Compelling Reasons to Help Stop the WOPR--

• With a small fraction of our old growth still standing, the WOPR would cut 100,000 acres of old growth forest and many more tens of thousands of acres of native, biodiverse forest (future old growth).  If Oregon doesn't want to become a fiber farm, it needs to keep its old and second growth.   

• WOPR would result in 180 million metric tons more carbon in the atmosphere compared to a plan that would conserve our forests as carbon storage systems, based on the BLM's own estimates. This is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 1 million cars driven for 132 years.

• 70% of the overall harvest would come from clearcut logging. The BLM describes this practice as a "regeneration harvest" with "zero green tree retention." That means clearcutting and leaving no trees standing!  The BLM would replace these biodiverse forests that have survived for millennia with monoculture Doug firs. The result of this swap is a permanent loss of genes that have allowed forests to survive disturbances, like bark beetles, increased fire risk, and increased landslide risk.  Because 40,000 Oregonians live within one half-mile of BLM land, the WOPR is a major threat for rural citizens.   Moreover, rare and potentially very valuable species will be decimated.  We don't know all that we stand to lose in terms of the potentially valuable chemicals in the native plants and fungi; these are irreplaceable.  Remember the yew tree which gave us the anti-cancer drug Taxol.  

• Protection for rivers and streams would be slashed in half compared to the current Northwest Forest Plan, with no plan in place for someone else to pick up this slack that the BLM would leave.  

• The Northwest Forest Plan, a landmark agreement made in 1994, combined management of both BLM and Forest Service under one plan and was a compromise between industry and environmental interests. We should be taking steps forward from the currnet plan, not backward with the WOPR.  

• The WOPR would most likely eliminate more non-timber jobs (in fishing, recreation, and ecotourism) than the timber jobs that it would create.  It would make it impossible for small-scale, sustainable foresters to sell their logs, as WOPR would glut the market with high-value old growth.  

• The WOPR would provide only a third as much money to the counties as the federal payments in total that were just approved under the bailout package.   

•        The WOPR violates more than a dozen current laws and plans designed to provide just minimal protections and to help salmon recover.  

From Eugene Anti WOPR Coalition campaign to protect remaining Old Grow Forests