For more than thirty years, we at Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project have been working to protect federal lands in eastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. We stop or modify countless projects that threaten ecological diversity and integrity: logging, road building, livestock grazing, herbicide/biocide use, and mining. We prioritize the protection of old growth, sensitive and listed species, and water quality.
Legal Victories:
Timber sales and logging
- In the last days of the first Trump administration, the Forest Service illegally rolled back protections for large trees established by the Eastside Screens without adequate environmental analysis and by circumventing the public commenting and objection process. These rollbacks would have allowed the Forest Service to not only log larger trees, but do so with less public accountability. BMBP filed litigation over the rollback of protections for large trees, as did several environmental groups in a separate lawsuit. After favorable rulings in the two cases by two separate federal magistrate judges, the District of Oregon declared the 2021 Eastside Screens Amendment illegal and reinstated the original protections on March 29, 2024. Because of the work BMBP and its allied environmental organizations, there will be no large trees logged as part of the South Warner timber sale, nor or in any Forest Service timber sale in the Blue Mountains National Forests under the illegal 2021 Eastside Screens amendment.
- With co-plaintiff Hells Canyon Preservation Council, we won our District Court appeal on the Snow Basin timber sale. This decision upheld the argument that the United States Forest Service (USFS) could not move forward with plans that would have violated existing standards (such as those protecting large trees), because their analysis and consideration of important ecological conditions were inadequate. This ruling set an important precedent for other timber sales, and saved over 10,000 large trees.
- Also in 2014, we won our Ninth Circuit appeal supporting our legal claim that the USFS needs to better analyze potential impacts and protect riparian areas from toxic herbicide spraying on the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. We plan to apply this precedent-setting victory to improve other invasive plant management plans
- We set legal precedent on limiting post-fire logging in sales such as the Big Tower Fire in the Umatilla National Forest.
- We protected Aldrich roadless area in the JOBS timber sale, a rare ancient forest that has never been logged.
- Additional legal work has protected thousands of acres. Ecologically sensitive areas have been dropped from logging projects, including those in moist mixed conifer forests, roadless areas, and critical wildlife habitat. We have prevented excessive road building and have stopped the re-opening of closed roads.
- We helped achieve protections for the M&O, Aldrich Mountain, Dixie Butte, Egley, and Fox roadless areas.Biocides/herbicides:
- We won our Ninth Circuit appeal supporting our legal claim that the USFS needed to better analyze potential impacts and protect riparian areas from toxic herbicide spraying within the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. This precedent-setting victory in 2014 led to the improvement of other USFS invasive plant management plans.
- We reduced herbicide use on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest from 11,000 to 1,000 acres in 2012. This win also resulted in strengthening case law for cumulative impacts analysis.
- We shut down biocide spraying against a native Tussock Moth species in approximately six million acres across six national forests in Oregon and Washington in 2002. This case set legal precedent on Clean Water Act law involving point-sources of pollution. Had the spraying had been allowed, all species of moths and butterflies in their larval stages would have been killed.
- In 2022, we stopped the use of dangerous herbicides on public forests in Malheur National Forest for over a decade and stimulated Region 6 to revise its regional Invasive Plant Management Plan to emphasize prevention of exotic invasive plants.
Protections for streams and mature and old forests:
- Under threat of litigation from Natural Resources Defense Council, BMBP, and other allies in the mid-90’s, the USFS incorporated more protective standards into its forest management plans in eastern Washington and Oregon. Standards now include increased buffers for fish-bearing streams, goals for monitoring and restoration for streams and fish habitat, and some protections for Northern goshawk nest and post-fledging areas.
These are just a few of our many legal victories on behalf of wild lands. Many other destructive projects have been prevented or significantly modified through appeals, public exposure, and negotiation. In addition, we continue to challenge ecologically harmful post-fire logging and bring needed public attention to the overwhelmingly negative ecological impacts of post-fire logging projects. We have also prevented excessive road building, and stopped the re-opening of closed roads through our negotiation efforts.
Training and Outreach:
- The training of over 500 volunteer interns during our summer internship program. Interns are trained in forest ecology, wildlife and plant identification, map and compass orienteering, understanding of environmental law and the functioning of government agencies, and other activist skills.
- Reaching thousands of people with our speaking presentations, workshops, activist skills training, and media interviews.
Read our Get Involved! page to see how you can help!