CASCADIA WILDLANDS

The formation of Cascadia Wildlands in 1998 was catalyzed by the lawless practice of clear-cutting temperate ancient forests authorized by the Salvage Rider. As a result of this and continuing threats in this arena, we devote much of our efforts towards protecting old forests as they are critical to the survival of species teetering on the brink of extinction, including the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl.
Our efforts on public lands also address issues of appropriate uses such as roads, pipelines, and mining. We are currently monitoring, field checking, and litigating reckless logging proposals in older forest timber sales in places like Oregon’s Willamette National Forest, Umpqua National Forest and various western Oregon Bureau of Land Management Districts.

Cascadia is a bioregion defined by the northeastern Pacific Ocean and the associated watersheds. Those watersheds are filled with rivers, creeks and rivulets and many of those waterways were filled with salmon and steelhead. If we continue to squander this precious resource and lose our wild salmon, what does that say about us? We feel strongly that we cannot let that happenstance occur and therefore must restore and protect our wild salmon heritage. The salmon issue in the Pacific Northwest is complicated. We have five species of native salmon and one species of steelhead trout—all with different life-cycles and a multitude of names and nicknames. Historically, these six species of anadromous fish have faced a number of threats ranging from dams and forestry practices to water pollution and misguided fisheries management. While some of these historic threats are being addressed and we are seeing isolated progress, new threats are quickly erasing or threatening that progress. Recognizing all of the above, Cascadia Wildlands has launched a set of initiatives designed to save our wild salmon heritage that are informed by science and concentrates on solving root causes rather than applying additional "Band-Aids".

Climate change is currently the greatest and most formidable threat that we face as a planet. The science supporting climate change is conclusive and repeatedly borne out by myriad weather anomalies and arctic ice patterns, as well as biological phenomenon such as altered timing of migrations and species’ distributions. Cascadia Wildlands recognizes the immediate need to take action to lower atmospheric greenhouse gases and bring the climate back to a stable condition. We take a two-pronged approach to combating climate change, which includes both halting the fossil fuel industry’s emissions of greenhouse gasses, and defending Cascadia’s forests, which are some of the best in the world for storing carbon.