Photo credits: Cascadia Wildlands

April 23, 2025 10:40 a.m.

On Tuesday, Earth Day 2025, activists rallied in opposition to a Bureau of Land Management plan to log old-growth forests on federally managed lands in the Umpqua River watershed.

A release from Cascadia Wildlands said conservation groups filed suit against the BLM in September 2024 over the controversial Blue and Gold logging project. The rally, organized by Cascadia Wildlands and Umpqua Watersheds, coincides with an auction of several logging units within the project dubbed the Yellow Panther Sale. The protest was focused on the project as a whole.

Opponents said that originally proposed under the Biden Administration, the Blue and Gold project targets thousands of acres of the last remaining old-growth forest in the region. They claim the project is in an area that is ecologically significant for the spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

The release said the Trump administration has shown their support for industrial logging projects, issuing executive orders to increase industrial logging on federal lands. Cascadia Wildlands claim researchers have sounded the alarm, pointing to science showing that aggressive logging in backcountry forests and old-growth forests increases wildfire risk.

Longtime forest advocate and local resident Francise Etherington said, “We are protesting because this project targets old-growth forests in Douglas County”. Etherington said, “Motivated by arbitrary timber targets, the government is putting our communities, clean drinking water, and wildlife habitat at greater risk”.