Owyhee Reflections

Author: Ryan Houston  |  Published: January 14, 2025  | Category: Deep Dive

Reflections on the most recent chapter in our quest to protect Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands.

 

Growing momentum in 2024

Last year began with exciting news for Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized new management direction for 4.6 million acres of public lands in the region, including new protections for more than 417,000 acres of the most important wildlands in the Owyhee. This achievement culminated from decades of field work and advocacy to deliver more acres of protection than in any other BLM district in history. With these new protections in place, more than 1.7 million acres are administratively protected in the Owyhee.

Even as we celebrated this incredible milestone, ONDA continued advancing our campaign to permanently designate 1.1 million acres of these administratively protected areas as new Wilderness areas or a new national monument. We built a strategy focused on supporting Senator Wyden’s legislation, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, while also generating a parallel, complementary campaign calling for presidential designation of an Owyhee Canyonlands National Monument in the event that Congress failed to act on the Senator’s bill.

We teamed up with partners to organize a massive coalition, including dozens of local, regional and national organizations representing more than 22 million Americans. We developed a support network larger than we’ve ever seen in ONDA’s decades of conservation advocacy in the high desert: 70,000 people signed the petition to protect the Owyhee; thousands of constituents called and wrote to Senator Wyden’s office; Tribal leaders and other advocates joined multiple trips to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the landscape; and hundreds of endorsements poured into our support book that ultimately totaled more than 800 pages of letters, essays, opinion-editorials, resolutions and other expressions of support.

To be sure, this extraordinary effort made an impact: 73% of polled Oregonians, including 58% in central and eastern Oregon, supported establishment of a national monument. As word spread, local, regional and statewide leaders joined Oregonians to back monument designation, recognizing the opportunity of the moment, the risks facing the Owyhee, the dysfunction in Congress, future uncertainty, and the urgent need to protect the Owyhee.

Press conferences, town halls and other events were packed, while a broad array of stakeholders, leaders and community voices echoed the call for action. Governor Tina Kotek; Representatives Salinas, Blumenauer and Bonamici; three Tribal Nations, including the two that live in the Owyhee River watershed; the Ontario Chamber of Commerce; the Mayor of Vale and the Mayor of Ontario; the Eastern Oregon Visitors Association; the Democratic Party of Oregon; the Environmental Caucus and BIPOC Caucus of the Oregon Legislature; the Four Rivers Cultural Center; and dozens of businesses in Ontario, Vale and throughout Malheur County proudly endorsed the proposed monument.

Legislation Passes in the U.S. Senate

After the election results in November, it became increasingly clear that Congress would not be able to pass public lands legislation in the “lame duck” congressional session that remained in 2024. We also saw the emergence of a new counter-proposal for the Owyhee Canyonlands in the House of Representatives. Unlike the Senate legislation, the House version undermined basic conservation principles, established roads in what should be roadless Wilderness areas and appeared more focused on stalling progress and creating confusion than bringing real solutions to the Owyhee.

ONDA pushed back on the problematic House proposal, elevating opposition from a diversity of partners and testifying in Congress against the bill in Washington, D.C. Our resistance highlighted the incredibly diverse and robust support from all corners of Oregon to protect the Owyhee. More importantly, it also increased pressure on the Senate and the President to act in the face of continued obstruction in the House.

By late December 2024, we reached another new milestone in our decades-long effort to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands when the Senate passed the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act. Although the bill would ultimately stall upon reaching the House, it was the first time protection legislation had passed either chamber of Congress. We take tremendous pride in the fact that the Senate has finally recognized the importance of protecting Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands by passing legislation that would establish more than 1.1 million acres of Wilderness.

The moment of opportunity

With the bill stalled in Congress and only four weeks remaining in President Biden’s term in office, this sequence of events framed the moment in which Senator Wyden and President Biden needed to answer a simple question: would they take the last opportunity available to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands as a national monument?

Oregon’s Governor, Tribal leaders, editorial boards, local leaders, businesses and organizations urged Senator Wyden to move quickly to support President Biden in a last-minute effort to designate an Owyhee Canyonlands National Monument before the change in leadership arrived in 2025.

In spite of it all, Senator Wyden and President Biden demurred, opting to “continue to push for legislation” in the coming months and years ahead, instead of finally securing protection for Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands in what would have been a legacy-making moment of epic proportions.

The moment arrived and our elected leaders chose not to act. They cited familiar but long-debunked reasons for not supporting a national monument, while supporters from across Oregon watched in dismay.

Sustaining the momentum

Although this latest chapter of ONDA’s long-standing campaign to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands has closed, we remain steadfast in our determination to protect this irreplaceable landscape.

We are already deploying strategies to maintain the momentum and sustain the exceptional public support and key endorsements we’ve secured over the past several years for permanent protection. And, we’re buoyed and inspired with the many “firsts” achieved. In addition to passing legislation in the Senate and the impressive scale of grassroots public support we mobilized, additional noteworthy milestones include:

  • At no time in the history of our advocacy have Tribal Nations formally endorsed permanent protections for the Owyhee Canyonlands. By the end of 2024, three Tribes had called on President Biden to act, as the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes, and the Klamath Tribes all passed formal resolutions of support.
  • Never before have we seen such strong support among community and business leaders in eastern Oregon. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Mayor of Vale, Mayor of Ontario, Eastern Oregon Visitors Association, Four Rivers Cultural Center, and dozens of restaurants and businesses in Ontario, Vale and throughout Malheur County proudly endorsed the monument.
  • And, at no time before have we gained such strong leadership from Oregon elected officials on behalf of the Owyhee. The governor, state treasurer, secretary of state, Congressional Representatives Bonamici, Blumenauer and Salinas, the Environmental Caucus and BIPOC Caucus of the Oregon Legislature, and many others joined the call for monument designation.

We remain grateful for the unprecedented outpouring of community support for protecting the Owyhee. We appreciate the grassroots advocacy from Oregonians and people across the country and the tireless work of our coalition of local, regional and national partners.

Here at ONDA we know the value of persistence and patience: it took more than 20 years to protect more than 400,000 acres of Owyhee public lands in the 2024 BLM plan. While this is incredibly important progress, it will take more years and more advocacy to permanently protect this landscape. Our next chapter begins stronger than ever before, thanks to our recent progress.

We’ll keep at it and, eventually, if the people continue to lead, our leaders will ultimately, finally, permanently protect Oregon’s majestic, iconic and stunningly beautiful Owyhee Canyonlands.

 

 

fact

Far from Big Macs

Far from Big Macs

There is a point in the Owyhee region, in northwestern Nevada, that is, at 115 miles away, as far away as you can get from a McDonalds in the U.S.

Source: http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds-sept-2010

watch

Julie Weikel on Wilderness

Julie Weikel on Wilderness

voices

Tim Neville, journalist

Tim Neville, journalist

“Oregon’s Owyhee reminds me a lot of Southern Utah’s red rock country… only dipped in fudge.”