The unilateral decision has outraged many Oregonians, due to the harsh methods of deforestation used on private lands. Already, public land use leads to virtually unchecked cuts that run across vast tracts of land, but private lands stand up to even less scrutiny, often leaving little more from a lush native forest than a small christmas tree farm.

As important carbon sinks, the Pacific Northwest bioregion of Cascadia is crucial to mitigating climate change, yet it is currently under attack by state and county legislation that is threatening to deforest large areas and even place a Nestle bottling plant in Mount Hood at the site of the Colombia River Gorge.