Federal judge blocks old-growth logging project on Oregon coast
Source: Courthouse News Service
May 15, 2026
(CN) — A federal judge has blocked a proposal to allow logging on 3,200 acres of public land in Western Oregon.
Conservation groups said the plan would have felled thousands of acres of old-growth trees, some of which have stood for more than 200 years.
“Wild, ancient forests like those targeted for logging in the Blue and Gold project are exactly the type of places our public land agencies should be protecting to provide clean drinking water, refuges for imperiled wildlife and natural fire resilience,” John Persell, a senior staff attorney with the group Oregon Wild, said in a written statement. “Instead of managing for these values for the whole public, the BLM and the Trump administration are trying to exploit these precious and rare forests for maximum, short-term benefits of just a few logging corporations.”
According to its own resource management plan for the area, the Bureau of Land Management or BLM must protect trees that are more than 40 inches in diameter and that were established before 1850. According to the plaintiffs, some of the trees in the project area are Douglas-firs “ranging from 200 to 600 years old or older.”
Read more: https://courthousenews.com/federal-judge-blocks-old-growth-logging-project-on-oregon-coast/
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/cascadia-wildlands-v-blm-opinion.pdf
REFERENCE / RELATED - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143599623
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