If not for the Cold War (1945–1991), there might well have been a national park in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.
Read MoreDavid Simons: An Oregonian with a Shining Vision for Public Lands Conservation
David Brower
The Public Lands Conservation Movement: Mis-organized for Job #1
Why is it that public lands conservation (and other environmental issues) always poll well, but our movement is regularly getting its ass kicked in Congress (and now by the administration as well)? It’s because we’re not political enough.
Read More“Friends at home! I charge you to spare, preserve and cherish some portion of your primitive forests; for when these are cut away I apprehend they will not be easily replaced.”
Wilderness: Expanding Concept, Shrinking Supply
Compared to its four adjacent neighbors, Oregon has the smallest percentage of its lands designated as units of the National Wilderness Preservation System. While the average of the areas of the five states protected as wilderness is more than 9 percent, in Oregon less than 4 percent of the land is so protected. Oregon has 47 wilderness areas totaling 2,457,473 acres. Additional potential wilderness areas (a.k.a. roadless areas) in Oregon total more than 12 million acres, with approximately 61 percent of that area being generally tree-free (in the Oregon High Desert and other desert areas considered part of the sagebrush steppe, aka Sagebrush Sea) and the remainder generally forested. Congress should expeditiously expand the National Wilderness System in Oregon.
Read More