Last week a U-S House committee approved wilderness designation for the Devils Staircase area outside Reedsport. This weekend, the “Umpqua Wilderness Conference” will celebrate the wild areas in Douglas County. Organizer Hudson Spivey says the plan is to talk about the benefits of wilderness from many different perspectives.

Spivey: “One of our outstanding goals when we started this conference was to open up a forum where people from all sides of the wilderness debate, all spectrums could come in and sit down and talk about some of the issues surrounding wilderness designation, some of the obstacles or challenges that we might face.”

Spivey says there are other places in the Umpqua Valley that merit wilderness protection, including the Last Creek Roadless Area, where you can find an 850 year old tree. 

Spivey: “That really is kind of this monument. It was there before Columbus discovered America.  So it’s pretty fascinating to get out in some of these areas think about exactly how old the trees are and the ecosystems are here.”

 The conference is Saturday from 9 am to 3:30 pm at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg.  Former Secretary of State and current gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury is the keynote speaker.

www.umpqua-watersheds.org