2025 in Review and What’s Ahead

2025 was a bit of a rodeo, to say the least. We saw the decades-old dreams of sagebrush rebels and pro-industry/anti-regulation zealots surface once again in attempts to sell off public lands and hamstring the agencies that manage them. We also saw the first steps towards an attempted repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and moves made to restrict public awareness and input on timber and mining projects. Locally, we saw some National Forests behaving better than others, but the overall trend seems to be moving away from a productive dialogue about how to protect the public’s interests and towards producing timber at all costs. 

We also saw you - the people who care about these places! – take more action than ever before. Over 700 of you spoke up in response to the public lands selloff, repeal of the Roadless Rule, Forest Planning, and individual timber sales. Thank you! It was a busy year, but you all showed up in stride, and we appreciate you. 

In the public lands “watchdogging” world, a lot happened. Here are a few updates on projects you interacted with us on throughout 2025:

National Rulemaking

We are keeping a very close eye on the proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, an early 2000s administrative rule that protects around 700,000 acres of unroaded lands in our mission area. This includes almost half of all lands within the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and many other important landscapes around the Eagle Cap, Joseph Canyon, Mt. Emily, and the headwaters of the Grande Ronde and forks of the John Day rivers. An incredible number of folks (600,000+!) commented nationally (overwhelmingly in opposition) on the initial phase of this proposed repeal, and we anticipate another public comment process in the spring or summer of 2026. 

This repeal effort has a proposed remedy in Congress, called the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which had a hearing in the Senate subcommittee earlier this month. If passed, this would permanently (legislatively) protect roadless areas covered under the Roadless Rule. We hope it will get some more airtime in 2026. So many of you took action on both the proposed rule repeal and bill – thank you! 

2025 also brought significant changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), another attempt at removing key provisions from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and more rumblings about forthcoming attempts to rescind the national Travel Management Rule. We will see how this all shakes out in 2026. 

Blue Mountain Forest Planning

 2025 included the “official” start of the 3rd attempt at producing new management plans for the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla, and Malheur National Forests. The feedback we’re hearing from both within and outside of our communities isn’t great: folks are finding the process inadequate and frustrating, and feel that the Forest Service is shying away from dealing with big, important issues so they can just get it done. We share these concerns. In 2026, we expect to see a number of public engagement opportunities, including more public meetings and the ability to review a couple of different options (alternatives) for the new plans. We know this continues to be an arduous and uninspiring decades-long process, but we must continue to stay doggedly engaged as advocates for wildlife, clean water, and intact landscapes. Stay tuned, and if you have any thoughtful ideas on how we can help make the process better, we are all ears. 

State and Local Level Management Plans

In Oregon, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is almost done developing its new State Wildlife Action Plan, a 10(ish)-year plan for conserving fish, wildlife, and their habitats across the state. It was approved by the ODFW commission in August and will likely receive final approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service soon. 

Locally, ODFW solicited public comment on a management plan for the newly acquired Minam River Wildlife Area. We provided detailed comments on the draft plan, including asking some clarifying questions about the proposed land/forest management approaches. We were very pleased to see a focus on protecting and enhancing local and regional habitat connectivity in this plan. They will likely finalize the plan in 2026. 

Local Logging and Mining Projects 

This year was quite busy on this front, and will only be getting busier in 2026. A number of changes at the federal level (including changes to NEPA and Executive Orders), led to an increase in the urgency to log and mine, along with an expansion of the tools that allow projects to be expedited at the expense of public awareness and input. This all happened as the Forest Service and other agencies simultaneously hamstrung themselves by furloughing and firing staff that do the work on the ground.

2025 was a year of in-betweens. We engaged on several logging projects that were still doing things “the old way” (like doing a full environmental review! what a luxury), but also saw the tendrils of this new era creep in. This took many forms including, in some instances, forest leadership refusing to negotiate, Forests making sudden massive changes to projects to their detriment, failing to notify Tribes about actions, and designing and pushing through projects while key staff were missing. 

To be honest, the outlook on this front is bleak, but our goal in 2026 will be the same as it has been in 2025. We are going to do our best to engage on local projects respectfully and as early as possible, and to keep doing the work that really matters – advocating for these special habitats and landscapes that we all love. We also promise to do our best to keep you updated in the process.