February 20, 2026 3:40 a.m.
The Association of O&C Counties President Tim Freeman is excited that the U.S. Department of the Interior has issued a “Notice of Intent” to initiate the development of a revised Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plan governing the 2.5 million acres of O&C timberlands in western Oregon.
Freeman said, “This long-awaited announcement is fantastic news. This is BIG news for the 18 O&C Counties. It’s BIG news for everyone in Douglas County as we look at the future providing very essential public services for future generations.” Freeman said, “This resource management plan dictates to the BLM how they are to manage these wildly productive public lands. It is also BIG news for citizens in western Oregon that more recently have had to live and breathe smoke every summer from the overstocked burning timberlands – all because they have not been properly managed”.
A county release said AOCC, working in concert with many partners, including all AOCC members counties and partners like the American Forest Resource Council, Douglas Timber Operators and Tribal Governments has worked diligently with the Department of the Interior and three prior presidential administrations to address the deficiencies and unintended consequences of the current management framework. Today, O&C timberlands hold 50 percent more board feet of standing timber, than when the land started being managed under the 1937 O&C Act.
Freeman said revising the Resource Management Plan represents a critical opportunity to restore stability to O&C timberland management by better aligning federal policy with statutory requirements and improve the economic realities facing rural Oregon communities.
Freeman said, “We appreciate the foresight of the US Department of Interior in initiating the development of a revised plan. We have an important window to correct course and restore balanced management of the O&C timberlands, whose property and sustained management safeguards our timberlands while funding county services and providing family-wage jobs in western Oregon”.
For more information about the AOCC, go to: www.oandc.org