The Horizon

All the latest updates on our work defending rural lands, creating livable cities and towns and preserving wild lands and water throughout Central Oregon

Wild Lands CO LandWatch Wild Lands CO LandWatch

Concerns over the Cougar Rock Project

The Cougar Rock Project is a proposed project located near Black Butte on the Deschutes National Forest that proposes to conduct “thinning, mowings, and prescribed burning” on around 3,000 acres, primarily within mule deer winter range. 

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Wild Lands CO LandWatch Wild Lands CO LandWatch

7 million acres of national forests

After nearly a year, oral argument was held before Magistrate Judge Halmann on May 1. We were represented by Crag Law Center at the U.S District Court in Pendleton, challenging the Forest Service’s unlawful repeal of the “21-inch rule” that opened up over 7 million acres of national forest to large-tree logging.

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Water CO LandWatch Water CO LandWatch

Our water distribution system is based on fiction

It doesn’t take an expert to see the growing conflict over the scarcity of water supplies in Central Oregon, intensified by drought and the impacts of climate change. But the Oregon spotted frog is not to blame for our water woes, nor are the farmers whose livelihood depends on water for crops.

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Rural Lands, Case Updates CO LandWatch Rural Lands, Case Updates CO LandWatch

Where's the ranch?

LandWatch recently celebrated a win at the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). In February, LUBA ruled in LandWatch’s favor regarding a decades-old facility on land outside Sisters. This win sets an important precedent by invalidating a misinterpretation of state and local land use law and will help prevent fragmentation of the agricultural land base in Deschutes County.

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