Oregon Has Lost Over 500,000 Acres of Forest Since 2000

A new study released Monday, 14 September, indicates that Oregon has allowed the deforestation of some 522,000 acres of once-pristine private forest land since the year 2000. The study, by the Center for Sustainable Economy, used satellite data to analyze forest cover in the western part of the state, and concludes that because deforestation is outpacing replanting efforts, forest loss since 2000 is upwards of 45% of total forestland. The study also addresses the impacts of logging roads, industrial tree plantations, and loss of long term forest productivity because of nutrient depletion, erosion and landslides that are triggered by industrial logging operations.

Rich, healthy forestland is critical to healthy, abundant salmon runs. The rivers and streams running through the deforested areas described in the report, and home to spawning adult and rearing juvenile salmonids, are subject to increased sediment loads, increased temperature, and additional pollution because of unsustainable logging practices and deforestation, note the report’s authors. All of those impacts would be mitigated by healthy forests around those streams. Although Oregon’s state-owned forests are considered more sustainably managed than Oregon’s privately owned forestlands, which are governed only under the lax rules of the Oregon Forest Practice Act, the State of Oregon has also recently taken steps toward the sale of its coastal Elliot State Forest to private logging interests, in order to raise revenue for cash-strapped forest revenue dependent Oregon counties. These counties are looking toward intensive logging of State Forests as sources of revenue to continue to subsidize their historically much lower than average property tax rates. But all recent efforts to upgrade the Oregon Forest Practices Act to improve its required protections for salmon and other aquatic specieson privately owned forestlands have failed to date.