Wilderness Watch is urging the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drop its plan for cutting and thinning trees in the Soda Mountain Wilderness in Oregon and instead protect the area’s wilderness character. The BLM’s Draft Resource Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument violates both the letter and spirit of the Wilderness Act.
The Soda Mountain Wilderness is nearly 25,000 acres within the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Many native species—such as Roosevelt elk, cougars, black bears, golden and bald eagles, goshawks, and falcons—make this Wilderness their home.
The BLM proposes tree cutting and thinning as part of its fire presuppression activities. It’s unclear whether chainsaws or other motorized equipment are proposed in the Wilderness. The Wilderness Act does not allow for fire presuppression activities, and BLM’s own policy states that fuel treatments like those proposed here are “not allowed in wilderness, except in rare circumstances.”
The Wilderness Act prohibits manipulating Wilderness and the use of motorized tools and equipment for good reason—to protect untrammeled Wilderness, where natural conditions prevail. It is far better to allow natural, lightning-caused fire to play its role, rather than invade Wilderness to cut down “undesirable” trees and try to create human-desired conditions.
Photo: Soda Mountain Wilderness by Kyle Sullivan/BLM
