Since 1964, two million acres of public forest lands in Oregon, mainly high elevation rocks and ice devoid of commercial timber value, have been protected by the Wilderness Act. Since 1964, our unprotected forests have been whittled away by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management at the behest of the timber industry. According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, in the last ten years alone, more of our public lands in Oregon have been cut down by the timber industry than have been protected as wilderness since the Act was passed 33 years ago. In 1990, the U.S. Forest Service estimated that only 2.1 million acres of unprotected forest wilderness remained in Oregon. The timber industry has already wiped out more than three-quarters of our public forest wilderness during the last century, and is poised to take even more.
Wilderness elimination is as morally bankrupt as it is ecologically and economically unsound.
Without wilderness, salmon and other native species will lose the strongholds that keep them from the brink of extinction. Without wilderness, the ancient forests which characterized this region at the turn of the century will continue to be reduced to widely scattered pockets, increasingly interspersed by enormous clearcuts. Increasingly, Oregon's communities dependent upon forested drinking water sources are recognizing the value of protecting these watersheds from logging and road-building. The alternative is dirty drinking water and inevitable loss of our wildlife heritage. Without wilderness, rural economies will continue their timber-based boom and bust.