The Conservation Column
By Pepper Trail

I-5 Wildlife Crossing
Let’s start with some GOOD news. As many of you will have heard, the US Department of Transportation has awarded a $33 million grant for the construction of the Mariposa Preserve Wildlife Crossing over I-5. This grant was through the Federal Highways Administration Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, a part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
As Senator Jeff Merkley stated in his press release on the award: “What a huge win for Southern Oregon! This first-ever I-5 wildlife crossing in Oregon will be instrumental in safeguarding all the special species that call the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument home, while protecting drivers from dangerous wildlife collisions and costly damages to their vehi-cles.”
Rogue Valley Audubon is a proud member of the Southern Oregon Wildlife Crossing Coalition (SOWCC), and has worked since 2021 with the many other coalition members to achieve this huge victory. National groups working on wild-life crossings have been amazed at the effectiveness of our grassroots effort. Construction is likely to begin in 2027 or 2028 and be completed in a single season. For much more information (including an illustration of the design), visit https://myowf.org/sowcc.
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Management Plan
The Mariposa Preserve Wildlife Crossing will link two parts of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and will help repair the damage to the monument’s ecological connectivity created by I-5. This was a key factor in the success of SOWCC’s grant application. Yet despite the vital importance of the crossing for the monument, Medford BLM played no role in the effort (the monument’s ecologist left BLM early on, and was not replaced). This lack of engagement speaks volumes about the BLM’s management of the monument.
Medford BLM’s failure to prioritize the protection and restoration of the monument’s unique biodiversity and ecological processes are sadly on full display in its just-finalized Monument Resource Management Plan (RMP). The plan places its primary emphasis on fuels reduction for fire management, including 2-acre clearcuts (“for snow capture”). It would allow thinning on over 62,000 acres of the Monument. It also fails, yet again, to in any way acknowledge or reduce the ecologi-cal damage being done by livestock grazing on the Monument.
A coalition of environmental groups, including the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, KS Wild, and Oregon Wild, submit-ted comprehensive comments on the plan, both at the scoping and the protest stages. Every single one of these com-ments were dismissed by BLM in the final RMP, with the boilerplate “this protest issue is denied.”
A chilling statement repeated over and over in BLM’s document rejecting all protests to its plan is this: “Presidential Proc-lamations 7318 and 9564 do not require the BLM’s management decisions to be those that are the most protective of Monument objects. Instead, they require that, on balance, the BLM’s management decisions be consistent with the over-all protection of the identified objects. The CSNM PRMP/FEIS must comply with the purposes and objectives outlined in Presidential Proclamations 7318 and 9564, but multiple uses are allowed to the extent they are not inconsistent with the proclamations.”
This deference to the “multiple use” paradigm that BLM applies to all its lands is entirely inappropriate for the only Nation-al Monument established to protect biodiversity. The RMP also envisions extensive use of “Categorical Exclusions” to carry out projects in the Monument without full environmental analysis. Again, this is completely inappropriate in the Mon-ument, where careful analysis and a precautionary (“do no harm”) approach should be paramount.
The Monument RMP is now final, so what is to be done? BLM’s responses to the protests repeatedly stated that the anal-yses we were demanding would be done in the “implementation phase,” when on-the-ground projects are actually being planned. It will be more important than ever to closely monitor how BLM implements the plan, and to challenge actions that are not fully protective of the Monument’s values.
Beyond all this, of course, looms the incoming Trump administration. We do not know if we will see a renewal of the at-tacks on monuments established under the Antiquities Act that occurred in the first Trump administration, but that could well happen. I will keep you informed.
Northwest Forest Plan Amendment
The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) established the framework for protecting and gradually restoring ancient forests on federal lands throughout the range of the Northern Spotted Owl. While not perfect, it drastically reduced old-growth logging, established a network of Late Successional Reserves to be managed for the development of old-growth charac-teristics, and put in place requirements to survey and monitor threatened species.
Now, for the first time, the NWFP is undergoing a comprehensive revision, the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment, with the justification as follows:
“Changes in ecological and social conditions are challenging the effectiveness of the 1994 NWFP. In recent years, large, high-severity wildfires have resulted in losses of mature and old-forests, eliminating gains achieved during the first 25 years of implementation. Research on climate change and on the effects of past forest and fire management regimes in-dicates that large wildfires and other disturbances will increase in frequency and extent throughout the area covered by the NWFP. Further, Tribes were not included in the development of the 1994 NWFP, and the Forest Service seeks to up-hold its trust responsibility to Tribes through honoring treaty and other protected tribal rights.”
It is true that climate change and extensive wildfires were not anticipated in the 1994 NWFP, and certainly a greater voice for the Tribes is long overdue. Therefore, an update of the plan seems appropriate. However, the conservation communi-ty needs to monitor this process carefully to assure that the fundamental protections provided by the NWFP are not threatened.
The Oregon Audubon Council has convened a working group to analyze the proposed changes in the Amendment, and to protest those that would weaken protections for old growth forests or for species that depend on them, especially Spot-ted Owls and Marbled Murrelets. I am representing RVAS in this effort.
Issues of particular concern in the draft Amendment’s proposed alternative (Alternative B) include:
• An increase in the threshold for active management from 80 to 120 years in wet forests and 150 years in dry forests, thereby allowing logging in older stands.
• Elimination of the Survey and Manage provisions of the 1994 NWFP, weakening
• habitat protections for Spotted Owls and other old-growth dependent species.
• Overemphasis on supporting and promoting early seral stage plant and animal species that are not threatened or endangered.
• Lack of transparency in operational planning. Far too much “flexibility” granted to regional and local man-agers. Inadequate attention to accountability and compliance.
The Forest Service is hosting public meetings at all 17 of the National Forests covered by the Northwest Forest Plan. The meeting for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest will be January 29 at 6 PM at the Interagency Of-fice on Biddle Road in Medford. I’ll be there.
The NWFP Amendment and supporting information can be found at https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=64745
For all its flaws, the NWFP Amendment was initiated and written by the Biden Administration. As I write this on January 20, we don’t know what changes to public land management will be proposed by the Trump Administra-tion. But based on Trump’s record and the vision out-lined in Project 2025, we are in for a full-scale assault on our environmental laws and regulations. It’s going to be a long four years. Buckle up, and make sure your voice is heard!