Feb. 4, 2026 | Abbi Duhart | News Editor
On Jan. 21, various conservation organizations in Oregon, including Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and Umpqua Watersheds protested against the 42 Divide Forest Management Plan from the Bureau of Land Management and filed a lawsuit claiming they violated federal environmental laws. The plan was put in place to log 7,000 acres of forest in Douglas County, an area already heavily affected by logging. The goal was to turn the dense forest into a dry flatland.
Not only does the lawsuit claim that the BLM violated federal laws, but also that they are going against their own stated objective to preserve and protect endangered species listed under the Endangered Species Act and their habitats.
The logging area consisted of old-growth forests — forests that are untouched for 150-250 years and have extremely diverse layers and canopy structures, often home to diverse species. The logging area targeted contains many different types of trees, such as Douglas fir, cedar and madrone, and contains various species like northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, coho salmon and western pond turtles. Western pond turtles are a sensitive species in Oregon, coho salmon and northern spotted owls are threatened and marbled murrelets are endangered.
Logging this area of forest would not only threaten these species more, but would also create a forest fire risk with all of the post-logging debris.
Species are threatened by logging because it not only confuses them and brings hazards, but it also removes canopy layers, causing the forest to become hotter, drier and windier. The removal of trees also displaces animals from the forest canopy habitats.
Beyond logging threatening species and their habitats, it also removes historical forests that have been previously untouched. These forests are rare and unique, and animals and humans alike enjoy their beauty. Today, less than 5% of Western old-growth forests are left standing, most disappearing from logging projects.
Peter Jensen, staff attorney at Cascadia Wildlands, said, “Our organizations are challenging 42 Divide out of great concern that it does not advance BLM’s purported purposes of restoration and resilience, instead threatening imperiled wildlife, increasing fire hazard, and decreasing these forests’ resilience to disturbance.”
They argue that the BLM is going against protection laws for old-growth forests and laws protecting species like spotted owls that rely on these habitats.
John Persell from Oregon Wild added, “Aggressive logging in these protected areas not only endangers fish and wildlife, but it also adds to the cumulative destruction of the landscape already ravaged by the surrounding private-land clearcuts. Public lands are supposed to be a refuge from this kind of destruction, not an extension of it.”
Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu
