Southwest Oregon's Rogue River flows through one of the most spectacular and biologically unique wildlands in the United States.  Right now, only part of the lower Rogue's watershed is protected, leaving a large adjacent roadless area open to commercial logging, mining, and road-building.  With each timber sale and new road built, the roadless area shrinks in size, the valuable wildlife habitat is degraded, and recreational opportunities are lost. Now is the time to protect these roadless areas and free-flowing streams for this and future generations by expanding the incredible Wild Rogue Wilderness Area. 

Approximately 58,340 acres of the Wild Rogue area should be added to and managed as part of the existing Wild Rogue Wilderness. Click here for a map of the proposal for Wilderness and Wild & Scenic additions.

Click here to download the entire Wild Rogue profile (2MB).

A History of Wilderness

The Federal Lands Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) required the Bureau of Land Management to review all of its land for areas potentially suitable for designation as Wilderness by Congress. BLM had 15 years to inventory roadless areas, designate Wilderness Study Areas, study them and submit recommendations on the WSAs to Congress for final disposition.  Another provision of FLPMA stated:

BLM first interpreted the provision as prohibiting them from recognizing any of the infamous “O&C” lands30 in Western Oregon as having wilderness values, let alone recommending to Congress as to whether or not they should be in the National Wilderness Preservation System. BLM contends that the O&C Lands Act of 1937 is a “timber-first!” mandate. Nonetheless, Congress has designated three Wilderness Areas and six Wild & Scenic Rivers that include O&C lands and generally prohibit timbering.

But all wilderness dwellers, hunters and fishermen, and lovers of the forest, hate automobile roads, and know they are one great cause, probably the greatest, of our vanishing America. - Zane Grey

Circa 1980, BLM changed its policy to allow “non-commercial” (lands incapable of growing at least 20 cubic feet of wood per acre per year [a cube approximately 2.8 feet on a side for an area of approximately one city block]) O&C lands to be considered for WSA status. By applying this criterion, it identified an arbitrary and amoeba-like boundary including approximately 18,000 acres off the larger 48,790-acre Zane Grey Roadless Area. It then proceeded to disqualify it from further Wilderness consideration because of historical artifacts and mining impacts and limited opportunities for solitude. BLM did this in spite of the fact that the Zane Grey Roadless Area is generally of the same natural character and has similar historical mining impacts as the Wild Rogue Wilderness downstream, of which is all part of the same large roadless corridor. BLM continues to refuse to recognize the roadless values of the area to this day.

Regardless of BLM timber biases, these proposed additions to the Wild Rogue Wilderness and Rogue Wild & Scenic River are national treasures and ought to be protected.