Oregon Wildblog

Report: Restoring forests a 226 gigaton climate solution

A new report published in Nature underscores the need to preserve existing forests rather than just planting new trees to fight climate change. The report, from 200 scientists worldwide, stated that allowing forests to reach maturity and become old-growth has tremendous carbon storage and biodiversity conservation potential — a win-win natural climate solution. 

Celebrating Oregon's Big Wild & Scenic River Anniversary

I grew up hiking, fishing, and camping along the banks of the Metolius and Deschutes rivers in central Oregon. Though close in proximity to my childhood home in Bend, spending time at these rivers would transport me somewhere far away.

I thought it was the biggest clearcut in Oregon. I was wrong.

A 22-square-mile clearcut.

That’s what I saw when I looked out the window of the small plane I was riding in, a Lighthawk-sponsored flight over the private logging lands bordering the Willamette National Forest. I didn’t know the exact size at the time; all I could do was react to the scale of logging. In my two decades doing conservation work in Oregon, I’d never seen such a large landscape denuded of trees.

Webcast: Hiking the Old-Growth Forests of the Cascades: 25 Years of Change

From the slopes of Mount Hood to the headwaters of the Willamette, old-growth forest trails in the Oregon Cascades offer some of the best hiking you can imagine. On this webcast, join John Cissel, an old-growth lover and forest researcher who hiked thousands of miles of these trails in the 1990s and published guide-maps and a book describing his favorite hikes in the Mount Hood and Willamette National Forests. Now, he's published a “3rd edition” of his guide online, with updates and reflections from 25 years of change in the forest and on the trails.

Public Lands Month Every Month

This Public Lands Month, enjoy the spectacular public lands Oregon has to offer! But don’t forget to advocate for those same places.