Revisiting Change in 2021
While this blog has been silent since 2019, I have not been idle. My work down in the Umpqua River area of Southern Oregon has continued by visiting late-successional/old-growth forests that continue to be threatened with logging by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service. This was my sixth year of travel in the Umpqua and the last couple years have brought dramatic changes to some locations I have previously visited. Largely inspired by Canadian photographer TJ Watt’s collection of before and after photos of old-growth logging on Vancouver Island, I set out this year to do a similar project.
What follows is a collection of 10 or 12 photo pairs of forest stands altered by one of two events: the 2020 Woodchuck Timber Sale or the 2020 Archie Creek Wildfire. The Woodchuck Timber Sale was a BLM project that had been appealed by Umpqua Watersheds (a local environmental non-profit) to the highest level within the Department of Interior. Unfortunately, they were not able to secure an order to halt the project while their appeal was reviewed by the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA). The impact of that was that the project was free to continue while the appeal languished. The 2020 Archie Creek Wildfire burned through nearly 140,000 acres of terrain in the Rock Creek / North Fork Umpqua River area east of Glide, Oregon. The wildfire ravaged a number of areas that the BLM were planning to log under the Umpqua Sweets Harvest Plan (which was also sure to be appealed).
Much like TJ’s photo series, I’ve found the change in environment jarring, particularly in the areas burnt by the Archie Creek Wildfire. I can still recall the details and experiences of my many visits. I can try to put this into words but, quite frankly, that isn’t my strong suit. I hope these photos can tell their own story, of what we have, and what we can lose…
Woodchuck Timber Sale:
Archie Creek Wildfire:
