Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Oregon challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) Blue and Gold Harvest Plan, which the organizations alleged would include “up to eight years of logging on approximately 3,237 acres of BLM-administered lands” in Douglas County, Oregon. The organizations alleged that the project area included “large, contiguous, unlogged, mature and old-growth forest.” The plaintiffs asserted that logging would irreparably damage these “incredibly rare” forests by converting them into “plantations designed to be logged in perpetuity,” which would “eliminate carbon stores and exacerbate wildfire risk and hazards in the region.” They asserted claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The plaintiffs claimed that BLM failed to ensure the project was consistent with the governing resource management plan’s directions regarding old-growth forests and endangered species. The plaintiffs also claimed that an environmental impact statement should have been prepared and that BLM failed to take a hard look at the project’s effects, including impacts on carbon storage, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change. The also alleged that BLM did not account for federal policy directives to calculate and disclose the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions associated with agency action and to conserve mature and oil-growth forests.

Challenge to a Bureau of Land Management project that would allegedly include logging on approximately 3,237 acres of lands in Douglas County, Oregon.

Cascadia Wildlands v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

Organizations Claimed BLM Logging Project in Oregon “Old-Growth” Forest Would Violate NEPA and FLPMA

Filed

United States of America

Oregon

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Using laws and the legal system more broadly to protect vulnerable entities

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Actions or measures to adapt terrestrial systems to climate change.

Actions or measures to adapt freshwater systems to climate change.

Actions and measures to adapt and increase resilience of societies and the economy to climate change.

Actions or measures to adapt freshwater, coastal and marine systems to climate change.

The release of heat-trapping gases, primarily from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, agriculture and industry.

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

woman and genders outside of the gender binary

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

Activities that relate to the production of goods and services from forests.

Activities involving the catching, processing, and selling of fish for food, recreation, and industry.

Climate change can have a range of impacts on technological system. Extreme weather events can cause infrastructure failures like power outages or damage to roads and bridges, as well as the impacts from waste following natural disasters. Human activities also cause technological impacts, such as the risks posed by oil spillage and leaks.

Organizations Claimed BLM Logging Project in Oregon “Old-Growth” Forest Would Violate NEPA and FLPMA

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance