Here’s a little good news for 2021. Defending the environment through land use advocacy is often a long and arduous endeavor. Sit back and let us spin you a tale of how steadfast advocacy and a community passionate about wildlife can achieve success.

As Oregon reels from destructive wildfires and oppressive smoke, we at Central Oregon LandWatch want to express our heartbreak and sympathy for the communities experiencing unfathomable loss.

There’s still time to comment on the Forest Service’s plan to allow logging of big trees on public lands!

The Forest Service is moving forward with plans to weaken its rules that protect big trees on all National Forests in Central and Eastern Oregon.

For decades, LandWatch has been on the frontlines of defense against the negative impacts of destination resorts.

As you well know, we are experiencing a significant interruption in the systems that we may take for granted as COVID-19 spreads across the world. From an over-burdened medical system to the social contracts implicit in a smile, no stone is left unturned, including our food systems.

The Forest Service is exploring a change in forest policy for all National Forests east of the Cascades in Oregon via what they’ve dubbed “Project 21.” This project would allow the Forest Service to cut and sell trees larger than 21” in diameter. Thanks to prior advocacy, current forest policy prevents cutting these large trees throughout the Deschutes, Ochoco, Fremont-Winema, Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests.

The beloved Ochoco National Forest and its precious habitat for elk, wolves, native fish and other species is once again threatened. Just over one year after Central Oregon LandWatch’s coalition victory in federal court to protect the area, the “Black Mountain” project proposes 22 miles of new roads and damage to riparian habitat without sufficient regard for the species that would be impacted.

As frontline defenders of Central Oregon’s rural lands, water, and wildlife and as proponents of sustainable, attractive, prosperous communities, another of the arenas in which LandWatch actively engages is legislative advocacy. We track bills, conduct background research, work with partner organizations, meet with legislators, provide testimony, and participate in crafting legislation. We work to support and strengthen good bills and to oppose, defeat, limit, or mitigate bad bills.

For decades LandWatch has fought efforts by developers to build homes on Skyline’s private timberland, and for decades the working forest has balanced timber production with recreational and ecological values. But now that balance is under threat as the forest has been placed on the market for $127 million.

Birds are excellent indicators of environmental health and ecosystem integrity,” state the authors of the study; this staggering decline in numbers, along with similar broad population crashes in amphibians and insects, reflects an accelerating unraveling of the fundamental fabric of the natural world.

Central Oregon LandWatch has for years worked to preserve the last remnants of a critical wildlife corridor that was threatened by a planned expansion of Caldera Springs Destination Resort south of Sunriver. After LandWatch’s legal action blocked an initial proposal to expand across the 600 acres of forested elk and Mule Deer habitat, we successfully negotiated redesign of the resort site plan.