifically, we advocate for wilderness and roadless landscapes, biodiversity, wildlife, connectivity and the ecological integrity of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. KFA has long been focused on the watersheds of northern California. Since 2012, through a coalition with the Siskiyou Crest Blog, KFA has broadened our scope. We have expanded our advocacy into the Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon, from the Wild Rivers Coast to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. In the last few years, KFA has taken a leading role in numerous successful campaigns to cancel or significantly alter the Nedsbar, Pickett West and Savage Murph Timber Sales on BLM land. We...

A large “group selection cut” in the Squishy Bug Timber Sale on the west face of Woodrat Mountain above Ruch, Oregon. The BLM removed many large, living trees in this unit, creating small clearcuts in forest that survived the 2016 bark beetle outbreak. View the full report: The Squishy Bug Timber Sale: “Salvage” Logging, Bark Beetles and Invalid Assumptions for NEPA Analysis In the spring of 2016, a relatively large-scale outbreak of flat headed fir borer beetles spread throughout the more arid portions of the Applegate Valley. The usually chronic, but low levels of bark beetle mortality generally present in the Applegate were temporarily replaced by an increased and eruptive level of bark beetle mortality. This relatively short-lived outbreak was triggered by the drought conditions of 2013-2014 that allowed flat headed fir borer populations to expand quite rapidly. Although this was a large-scale outbreak for the region, it was...