Rogue Celebrates 40th Year of Protection

Oregon’s Rogue River Celebrates 40 Years of Protection

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values, shall be preserved in free flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.”

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

American attitudes toward wilderness underwent an important change over the course of the twentieth century. In the 1930s and 1940s, Aldo Leopold, Robert Marshall, and other well-known conservationists began to argue that not only were undeveloped areas of high ecological value, they were also of high social value since populations to renew their relationship with nature.

Two important pieces of federal legislation passed in the 1960s reflect this revaluing of wilderness. Both the 1964 Wilderness Act and the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act are promised on the idea that wild places are ecologically and socially valuable and therefore worthy of protection from unchecked development. Unlike the Wilderness Act, however, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act recognized that partially modified areas were also worthy o protection. It divided rivers and surrounding riparian lands into three categories—wile, scenic, and recreational—based on the degree of development.

Southwestern Oregon’s Rogue River was one of eight rivers to be protected under the original 1968 Wild and scenic Rivers Act. More than eighty-four miles from the mouth of the Applegate River downstream to the Lobster Creek Bridge are protected under the act, 33.6 miles of which are considered wild, 7.5 scenic, and 43.4 recreational.

The Rogue River is located in southwestern Oregon and flows 215 miles from Crater Lake to the Pacific Ocean.

Steelhead and salmon fishery, challenging whitewater, and extraordinary wildlife viewing opportunities have made the Rogue a national treasure. Black bear, river otter, black-tail deer, bald eagles, osprey, Chinook salmon, great blue heron, water ouzel and Canada geese are common wildlife seen along the Rogue River. Popular activities include: white water rafting, fishing, and hiking.

The Wild section of the Rogue River is one of the most popular whitewater runs in the world. A steady water level due to dams upstream, hot sunny summer weather, and exciting whitewater rapids through lush forests and steep canyons heighten its popularity.

Due to its popularity, managers have limited access to the Wild Section of the Rogue River in order to protect the river and the Wild Rogue Wilderness from overuse, limiting the numbers of people on the river also enhances the Wilderness experience for floaters.