CRA History:
Twenty three years of service and success.

1990 - Coast Range Association Founded

1991
Produced the Coast Range Biodiversity Conservation Plan developed by Dr. Reed Noss.

1992
Received the Grassroots Conservation Organization of the Year award from
the Oregon Natural Resource Council.

1990-1995
We worked to secure protection for federal forests with an emphasis on
the conservation of remaining native forest and protection for streams and watershed values. Since 1995 we have worked hard to defend and improve the Northwest Forest Plan and it's Aquatic Conservation Strategy.

1991 -2004

During this period the CRA was a conservation leader in efforts to secure an ecologically robust forest plan for 700,000+ acres of state forest in the Coast Range region.

1995
Published Gated Lands a report on the ownership of Coast Range private lands.

1997
Established leadership in Northwest forestry reform and watershed protection.

We led efforts to overturn a National Marine Fisheries Service decision denying Endangered Species Act protection for the coastal coho. Federal court ruled in our favor and the coastal coho was listed in 1997 just as the best available science recommended.

Research and published Coastal Salmon Recovery: An Assessment of Watershed Councils.

The CRA supported the establishment of the Oregon Plan and the development of many watershed councils in the Coast Range region.

1998
We organized watershed advocates in Coast Range watershed councils and
published Strategically Approaching Salmon Protection in Coastal Watersheds:
A Guidance Manual for Watershed Resident.

1999
Completed and toured a forestry exhibit comparing the performance of short 45 year indistrial forestry and a long rotation 145 year cutting cycle. Our findings were published in a booklet titled Forests That Work. Our conclusions called for a new, community based forestry.

We developed the Watershed Rapid Assessment Manual for use by watershed protection activists.

2000
Opened the Coast Range Association web site www.coastrange.org

2001
Published Salmon & Forestry: A Report on Oregons Coastal Watersheds and
the Need for Forestry Reform. This report revealed for the first time hundreds of agency stream habitat surveys documenting terrible habitat conditions found in coastal streams. We demonstrated that the higher the percentage of the watershed managed by Wall Street owners - the worse off were the stream habitat conditions.

2002
In partnership with the Native Fish Society we published Salmon & Survival: Why Native & Hatchery Salmon are Different.

Researched, wrote and published Drinking From The Tillamook Rainforest:
A report on water quality and forest management in Northwest Oregon's publicly held rainforests. This report was part of our coalition effort to secure permenant state forest protections.

2003
Published Case Statement on Forestry Reform. The document provided analysis of forestry economics, silviculture, and law required for sustainable forestry.

2004
Published The Economics of Forestry an article that explains the management drivers of large forestland owners. The Economics of Forestry completed a six year program of analysis exploring the difficulties inherent in Wall Street driven financial forestry and the conservation of ecological values. From this period of work we determined that local community owned forests are the most likely path to a conservation forestry.

Worked at part of the Tillamook Rainforest Coalition in support of Ballot Measure 34 - a citizen initative to secure permanently forest protection for 50% of the Tillamook and Clatsopt State Forests. The measure failed to pass.

2005
Committed the CRA to organizing local community forest organizations as an alternative to the problem of industrial forestry. Thus began a three year effort to create the Oregon Coast Community Forest Association (OCCFA). Here is the the link to the OCCFA

2004 to 2008
The Coast Range Association vigorously worked to defeat the Bush Adminstration's efforts to change the BLM portion of the Northwest Forest Plan through a process called the Western Oregon Plans Revision (WOPR).

In 2008, the Obama administration set the WOPR plans aside admitting they were based on politically contrived science.

2006

The CRA became the first organization in the Northwest to use Google Earth to view Forest Service and BLM stand data using special klm files built in GIS. We converted all of the remaining native forest stand on BLM lands and published the KML files for viewing in Google Earth. We then buit a special website for this effort and it remains active today. See http://coastrange.org/wordpress/

2008
The CRA Conceived and managed the production of An Ecological Economics Approach to Understanding Oregon’s Coastal Economy and Environment. Paula Swedeen was lead author and the report was published by the Audubon Society of Portland. This was our first major contribution to the effort to secure protected reserve areas for Oregon's territorial waters.

2009

The CRA develops a community presentation on the financial crisis. Themes of equity, ownership, and finance that animate our forest products industry are revealed to have similiar relevance to all other sectors of the economy.

2006-2012
The CRA embarks on a coastal program highlighting the land-sea connection. We worked to secure a network of marine reserves along Oregon's state owned coastal marine waters. In 2012, the state of Oregon establish a network of six nearshore marine reserves.

2009-2012

CRA Director Chuck Willer works with an international team of scientists to address the science of integrated land-sea conservation planning. This effort resulted in a major global review paper published in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.

Present Work

Federal forests and the defense of the Northwest Forest Plan. A crisis in
county funding within areas formerly dependent on federal timber payments
has brought forth the greatest threat to the Northwest Forest Plan since its beginning. Our long history with salmon and stream conservation has required us to lead in the defence of the Aquatic Conservation Stratey of the Northwest Forest Plan. We have engaged Dr. Chris Frissell to advance the best available science into the public discourse and agency deliberations.

The CRA will continue to work for the implementation of Oregon's nearshore marine reserves through a community centered program of implementation research and education.