On September 1, 2010, President Barack Obama proclaimed September 2010 as National Wilderness Month. In his proclamation, the president said:

From raging rivers to serene prairies, from mountain peaks slicing the skyline to forests teeming with life, our Nation's landscapes have provided wonder, inspiration, and strength to all Americans...We must continue to preserve and protect these scenic places and the life that inhabits them so they may be rediscovered and appreciated by generations to come.

Oregon can do better at "preserving and protecting" our beloved state. Currently, only 4% of Oregon is protected as Wilderness (our nation's highest level of protection and the gold standard for safeguarding public land from harmful development). That compares to 11% in Washington, 14% in California, and 8% in Idaho. A lack of Wilderness protection isn't the only thing threatening our state's wild places.

This summer, we toured the state and identified ten at-risk landscapes. Follow the links on this page to find out more about each threatened locale in our 10 Most Endangered Places report.

Support our work to protect Endangered Places!

While you're looking through the report, remember, for 35 years Oregon Wild has stood up to the challenges facing our last wild places. All along we've done it with the generous support of people like you. Please consider making a special "endangered places" donation to Oregon Wild today. Help us reach our goal of $40,000 raised by September 30. If we get there, we will receive a generous challenge grant contribution from a major donor. Please contribute today.

10 Most Endangered Places List:

1. Wild Rogue River
   
2. Blue Mountains
   
3. Upper Klamath Lake
   
4. Southwest Oregon Ancient Forests: Evans Creek - a Watershed on the Brink
   
5. The Glaciers of Mount Hood
   
6. Illinois River
   
7. Elliott State Forest
   
8. Coos Bay Estuary and Southwest Oregon Watersheds
   
9. Steens Mountain
   
10. Mt. Bailey Roadless Area
    

What makes a place “endangered?”

The ten places represented in this report are by no means an exhaustive list of the threatened landscapes in Oregon. From a backyard stream in La Grande to the expanse of our ocean waters, Oregon’s wildlands face constant threats both great and small. Considering this, how then did we select the ten natural areas described in the following pages?

In weighing each endangered place, we considered three primary factors:

• the immediacy and scale of the threat;
• the ecological, cultural, recreational, and scientific importance of the area threatened; and
• the opportunity for an actionable solution
  

Cover photo by Dave Gutschmidt. Logging photo by Francis Eatherington.