In his final days in office, President Biden has designated two new national monuments: the Sáttítla National Monument in northern California and the Chuckwalla National Monument in southern California.
While the Bureau of Land Management struggles to address a low-elevation die-off, it is also conducting ‘regeneration’ logging — replacing healthy older stands with dense Douglas fir stands that are not resilient to fire or drought
Our Public Lands and You (PLAY) Program volunteers are working with the US Forest Service (USFS) to protect important botanical spaces on the Siskiyou Crest. Read more about this work here!
Have you ever wondered if civic engagement is even worth it when it comes to protecting the forests and rivers you love? The extractive industries are so powerful, the land management agencies are so bureaucratic, the court system is so difficult to navigate, and climate change is so daunting that submitting a heartfelt public comment about a timber sale can feel like an act of futility. Yet it is persistent involvement from everyday people that makes a real difference for wildlife and watersheds.
KS Wild is known for holding federal land managers accountable and challenging timber sales that threaten harm to wildlife and watersheds, so it's a big deal when we give the BLM their flowers for doing the right thing…
The Bureau of Land Management recently published an EA and solicited public comment for the South Clark Forest Management Project, which would have increased wildfire hazard by logging the proposed 2,238 acres outside of Butte Falls, OR. The BLM, however, has course corrected this project in a win for wildfire resilience. Click to read more.
The Medford District Bureau of Land Management's old-growth logging program is relentless and uncompromising. Currently, the 8,150-acre "Last Chance" timber sale calls for logging most of the remaining mature and old-growth forests in the foothills between Sunny Valley and Galesville. Click to learn more.
Fire and disturbance have always been a natural component of the earth's ecosystems. There are some plants that rely on fire to continue their next generation of life. Click to learn more.
Wildfires are producing intense smoke this summer that can pose serious health risks. Please protect yourself and those you care for from excessive smoke, especially those that have sensitive respiratory systems. Read our blog post if you want to learn more about smoke resources.
The northern spotted owl is a Pacific Northwest forest icon. The species relies on old-growth forests to survive, and much of its habitat is threatened by loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation due to logging. Learn more about this imperiled species of the PNW in this blog.
June is National Rivers Month, and there are significant accomplishments to share this month around KS Wild’s effort to advance river conservation in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion. Read this blog to get a deeper understanding of the threats and opportunities for wild rivers across the region.
Despite a 2017 ruling by the Obama Administration to put a 20-year moratorium on mining in the headwaters of the North Fork Smith River and Illinois River, a new mining company has emerged with plans to mine for nickel in the Baldface Creek watershed. Read more about KS Wild’s work protecting this region from mining here.
We spent a week hiking the Rogue River National Recreation Trail with a group of determined hikers and the raft support of our friends at ARTA. Read the full report here.
Do you remember the BLM's Integrated Vegetation Management plan to log old-growth Late Successional Reserves like those located in the Late Mungers timber sale near Williams? After commenting, public meetings, field checking, and trying everything we could think of to get BLM to retain these old-growth forests, we finally will have our day in court, and you are invited to join us.
In this guest blog, our friend Harry Fuller recounts his field trip with KS Wild in search of great gray owls. Though no owls were spotted, 28 other species were.
Last week, I ventured into the field with George, our Conservation Director, to groundtruth a Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale called Mill Rat within the Poor Windy project just north of Grants Pass, Oregon. What we found was heartbreaking. Click to read the full field report.