60 years ago, there were only 600,000 acres of Juniper in Eastern Oregon. Now, there are over 6,000,000 acres. Junipers grow and proliferate faster than fire and logging removes them. Juniper are oily, fire sensitive trees that are voracious consumers of water and burn hot due to their high oil content. In contrast, Ponderosa Pine are a much more valuable tree, and are fire resistant. Juniper trees consume a tremendous amount of water – frequently a single tree can consume 40 gallons of water or more every day.  

Facts about Juniper Trees:

• Create a negative effect on the local watershed and trout populations
• Result in loss of native grass
• Increase fire risk and fire intensity behavior secondary to drier fuels
• Negatively impacts the threatened Sage Grouse
• Decrease plant and animal biodiversity
• Very difficult and expensive tree to cut down and mill, compared to traditional logging
• Historically, Juniper end products have not been found to be useful
• Historically, Juniper trees are more expensive to cut down than the value of wood obtained

Benefits of Juniper Tree Removal

• Decreases the risk for catastrophic wildfire with its threat to structures, people, and the environment with decreased sight and environmental pollution from less wildfire smoke. Saves economic and firefighting resources for higher value forests.
• Helps the local watershed
• Improves stream flows and native fish habitat
• Helps the threatened Sage Grouse
• Improves plant biodiversity and encourages native grass growth
• Improves animal biodiversity
• In the transitional forest setting, removal improves the growth and health of the fire resistant Ponderosa Pine