Groups seek court order to halt logging in old-growth west of Yoncalla

Old-growth trees west of Yoncalla were already coming down when conservation groups went to federal court seeking to stop more logging in the Blue and Gold project, a sprawling timber sale in Douglas County that could affect some of the oldest public forest left in the Oregon Coast Range.

Cascadia Wildlands, Crag Law Center and Oregon Wild filed for a temporary restraining order over the project, which lies about 37 miles southwest of Eugene near Sutherlin, Oakland and Yoncalla in the Umpqua River watershed. The sale proposes to log about 3,200 acres of public forest, including several hundred acres along rivers and creeks. Conservation groups say volunteers found multiple trees estimated to be more than 170 years old and more than 40 inches in diameter had been cut, and that other groves targeted for logging were estimated to be more than 600 years old.

The dispute goes beyond one cut block. The plaintiffs say the unit where recent logging was documented contains an occupied northern spotted owl site, and their filings also point to marbled murrelet habitat and Oregon Coast coho salmon habitat. They argue that logging older stands in the Blue and Gold project would erase forest structure that cannot be quickly replaced, especially in a landscape where the oldest trees are among the last remaining on public ground.

Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands first challenged the project on Sept. 30, 2024. They say the case was argued in federal court in November 2025 and was still awaiting a district court decision when the restraining-order motion was filed. The groups contend the Bureau of Land Management violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and they say agency representatives first denied old growth existed in the area before later telling the court the trees would be protected.

Nick Cady of Cascadia Wildlands accused the bureau of saying one thing to the public and another in court. BLM did not respond to a request for comment. The American Forest Resource Council, another defendant named in the restraining-order filing, said it does not represent the company that holds the timber rights in the area where the trees were allegedly cut.

The Blue and Gold fight has already produced related sales and decisions, including the Prince Butte timber sale decision record issued by BLM’s Roseburg District on Aug. 21, 2025. It also sits inside a broader western Oregon land-management battle: BLM’s plan revision process closed its scoping period on March 23, 2026, and Oregon Wild says the state has about 2.4 million acres of BLM-managed backyard forests. For Lane County readers, the question is simple and immediate: whether the court steps in now, or whether the last old-growth patches west of Yoncalla are cut before the larger case is decided.