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Earth Month 2025 News & Event Roundup

Making Earth Cool folks in excellent costumes at the 2024 parade.

Deep breaths. It’s been a long year. And it’s only April.

But this month also brings reasons to be hopeful. April has long been a symbol of hope and renewal. It’s a time of seasonal change, marking the full-fledged arrival of spring. It’s also a time of social change—an association cemented in 1970, when tens of thousands of people gathered on April 22nd to celebrate the first ever Earth Day, the largest display of grassroots people power the world had ever seen at the time.

There’s a hunger for change in the air this April. I saw it at the protests in Portland and across the country on April 5th. I’ve seen it in the outpouring of support for the thousands of people who lost their jobs and the organizations that lost funding due to the Trump administration’s mass layoffs and spending freezes. I’ve felt it in nearly every recent conversation I’ve had with our partners and community members.

And I don’t know about you, but it’s got us here at Bark energized. It’s only April. We’re just getting started.

We’re stretching the spirit of people power that Earth Day originally represented out for a full month. From our SOLVE Oregon clean-up day at Parrott Creek and an upcoming groundtruthing training to our latest Forest Action Night and an Earth Day Parade with Making Earth Cool (craft night TONIGHT by the way!), there’s no shortage of ways to show your support for the lands, waters, and wildlife that sustain us all. Check out our events page for details on all our Earth Month events and sign up to join us! And if you can’t make it out to one of these events, you can always show your support by donating to Bark.

But first, check out our latest roundup of forest-related news, policy changes, and community events.

News Roundup

Updates on the Timber Expansion Executive Order

Remember that Executive Order (EO) calling for the immediate expansion of timber production we told you about last month? And how it directed the Secretary of Agriculture to come up with a plan to increase logging on national forests across the country? Well Brooke has delivered. 

On April 3rd, Secretary Rollins released this memo that gives us a clearer picture of how the USDA plans to meet the directives outlined in the timber expansion EO. Rollins’s memo declares a state of emergency in our nation’s timber supply and forest health and directs the U.S. Forest Service to fast-track logging by weakening or bypassing long-standing environmental laws and public oversight. All told, the memo declares 60% of all national forestlands to be in crisis—stripping away essential protections for endangered species and cultural resources while sidelining the public by removing requirements for environmental review and public comment. 112,646,000 acres of NF lands will be affected.

The acres in question were chosen because they were either identified as being under a very high or high fire risk, experiencing or at risk of experiencing insect and disease infestations, or both. Shout out to Bark volunteer Steve Cole for making this very cool interactive map showing which NF lands in Oregon will be impacted.

TL; DR—yep, that’s more than half of Mt. Hood National Forest under this emergency declaration.

The memo directed the Forest Service to respond with a plan for implementation, and this week, Bark staff got ahold of that plan. This latest implementation memo details the various tools the FS could use to get the cut out, and fast: from expanded use of current and new Categorical Exclusions to reliance on Emergency NEPA authorities and minimum safety standards. Notably, this latest memo cites wildfire risk to communities as a key justification for the plan but there’s no mention of evidence-based strategies like home hardening and controlled burning. But one thing is clear: Big Timber will benefit most from these policy changes.

We are drafting a response to these memos that outlines Bark’s concerns and will be reaching out to Mt. Hood FS leadership to learn more about what this means for our neck of the woods. Stay tuned.

Forest Service Announces Temporary Ban on Commercial Huckleberry Harvesting in Gifford Pinchot NF

And now, for some good news. On March 31st, the Forest Service announced that it would not issue commercial huckleberry harvesting permits in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in 2025. The move comes after years of advocacy by members of the Yakama Nation, whose treaty-protected rights to gather huckleberries on these lands has been threatened by commercial pickers. While the ban is temporary, it offers hope that the ban could become permanent and spread to other national forests. Scroll down to our section on reading recommendations for an excellent article on this issue by local journalist, Josephine Woolington, recently published in High Country News.

Updates on the Harborton Reliability Project in Forest Park 

ICYMYI: last month, the City of Portland approved a PGE project that would involve clear-cutting five acres of Forest Park. The Forest Park Conservancy has appealed this decision and there will be a hearing on April 17th at 2 pm. You can either attend the meeting via Zoom or in-person at City Hall. Additionally, members of the public can either testify in person or remotely if they would like to weigh in on this case. Instructions for attending the meeting and signing up to testify will be available on Friday, April 11th on City Council’s agenda webpage. 

Several local orgs, including 350PDX and the Bird Alliance of Oregon, are organizing a rally in support of Forest Park’s appeal. It starts at 1 pm on April 17th and you can learn more about it here.

Support Bark at these local businesses!

This Earth Month, you can support Bark while you eat, drink, or climb by supporting our wonderful business partners: 

  • People’s Food Co-op: From April 9th to May 15th, round-ups to the nearest dollar on all purchases at People’s will be donated to Bark. You can also catch us at People’s Farmers Market on April 16th!
  • Golden Goods will donate 3% of sales at its Hood River location to Bark on April 19th and 20th!
  • The Circuit Bouldering Gym is donating 10% of proceeds from day passes purchased on Earth Day (April 22nd) at any of its 5 locations to Bark. Join Barkers at the NE Portland location for a Summit of the Circuit!

Roots & Branches

Read
  • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit https://www.powells.com/book/hope-in-the-dark-9781608465767Given the events of the last few months, I recently returned to this collection of essays originally published in 2004 for some much-needed hope and perspective. “But hope is not about what we expect. It is an embrace of the essential unknowability of the world, of the breaks with the present, the surprises,” Solnit writes in one snippet that nicely sums up the book’s argument, “And this is grounds to act. I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative except surrender.” There’s powerful stuff in these pages. 
  • “The True Cost of the Huckleberry Industry” by Josephine Woolingtonhttps://www.hcn.org/issues/57-3/the-true-cost-of-the-huckleberry-industry/This aforementioned article by a local journalist details the human and ecological impact of commercial huckleberry harvesting in Gifford Pinchot NF. Bark staff saw some friendly faces at a wonderful event last night with members of the Yakama Nation who have been fighting back against the corporate greed that has decimated huckleberry habitat and threatened their way of life. 
Listen
Watch
  • The Salmon Forest Project https://salmonforestproject.ca/Nominated for Best Short Documentary at the Hawaiian International Film Festival, this film delves into the intricate relationship between Pacific salmon, forests, and the Heiltsuk people in the coastal rainforests of British Columbia. Featuring insights from UBC Faculty of Forestry experts Dr. Teresa Ryan (Sm’hayetsk) and internationally celebrated author Dr. Suzanne Simard.
  • Toxic Town, streaming on Netflix Based on a true story, this miniseries follows the story of the mothers and children impacted by poisonous dust in the British town of Corby. The landmark 2009 ruling against Corby marked the first time a civil court in England made the connection between birth defects and the negligent management of toxic waste in the air.