During this Trumpian Quadrennium, with a Congress hostile to conservation, the chances of expanding the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) approach zero. Yet the need to double the size of the system has never been greater, so now is the time to start.

The purposes and boundaries of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge can only be divined by examining at least a dozen acts of Congress, presidential actions, and administrative decisions.

Pelican Island in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida was the home to an extraordinary number of native birds, many of which were threatened by plume hunters meeting the hot market for feathers (and even whole birds) for women’s hats.

Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy . . . must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths—animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies—or it will dwindle and pale. —Walt Whitman

Following are seven examples of high-public-value BLM Zone 3 lands in western Oregon that should be reclassified or transferred. The parcels in question are shown on the map segments to the left of their descriptions. I’m confident that a similar analysis of BLM eastern Oregon lands will yield similar examples.

Until the latter third of the nineteenth century, forests in the United States were considered inexhaustible—not renewable, but inexhaustible. But by the 1880s, with watersheds on public and private lands were being decimated by unrestrained logging and grazing, an emerging conservation movement was beginning to convince the public—and would eventually convince Congress—that something needed to be done.

History has shown we cannot rely on the private sector to conserve forests, protect drinking water, and provide other public values, including wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and scenic views. The private values of timberlands are in conflict with these public values and are driven by a desire to maximize profit, return on investment, and net present value.

Given Oregon’s historically close ties to the timber industry, it is hard to imagine that a U.S. senator from Oregon could be a co-sponsor of the original legislation that became the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Snake River in Hells Canyon would be dammed today if not for former Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR). The French Pete watershed would not have been returned to its rightful place in the Three Sisters Wilderness if not for Packwood.

Take a gander at your favorite statewide maps, on paper or in Google Maps, and you may be left with the impression that those green polygons labeled National Forest are indeed solid expanses of national forest. In the West and Alaska, mostly yes; in the East, not so much.