TELL BLM NO!!

Why this matters

Tell the BLM no to mandatory maximum yield timber harvests across 2.4 million acres of Western and coastal Oregon. STOP FEDS’ LATEST TIMBER GRAB: BLM's DISASTROUS PROPOSAL TO MAXIMIZE PUBLIC FOREST LOGGING ACROSS WESTERN OREGON We've got a short time left to push back against BLM's Notice Of intent to revise the plans that guide the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) management of 2.5 million acres of Western and Coastal Oregon’s public forests. The agency's goal for revising the plans is clear: maximize timber production at the expense of all other forest values. In other words, as the twin climate and biodiversity crises rage on, the Administration wants to catapult back to the days of clearcutting public forests and sacrificing species’ survival, habitat protections, and drinking water sources to achieve unsustainable logging levels. “We know that this administration wants to fully exploit our forest. That’s what Trump said in the executive order last year, ‘to fully exploit", and a long list of subsequent administrative and legislative actions have furthered this EO- as is this BLM Notice Of Intent. We encourage everyone to use their voices and push back against this because this is not what Oregonians want for our public lands.

Steps to Take

Step 1

Read through any attached info that you can to inform you for writing a comment to BLM. Maps, graphs, and more provided. This is a big issue, and so has tons of research compiled, and you can dive in as deep as you'd like. Also, this is only the first step in BLM's Plan revision process, so we can likely use our knowledge learned for this Action toward the next steps that arise.

Feel free to use one of our comment options as a template, or combine parts of them, and personalize and make your own.

Step 2

Official Submission portal:

or email at: BLM_OR_Revision_Scoping@blm.gov

and/or via snail-Mail:(Not preferred method) Attention BLM ORWA: 1220 SW 3rd Ave, Portland OR 97204

Click the BLM planning comment portal link, and follow directions to paste or upload your comment for submission, before the March 23, 8:59 PST deadline. Or email it via the email address above.

Via email or snail-mail, make sure to include this Project Number in your subject line:Project Number: DOI-BLM-ORWA-0000-2026-0001-RMP-EIS

You can upload any studies, links or attachments to your comment there.Remember that any personal identifying information within your submission will be made publicly available.

Sample Text

Option 1

A COMMENT ON THE ECONOMY THAT'S ALREADY HERE — RECREATION & TOURISM
  For: Guides, outfitters, hunters, anglers, recreation businesses, outdoor community  
  *Personalize the[ bracketed ]sections with your own details before submitting.


To: BLM Western Oregon District
Re: Notice of Intent — Western Oregon Resource Management Plan Revision

I run [a rafting guide service / a hunting outfitter / a fishing guide business / an outdoor recreation company] in [county]. My livelihood depends on the same forests, rivers, and fish runs that this management plan proposes to treat as a timber production zone.

Outdoor recreation generates $16 billion in consumer spending in Oregon and supports 192,000 jobs. Forestry and logging employ roughly 8,800 people statewide. That's not an argument against logging— it's an argument for honesty about which economy is growing and supporting our economy and families.

The visitors who book trips with me come because this place is still intact. They come for the old trees, the clear water, the elk, the salmon, the views, the silence. That is the product. You cannot clearcut the product and keep selling it.

I've watched communities in this region try to hold on through promises of a timber comeback that hasn't materialized. Meanwhile, the outdoor economy has been growing steadily— not because of a government mandate, not because of an executive order, but because the landscape here is truly like nowhere else on Earth, and people want to experience it. That is a renewable resource. A 300-year-old tree is not.

The BLM's NOI does not analyze the economic value of recreation, tourism, clean water, or the ecosystem services these forests provide. It treats the land as if timber is its only value. That is not an honest accounting of what western and coastal Oregonians stand to lose— and gain— depending on how these forests are managed.

I urge BLM to conduct a genuine economic analysis that includes the full (non-timber) ecological values of intact older forests before making any decision. The current proposal is not a path to rural economic recovery-it is in fact, quite the opposite.  It would be a one-time liquidation of assets that took centuries to accumulate; that would simultaneously severely harm (and sever sectors) of our vital outdoor economy. 

Sincerely,
[Business name or type,  and area, city, or county]
[How long you've operated / how many local people you employ…]

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Option 2

A COMMENT ON ECOLOGICAL VALUES — SCIENCE GROUNDED
For: Anyone who wants to lead with the ecological argument, scientifically supported   
  *Personalize the [ bracketed ]sections with your own details before submitting.



To: BLM Western Oregon District
Re: Notice of Intent — Western Oregon Resource Management Plan Revision

I am submitting this comment in strong opposition to the proposed revision of the western Oregon Resource Management Plans, which would eliminate wildlife habitat and old-growth protections and mandate harvest toward maximum productive capacity across 2.5 million acres.

Western and Coastal Oregon's low-elevation mature and old-growth forests are among the most ecologically significant on the planet. These are not an interchangeable timber resource—they are functioning systems that took centuries to develop and that provide irreplaceable services no replanted forest can substitute for.

The science on carbon alone should give pause. These forests store an average of 1,127 metric tons of carbon per hectare— among the highest of any forest type on Earth. Oregon, Washington, and California together hold nearly 40 percent of total U.S. forest carbon. Logging old-growth releases 40 to 65 percent of that stored carbon, even accounting for wood products. A 300-year-old stand could take centuries to recover what is lost in a single harvest season.

The fire risk argument used to justify this plan does not hold for these forests. Peer-reviewed science is consistent: high-intensity logging and clearcutting in moist and wet western Oregon forest types increases fire hazard for up to 50 years by removing the moisture-retaining canopy, drying the landscape, and replacing complex forest structure with dense, fire-prone plantations. The forests being targeted are not the problem — they are part of the solution.

These forests also sustain the salmon, the water tables, and the moisture-cycling systems that rural communities depend on. The temperate rainforest dynamic— where old forest canopy creates fog drip and generates a portion of its own precipitation— cannot be replanted. Once the canopy is gone and the water table drops, the system does not simply recover when new trees are planted. This is a one-way door.

Greatly reducing the stream buffers and riparian zones as suggested in this NOI would also be incredibly damaging to the already struggling and threatened coastal coho as well as other salmon and anadromous fish —who rely on these stream-side trees to keep the water cold enough to grow in and survive. 

The ESA and wildlife concerns are not addressed anywhere in this Notice Of Intent. Spotted owl and marbled murrelet habitat overlaps directly with the areas targeted for expanded harvest. Litigation over this conflict is already active. Proceeding without resolving that conflict does not eliminate the legal problem— it guarantees it will be resolved by courts instead of by responsible planning, likely stalling or halting harvest mid-stream and delivering neither the economic nor the ecological outcomes communities need.

I urge BLM to withdraw this NOI and return to a planning process that is grounded in science, that honestly accounts for the ecological and economic value of intact forests, and that engages communities in designing a future they can actually sustain.

Respectfully, 
[Your background — researcher, teacher, farmer, outdoor guide, lifelong resident, etc.]
[your region or county, Oregon

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Option 3

A COMMENT ON ECONOMIC REALITY
  For: Loggers, mill workers, rural families skeptical of conservation arguments   
  *Personalize the [ bracketed ]sections with your own details before submitting


To: BLM Western Oregon District
Re: Notice of Intent — Western Oregon Resource Management Plan Revision

My [neighbor/friend/family] has been involved in the logging industry in [county name] for [X years/generations]. I am not writing this as an environmentalist. I'm writing it as someone who has watched our community shrink for [X years/decades] and has learned to be skeptical of anyone — on any side — who promises that one policy change will fix it.
[Add in your county/area, how long you've lived here /your connection to the land] 

The BLM is proposing to increase federal timber harvest on western Oregon public lands from roughly 250 million board feet to 1 billion board feet per year. That's four times what's being cut now. Supporters say this will bring jobs and revenue back to our counties. Before I get behind that, I have some pertinent questions that haven't been answered.

Where are the mills? Linn County had 64 wood products facilities in the 1970s. It has 4 today. Weyerhaeuser employs about 950 people in all of Oregon — down from 4,000 in 2006. The processing infrastructure to handle four times the federal harvest does not exist. I've heard no plan to build it.

Who does the planting? Every acre logged has to be replanted by hand — there's no machine that does it. That work is done almost entirely by H-2B guest workers. Jackson County, Oregon accounts for 25% of all H-2B forestry visas in the entire country. The same administration pushing this harvest expansion is also deporting that workforce. On March 16, 2026 they quietly cut guest worker wages, which tells you all you need to know about whether American workers are filling those jobs.

Where is the county revenue guarantee? After the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed July 4, 2026 redirected profits from timber sales on federal land back to the US treasury instead of the counties, the FY 2026 Appropriations Bill included language directing a 75% share of O&C Lands timber counties. However, The 75% rate in the FY2026 budget expires September 30, 2026. Without permanent authorizing legislation, counties could see four times the logging and no stronger legal claim to the money than they have today.

I have watched these communities be promised economic salvation through timber expansion before. It didn't come then, and the structural conditions that prevented it — automation, Wall Street ownership, log exports, no local mill capacity — have only deepened since. I am not opposed to responsible timber harvest. I am opposed to policies that clear our forests on the promise of prosperity that the numbers do not support.

I urge the BLM to reject this management plan revision and instead work with communities on targeted, sustainable harvest that protects what remains of our old growth habitats (which are also the strong economic drivers of our outdoor recreation and tourism businesses,) and delivers real, legally guaranteed economic benefit to local counties — not just to corporate shareholders.

Thank you for strongly considering your answers to these questions, and addressing the issues at hand for real working solutions,

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Option 4

A COMMENT for the  WHOLE PICTURE 
 ( For: People who want to address the legal, economic, and ecological issues together )
  *Erase this section, and Personalize the[ bracketed ]sections with your own details before submitting.
EEEK, 1400 characters too long! MUST EDIT TO 5000!

To: BLM Western Oregon District
Re: NEPA Project # DOI-BLM-ORWA-0000-2026-0001-2026-0001-RMP-EIS

As a [resident / voter / landowner / community member..] in [county/ area], I submit this comment in opposition to the proposed RMP for western Oregon BLM lands.

The case being made for this plan rests on three claims: that it will create local jobs, that it will deliver economic benefit to O&C counties, and that it will reduce wildfire risk. Each of these claims deserves scrutiny.

On jobs: Linn County had 64 wood products facilities in the 1970s. Today it has 4— a large part of local mill decline was due to mass exportation of raw logs, along with the fact that the US exports most of their timber and imports from Canada and elsewhere-and many of the jobs have been outsourced. One logging worker now produces 46% more board feet than in 1990, because of automation. The infrastructure to process a fourfold increase in federal harvest does not exist. The labor-intensive forestry work—reforestation, fuels treatment, brush control —is and has been performed almost entirely by H-2B guest workers (starting in the early 80’s) 25% of whom work through Jackson County. 
Watching the last 90 years trends of Oregon’s annual timber harvest amounts along with timber-related wages and employment, it is obvious that while harvest production rates fluctuate and often rise—local’s wages and rate of employment has been on a constant decline since the 1970s, and today with so much automated- there is zero chance of that changing. On top of that, locals would no longer want most of the labor-intensive forestry work, poor wages, or unsafe working conditions that the migrant workers endure. The unbelievable irony here is the the administration's deportation policies are actively eliminating that workforce (and simultaneously quietly lowering their wages to appeal to industry bosses during this pressure to increase harvests nation-wide)— while at the very same time claiming this new RMP will create local jobs. 
These things cannot both be true.

On county revenue: The 75% O&C revenue share that some say justifies this plan is not written into permanent law. It is only added into the FY2026 budget appropriations bill and expires September 30, 2026. The permanent statute (43 U.S.C. § 2605) still says 50%. The recently introduced O&C Renewal Act being discussed alongside this NOI does not mention the 75% share once. Counties could face four times the intense logging with no stronger legal claim to the money than they have today; in fact even far less! 

The fact that the One Big Beautiful Bill got signed into law after various failed attempts at direct Public Land sell-offs, while still containing language to re-direct all profits from long-term timber contracts on federally managed lands to the U.S. treasury —instead of to the respective counties who steward them—was shocking to our O&C counties. Combined with the two-year lapse on SRS Program funding, many people got legitimately scared and so some see hope in this suggested plan. However, instead of this “offer”of higher promised timber yield being seen like a gift for rural Western Oregon’s economic future—I see it more like a quietly ticking bundle of dynamite that could explode and take everything we hold dear at any moment, with just a few swipes of a pen.

On wildfire: Peer-reviewed science consistently finds that high-intensity logging in moist western Oregon forests increases fire hazard for up to 50 years by removing the fire-resistant, moisture-retaining old canopy and replacing it with dense, dry young plantations. The Coastal and west side of the Coast Range forests are among the most fire-resilient forest types in the Pacific Northwest.
More clearcutting or intense thinning and more new logging roads near the coast Will Not protect us from wild-fires, and as we know from many published thorough studies (including from the USFS)—a huge percentage of wild fires start along or near a road, and are mostly human caused.
Selective interspersed thinning to clear out overstocked timberland, clearing away from communities, and home hardening  however, have all been proven effective—and should be considered as first options
To protect families and homes.

I recommend considering and adding these missing parts to the BLM’s continuing analysis: 
1)Carbon value of these low elevation and western forests (1,127 metric tons per hectare —among the highest on Earth); 
2)the economic value of the outdoor recreation economy these forests support ($16 billion in Oregon consumer spending, 192,000 jobs); 
3)The clean water, salmon, and watershed services that rural communities directly depend on, and
4)A full ecological analysis of the various multi-use forest vales alongside an accurate economic analysis, adjusted to incorporate these statistics addressed herein.
I also recommend NOT reducing stream buffers or riparian zones. If the habitat is trending toward healthier, then help it to continue. It takes generations to recover fully, and we need these protections left in place. 
Same for the Areas of Critical Environmental Concern; please leave all current ACEC’S in tact that any locals or visitors frequent or love. And if any do get re-evaluated and their status reviewed, we urge you to involve the public in that process, as we very possibly could supply the BLM with needed local knowledge of the area.

This suggested RMP was not clearly created by local community input —the people the plan proposes to help.  BLM's own NOI cites President Trump's March 2025 executive order as its directing authority. Western Oregon communities deserve a planning process that starts from their actual needs —not from a White House directive—or the pre-determined desired outcome that was also stated in this Notice, and therefore will likely greatly influence and distort the findings and details for formulating the EIS (which happens to be illegal for the agency to do.)

I urge BLM to withdraw this NOI and instead commit to a un-rushed, thorough, transparent, science-based, community-driven planning process. 
Start by holding Public meetings at various counties within the planning areas, and work with the O&C counties rural general population who live and work here, and frequent these BLM managed public lands. Work within the long-term big picture, and take extra care to follow the BLM’s own mission and vision.

Thank you for your time and thorough consideration,

[ if desired- County or area, Oregon]
[Your background or connection to these issues]

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Details

Type: Public Comments
Organizations: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) O&C Lands Act