The Issue
The Siskiyou Wild Rivers is Oregon's largest intact wilderness and is home to over 100 plant species found nowhere else in the world. Healthy, abundant salmon runs teem in the blue-green waters of the Illinois, Chetco and Rogue Rivers. This area also includes Oregon's only Redwood forests, growing to a massive 15 feet in diameter. These wildlands function as a lifeboat for wildlife as pressures from climate change and unchecked development mount. Unfortunately this area is threatened by lawless mining and a proposal to allow 115 miles of ATV trails to bisect it.
Wilderness for Adaption to Global Warming
Habitat for Refuge and Adaption to Global Warming
On land and in the air the Siskiyou Wild Rivers wilderness is home to bald eagles, northern spotted owls, salamanders, Roosevelt elk, and black bear. As the global temperature warms, plants and animals will have to migrate either northward or up in elevation. This area has an elevation span from near sea level to 5,000 ft. Not only does this area provide for elevational maneuvering, but it also provides 50 miles of connected north-south habitat. The Siskiyou Wild Rivers wilderness provides the only intact large tract of habitat along the Pacific Coast from the Olympics to south of San Francisco.
Cool Wild Rivers for Wild Salmon in a Warming World
The Siskiyou Wild Rivers wilderness hosts coho, spring and fall chinook salmon, summer and winter steelhead, as well as sea-run cutthroat and coastal rainbow trout. Rising temperatures from climate change pose a risk to our rivers in several ways. Most species of fish in Oregon prefer cold clear waters. Changes in precipitation patterns could also affect water levels that affect fish populations and salmon spawning. Protecting the rivers, and in particular the adjacent forests that shade the rivers, will be critical in keeping river water at healthy temperatures for fish.
Protecting Biodiversity of World Significance
The Siskiyou Wild Rivers wilderness hosts an amazing diversity of plants, including hundreds of species that live nowhere else on earth. Given the abundance of rare plants living in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers, the World Conservation Union has designated the region as an Area of Global Botanical Significance. This amazing diversity is attributable to the area having been spared recent volcanic activity and missing the last ice age. The plants have been evolving here for a very long time under natural conditions.