Central Oregon’s Backyard Wilderness
Located just 15 miles east of Bend, Oregon Badlands Wilderness is a 30,000-acre area filled with fascinating lava flows and ancient juniper trees. Here, you will find some of the oldest trees in Oregon, ancient pictographs, incredible displays of desert wildflowers, dry river canyons and castle-like rock formations. The wilderness preserves a scene unlike any you will find anywhere else in Oregon’s high desert, and a favorite landscape enjoyed by locals and visitors alike.
Today, this area is well-known for its subtle beauty and opportunities for serenity and solitude, but for many years, few people knew about the wonders of the Badlands. Even fewer were engaged in caring for this landscape and advocating for its protection, as abuses such as trash dumping and the theft of ancient juniper trees proliferated.
Growing support for conservation action
That all changed due to the passion and perseverance of ONDA’s founding members, and Alice Elshoff in particular. Countless people in Central Oregon and beyond enjoyed their first Badlands tour with Alice in the 1980s or first learned about the area when she was interviewed in the news media. Support for protecting the Badlands as a wilderness area, the strongest federal conservation designation available for public lands, to preserve its natural character quickly grew.
Soon, advocates for protecting the Badlands as wilderness began to organize, forming the “Badlands Bunch.” This group later blossomed into the Oregon Natural Desert Association.
These desert conservationists spoke with local landowners, offered educational presentations and rallied support for conservation action. Community support for protecting the Badlands expanded exponentially. Yellow “Protect Badlands Wilderness” stickers popped up in business windows all around Bend, letters to the editor flowed into the Bend Bulletin, and the Bend City Council endorsed the conservation campaign.
But as the campaign to protect the Badlands gained momentum, so did the opposition. Off-road vehicle enthusiasts were among the strongest opponents to ONDA’s wilderness proposal. Public hearings were contentious, and local elected leaders declined to take a position. Despite overwhelming grassroots support, the effort to protect the Badlands had seemingly reached a stalemate.
Finding community consensus
To overcome this, ONDA worked with Central Oregon business leaders and produced a report demonstrating the economic benefits of protecting public lands like the Badlands. We especially engaged several of Central Oregon’s top employers and brought together over 200 businesses who supported protecting the Badlands as wilderness, including Deschutes Brewery and Mt. Bachelor ski resort.
With a powerful coalition backing protection for the Badlands, Oregon’s leaders in Congress finally took notice. On May 25, 2008, Senator Ron Wyden visited the Badlands and proclaimed his commitment to introduce legislation to protect the area as wilderness. Less than a month later, Badlands supporters celebrated as Senator Wyden introduced the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act.
Over the next year, business owners took an active role in pressing for the passage of the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act, joining grassroots activists in writing letters to the editor, holding press conferences, and even traveling to Washington D.C. to meet with Oregon’s congressional delegation.
The Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act was included in a nationwide package of conservation bills, giving it a stronger chance of passage. Staff and volunteers gathered frequently at the ONDA office to watch C-SPAN as the Badlands bill made its way through the legislative process. On the day the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act passed, cheers erupted throughout the office, and all around Central Oregon. In a fitting show of bipartisan unity, the Badlands bill earned the vote of every member of Oregon’s Congressional delegation.
Decades of work had finally paid off—the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act was signed into law on March 30, 2009, permanently protecting this unique place for current and future generations.
Ongoing Conservation
Since then, Oregon Natural Desert Association has continued efforts to protect, defend and restore Oregon’s Badlands Wilderness. Thanks to our enduring commitment to promoting conservation in the region and ability to address emerging threats, the Badlands has been preserved as a place of remarkable beauty and is a beloved resource for community enjoyment. Our sustained stewardship and restoration efforts and ongoing advocacy for management that both protects the area’s ecological integrity and improves public access ensures this special landscape remains a cherished community asset.