01/20/05 Update:

The November 16, 2004 Green Thunder auction was cancelled because the Bureau of Land Management said they need "more time to consider public comments..." Congratulations on great success to all of you who wrote comments.

But now it's time to write again. The BLM considered your comments, rewrote the proposal, and still has decided to clearcut 140 acres of mature and old growth forest, including 57 acres within Connectivity areas for the northern spotted owl.

The BLM is also thinning a plantation, which we should encourage them to continue to do. However, clearcutting 140 acres in the dining room of five pairs of spotted owls is insensible, considering that the owl's population is precipitously declining and is facing new threats, like the barred owl and West Nile Virus.

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09/30/04 Update

The Roseburg BLM has dusted off another timber sale that was originally proposed in 1998, but shelved due partly to efforts of Umpqua Watersheds. It is in the Little River and Upper North Umpqua Watersheds, very close to residents in the Little River area, some of who formed a grassroots citizens group in the nineties to oppose the sale. Here are the facts:

• 6.7 million board feet of publicly owned trees sold to private industry,

• 357 total acres affected,

• 140 acres clearcutting (AKA "regeneration harvest") of mature and/or old growth forest, including clearcutting along both sides of an existing power line right-of-way, due to fears that trees could fall on the lines once the stand is opened up by thinning. This also includes 57 acres of Connectivity land important for the declining Northern Spotted Owl,

• 212 acres of thinning

This sale area would remove (destroy) 140 acres of suitable habitat for the northern spotted owl —mature and old growth forests over 80 years old. Another 200 acres of a young plantation would be thinned also. The thinning is good, but clearing old forests the owl depends on is detrimental, especially at a time when the owls are facing new threats and continue to decline in numbers.

The sale area is prime habitat for the northern goshawk; they have been seen during a recent government survey. Golden eagles have also been seen. There is a known red-tailed hawk nest site in Unit 33A that would be destroyed, along with eight more acres of suitable hawk habitat.

The BLM wants to turn mature forests into tree farms: no hardwoods, no mixed ages, no mixed conifer species, just Douglas firs all planted at once, for the future benefit of timber companies.

Some of the stands that BLM wants to log have been clearcut before. They are not over dense plantations that would benefit from thinning. These are the areas of the forest the BLM should be concentrating on managing, not mature and old growth forests that are doing just fine.