Federal officials are moving toward a major revision of forest management policy in western Oregon that could significantly expand timber harvesting across millions of acres of public land. The Bureau of Land Management has indicated it is considering changes that would open large areas of federal forestland to much higher levels of timber production, including areas that currently provide habitat for federally protected and vulnerable species.<\/p>\n
The agency announced in a notice of intent that it plans to update the Western Oregon Resource Management Plans, which have guided logging and conservation policy across 2.5 million acres of forestland in 17 Oregon counties for decades. These plans were last revised in 2016. The new process begins with a month-long public comment period, which will remain open until March 23. According to the notice, the agency does not expect to hold public meetings before releasing its proposal.<\/p>\n
The proposed revisions would affect public lands in Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Jackson, Josephine, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington and Yamhill counties.<\/p>\n
A substantial portion of these lands, known as O&C lands because they were once owned by the Oregon and California Railroad, is currently shielded from routine logging. Roughly three-quarters of the 2.5 million federal acres fall under those protections. However, the Bureau of Land Management indicated in its notice that it may seek to move harvesting on those lands back toward levels seen in the 1960s. That would represent more than ten times current harvest levels.<\/p>\n
The agency framed the proposed direction as part of a broader effort to support Trump administration priorities. In a statement, acting BLM Director Bill Groffy said restoring timber production to historic levels is critical for supporting local economies and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. He also said President Trump has made clear that increased domestic timber production is important for national security, economic growth and wildfire management.<\/p>\n
The announcement signals the beginning of what could become a major policy fight over the future of western Oregon forests, as the proposed changes would affect both timber production and long-standing conservation frameworks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Federal officials are moving toward a major revision of forest management policy in western Oregon that could significantly expand timber harvesting across millions of acres of public land. The Bureau of Land Management has indicated it is considering changes that would open large areas of federal forestland to much higher levels of timber production, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3775,254,179],"tags":[8335,8332,8333,8336,8334],"class_list":["post-55587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-timber","category-headline-news","category-journal","tag-blm-en","tag-federal-forests","tag-oc-lands","tag-trump-en","tag-usa-en"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Forests-west-oregon.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55588,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55587\/revisions\/55588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsiad.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}