Defending the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Expansion

President Clinton designated the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in 2000. It is the first and only national monument specifically established to protect biological diversity. But ecologists agreed after the designation that many of the most important parts of the region were excluded from the monument’s boundaries. In 2015, 85 scientists concerned about increasing threats to the area signed a letter urging monument expansion in to better protect and connect important habitats for the monument’s spectacular variety of plants and animals “whose survival in the region,” according the monument’s original proclamation, “depends upon its continued ecological integrity.” In January 2017, President Obama expanded the monument to include these ecologically important areas.

Soon after, a timber company and the Association of O&C Counties, keen on logging, filed separate lawsuits suggesting an obscure law requires the area be logged and supersedes the Antiquities Act, used to designate and expand the monument. They’re wrong, and we’re representing the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, Klamath-Siskiyou Wild, Oregon Wild, and the Wilderness Society, defending the monument from this industry attack. These lawsuits are stayed (paused) until the Trump administration completes its review and implements any changes to national monuments.

We prevailed in magistrate court, and that ruling was then affirmed in Oregon District Court. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals further affirmed our victory in early 2023. There remain two more cases in the District Court of the District of Columbia, and our wins bode well for a positive outcome there.