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From the President

Earlier this week, I traveled to Salem to participate in a press conference with Oregon Governor Kate Brown announcing a landmark new agreement between the timber industry and conservation groups including Wild Salmon Center.

For 25 years, we conservationists have been battling the timber industry over forest practices in Oregon.

Western Oregon rivers hold the greatest concentrations of healthy wild salmon and steelhead stocks remaining south of Canada. Science clearly tells us that we need to modernize our forest practices in Oregon, to properly protect forests around rivers and streams and the wild fish that call them home. 

This week we've plotted a new cooperative path to update timber practices and protect salmon. 

Based on the agreement, the Oregon Legislature will take up a package that includes new provisions on aerial pesticide spray, Rogue-Siskiyou stream rules, and support for a comprehensive habitat conservation plan for private timberlands in Oregon. Over the next 18 months, we will work to complete that  plan. When completed, these will be the most important protections for salmon and steelhead on Oregon private timberland in 25 years.

I want to applaud this new spirit of collaboration, and thank the Governor for stewarding this agreement. I want to also acknowledge the long, hard work of our staff, particularly Bob Van Dyk, to bring about this pact. And we need to thank the citizens and communities throughout Oregon that have spoken up in favor of new protections.

There’s still much work to be done to secure needed habitat protection for salmon. But we are prepared to work in good faith for a strong plan that will stand for decades to come.