The proclamation that established the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument in June 2000 noted that, "The monument is home to a spectacular variety of rare and beautiful species of plants and animals whose survival in this region depends upon its continued ecological integrity." It is that and more. We have our national monument; the task now is to ensure that its management fulfills its promise.
About the Monument
Citing the acreages of some of our most important natural places is a quick way of conveying their scale. But to note that the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument extends across 52,940 acres is to tell almost nothing of why it is so important.
For that, we can look to the plain language of the proclamation President Clinton signed for the Monument on June 9, 2000:
"With towering fir forests, sunlit oak groves, wildflower-strewn meadows and steep canyons, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is an ecological wonder, with biological diversity unmatched in the Cascade Range..."
"This rich enclave of natural resources is a biological crossroads-the interface of the Cascade, Klamath and Siskiyou ecoregions in an area of unique geology, biology, climate and topography..."
"The Monument is home to a spectacular variety of rare and beautiful species of plants and animals, whose survival in this region depends upon its continued ecological integrity."
To proclaim a national monument is to highlight its uniqueness and to create a promise to protect it. The actual protection will emerge from the minute details of the management plan devised for the place. Danger, like the devil, is in the details.
The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is the only national monument in Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the first set aside to protect an area's biological diversity. Plant communities there represent vegetation types found in the Great Basin, Cascade and Klamath Mountains. A rare diversity of butterflies occurs there, along with 300 other animal species, including unique fish and mollusks, as well as a number of rare plants.
Management Plan
The BLM will craft, with full opportunities for public comment, the near-term future of the Cascade-Siskiyou. The BLM is best known as the agency responsible for the care of the American west's wide-open spaces. And it manages some such places in the Oregon high desert. But anomalously, in California and Oregon the agency is also responsible for timberlands such as those that are part of the new national monument.
We will work to ensure that the management plan:
- Provides for the preservation, restoration and enhancement of the wilderness character of the Monument's Soda Mountain backcountry.
- Is not driven by commercial commodity production, even though commercial timber sale projects are permitted in the Monument under certain conditions.
- Provides for the closure and removal of as many roads as possible and further provides that no now-unpaved roads be paved.
- Sets out a process and timetable for acquisition of private rights of way, grazing leases and lands from willing sellers.
- Includes a framework for effective monitoring of the ecological impacts of all management activities.
The Wilderness Society and our conservation partners, the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council and the World Wildlife Fund chief among them, are working with the agency, taking advantage of every opportunity for public comment and participation, alerting our friends at the grassroots and enlisting their help in the process.
We mean to make sure that the management plan in its final form is faithful to the words and the intention of the proclamation itself. And we mean to make sure it reflects the proclamation's stark truth: there are plants and animals in the Monument "whose survival in this region depend upon its continued ecological integrity."
Threats to the Existence and Protection of Cascade Siskiyou
Boundary adjustments, road building, logging, and grazing
Cascade Siskiyou Facts
- Location: Southern Oregon
- Size: 52,000 acres
- Date: Cascade Siskyou National Monument was created on June 9, 2000
- Managing Agency: The Bureau of Land Management
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