Ancient Forest

Proposed National ParkCalifornia and Oregon
Ridge after ridge of conifer forest in the Klamath-Siskiyou country
All proposed National ParksAncient ForestCampaign underway
Location
California/Oregon
Current protection
Klamath National Forest, Klamath and Trinity Rivers, Bigfoot Scenic Byway & Trinity Scenic Byway
Status
Active citizen campaign
Tier
Tier 1 · National Park
Undiscovered America
Featured in the film and the book

Why should it be a National Park?

Anyone interested in the outdoors knows that California has an overabundance of natural riches, but even among avid hikers and campers there remain places that are rarely explored. One of these underutilized areas is the woodlands of northern California and southern Oregon within the Klamath Mountains, known by some as the Ancient Forest. The density of the forest and scale of the region has even given rise to the Bigfoot legend, as it is the only plausible setting left for a large creature to remain unseen and undiscovered by humans.

Several federal agencies offer marginal levels of protection in the piecemeal, protected sections of these forested mountains. The differing management styles have increased the impact of forest fires as the areas managed by the US Forest Service (USFS), allow extensive logging of this ancient grove of trees. Despite the perception that the USFS is an exemplary steward of public lands, it is not tasked with protecting land like the National Park Service, but rather with managing the land. While the difference between protecting and managing land may seem like semantics, it is not. Protection means the environment must remain in its natural state, reflecting a world before there were humans altering the landscape. Management means the lands are open to being drilled, mined, and logged as long as it is kept at a sustainable level.

The history of National Park Campaigns

The Klamath-Siskiyou, one of the most botanically diverse temperate regions in North America, has been protected piecemeal as wilderness (Marble Mountain, Kalmiopsis, Siskiyou, Trinity Alps), an NRA (Smith River, 1990), and national monuments (Oregon Caves 1909/preserve 2014; Cascade-Siskiyou 2000). A cohesive national-park vision emerged from 1990s ancient-forest activism and was crystallized in the Ancient Forest National Park proposal (c. 2009, promoted at ancientforestnationalpark.org), a ~3.8-million-acre concept stretching from Oregon's Rogue River to California's Eel River.

Distinct National Park attempts
1 (Ancient Forest National Park, c. 2009–present; no bill)
Other designation attempts
numerous wilderness/monument/NRA designations (7+ discrete actions listed above)

Sources

  • Klamath Forest Alliance Collection (Cal Poly Humboldt Special Collections)
  • KS Wild archives
  • National Parks Traveler coverage (2013, 2016)
  • Ancient Forest National Park proposal documents (ancientforestnationalpark.org)
  • U.S. Department of the Interior, "Prospective Conservation Designation: National Monument Designations under the Antiquities Act" (2010)
  • Michael Kellett, "A Modest Proposal: We Need More National Parks," Sierra (August 17, 2021)
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  1. 1909

    Oregon Caves National Monument proclaimed (national preserve added 2014).

  2. 1953/1964

    Marble Mountain Wilderness; 1964/1978 — Kalmiopsis Wilderness; 1984 — Siskiyou & Trinity Alps Wilderness (California Wilderness Act of 1984).

  3. 1990

    Smith River National Recreation Area established.

  4. c. 1991

    "Ancient Forest Proposal" maps developed by the Klamath Forest Alliance (Felice Pace and colleagues), archived in the KFA Collection (Humboldt State/Cal Poly Humboldt). Source: Humboldt Special Collections container list.

  5. 2000

    Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument proclaimed (expanded 2017).

  6. c. 2009

    Ancient Forest National Park campaign (ancientforestnationalpark.org) — a national-park concept knitting together roadless/wilderness lands of the Six Rivers, Klamath, Rogue River–Siskiyou, and Shasta-Trinity forests. National Parks Traveler (June 16, 2016) described "the proposed 3.8-million-acre park" that "would stretch from the Rogue River in Oregon to the Eel River in California" and would include "about 1 million acres of unprotected inventoried roadless areas." Sources: nationalparkstraveler.org; worthitplaces.org (which lists it as "Klamath-Siskiyou National Park (a.k.a. Ancient Forest National Park)").

  7. 2010

    An Interior Department paper lists an expansion of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument among 14 prospective national monuments.

  8. January 12, 2017

    President Obama expands Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

  9. August 17, 2021

    The New National Parks campaign includes a five-million-acre Ancient Forest National Park, from the Rogue River to the Eel, in its slate of twelve new parks.