Alissa Azar on Nostr: 🚨🚨 New forest defense has launched in Oregon Treesitters have launched a second ...

🚨🚨 New forest defense has launched in Oregon

Treesitters have launched a second occupation to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s "Rogue Gold" timber sale, which targets some of the last remaining old growth and mature forests in so-called Southern Oregon for commercial logging.

The protest comes just a few weeks after a successful protest against the agency's nearby Poor Windy Timber Sale, where activists won a concession preserving a swath of old growth trees after close to a month of treesitting. Last month's success only goes to show that direct action works, and these brave forest defenders are committed to continuing to fight tooth and nail until these trees are protected.

The forest where activists have set up their treesit occupation is located near the communities of Rogue River and Gold Hill. The sale is just one of many contentious logging projects that the BLM have proposed in Oregon in recent years. Currently, the agency has over 700,000 acres of forest land across the state proposed for cutting.

The Rogue Gold sale targets over 2,000 acres for commercial logging, including significant amounts of old growth and mature forests. Community groups and environmental organizations have been publicly opposing this project since it was originally proposed in 2021, with logging moving forward despite active litigation.