Priorities and pathways to success in the year ahead.
Oregon’s high desert features millions of acres of expansive sagebrush plains, emerald ribbons of streamside habitat, iconic mountain ranges, craggy canyons and a diversity of wildlife that depend on healthy, intact ecosystems to thrive.
Building on our conservation achievements in 2024, Oregon Natural Desert Association has exceptional opportunities before us in 2025. With clear recognition of the challenges ahead, we will focus on protecting hard-earned conservation gains and growing new grassroots, community-led conservation initiatives. We will also promote conservation-minded policies at the state level and engage our partners to restore the high desert’s most important landscapes and species.
Every step of the way, each of you—ONDA’s members, volunteers and advocates—will play an important role as we build the groundswell of community support necessary to conserve public lands, waters and wildlife across the region.
Join us in accomplishing our 2025 priorities.
Putting new conservation plans into action
As a result of decades of advocacy, ONDA protected hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in the Owyhee Canyonlands and Greater Hart-Sheldon in 2024. We also improved conservation management for nearly 8 million acres of the most vital habitat in Oregon’s high desert. With the ink now dry on those plans, ONDA will turn our attention to working with the Bureau of Land Management to effectively implement plan provisions, including reducing impacts from off-road vehicle use, addressing invasive weeds and bolstering climate resiliency.
Growing community-led conservation initiatives
ONDA has engaged in community-led conservation for decades, building relationships and hosting conversations that emphasize shared values with local interests, Tribal and Indigenous communities, recreational users and other partners to create broadly supported, durable solutions that protect public lands, waters and wildlife. In the year ahead, we will continue developing these partnerships across the region—to restore migratory bird habitat at Lake Abert, protect wildlife corridors in the Greater Hart-Sheldon and secure protections for the Owyhee Canyonlands—to both generate support and ensure that conservation is at the center of those conversations.
Protecting wildlife, while defending the high desert
ONDA will advocate for protections for wildlife and their habitat in 2025. We will be in Salem pressing for new state laws, policies and plans as the Oregon legislature works through a slate of conservation proposals. We will support conservation actions that protect the iconic greater sage-grouse, the industrious beaver, migratory birds, the fleet-footed pronghorn and dozens of other important high desert species. ONDA will also continue to join partner organizations, Tribal Nations and community leaders to oppose any efforts to rollback conservation advanced by new leadership in Washington, D.C.
Sustaining support for protecting the Owyhee Canyonlands
ONDA led a robust coalition—including Tribal Nations, local, state and federal elected officials, businesses, community groups and organizations representing more than 22 million Americans—and leveraged the advocacy of more than 70,000 supporters, all joining together in calling on Congress and the president to permanently protect the Owyhee Canyonlands.
Last year ended with the United States Senate passing legislation that would protect more than 1.1 million acres of the Owyhee Canyonlands as wilderness, a proposal supported by ONDA and our coalition. The effort ultimately stalled in the House of Representatives and the President of the United States rebuffed calls from Oregon’s governor, Tribal Nations and tens of thousands of Oregonians to designate the Owyhee Canyonlands as a national monument. However, our campaign to protect the Owyhee achieved many significant milestones that serve as a strong foundation for our future efforts to secure richly deserved protections for the region.
New leadership in Washington, D.C., is not expected to pursue conservation of large landscapes like the Owyhee Canyonlands in 2025. By capitalizing on the incredible outpouring of support our campaign garnered, ONDA will oppose any effort to undermine existing Owyhee protections while continuing to create viable pathways to protect the Owyhee going forward.
Restoring desert habitat
ONDA and all those who gleefully and tirelessly participate in habitat restoration work in the high desert will continue partnering with Tribal Nations, federal and state agencies and private landowners to design, implement and monitor a suite of projects spanning from the John Day River Basin to the Trout Creek Mountains. Fencing and planting will continue along the South Fork of the Crooked River and spring restoration will proceed at Pine Creek Conservation Area, all while ONDA prepares to launch a multi-year, large-scale restoration project along Robinson Creek, a tributary to the John Day River. Tribal Stewards will join in the restoration activities as a new cohort of young adults from local Tribes and Indigenous communities complete projects that improve desert habitat across the region.
Expanding the ONDA community of conservation advocates
Grassroots engagement fuels all facets of ONDA’s conservation and restoration work. Thoughtful and outspoken ONDA members, supporters and volunteers ensure that we elevate and achieve conservation objectives benefitting and befitting of Oregon’s high desert. Through dozens of events, stewardship trips and opportunities to engage in front-line advocacy, ONDA will continue to welcome, inform, inspire and engage an ever-growing community of desert advocates.
We look forward to taking on new opportunities and advancing long-term priorities in the coming year, while opposing any emerging threats to the health and vitality of desert lands, waters and wildlife. Together, we will rise to meet every challenge. And, we will continue to do what we do best: protect, defend and restore Oregon’s high desert, now and always.
Thank you for your enduring commitment to Oregon desert conservation in 2025.
