George Sexton said he’s attended a couple dozen timber auctions during his 23 years as conservation director at KS Wild, an Ashland-based environmental group.

But when he showed up at the Bureau of Land Management office in Medford on Sept. 23 for a timber auction, he, a lawyer and a reporter for Jefferson Public Radio were not allowed to enter.

Sexton said that for years, he’s attended the auctions to observe and make sure BLM follows its laws and that bidders know about potential lawsuits. In this case, KS Wild is planning litigation to stop the “Take A Chance” timber sale, one of the four that was being offered.

Sexton said the public has only been blocked from the meetings recently, coinciding with the Trump administration’s focus on increasing logging.

“In the past, you just walked through the public door of a public building and could watch public business occur — it was in the interest of transparency and democracy,” Sexton said. “When I showed up, the BLM had it locked down with law enforcement. The timber bidders arrived and were routed through a series of locked doors and escorted into a room military style. We weren’t allowed in. It had this dystopian feel to it like the fate of our forests was being decided behind closed doors.”

BLM said closing timber auctions isn’t a new policy and that it was never intended as a “public meeting.”

The federal agency said the confusion stemmed from some BLM districts allowing public access and some not in the past.

“We learned mid-last year some districts were doing sales differently, and to be fair to everyone involved in the process from the beginning to the end and conduct sales more efficiently, all sales throughout Oregon and Washington (now) follow the same process,” BLM spokeswoman Sarah Bennett said in an email.

Bennett said that in general, “only qualified purchasers are allowed into timber auctions.”

“Timber auctions are business meetings between purchasers and sellers of BLM timber; they are not public meetings,” she said. “BLM has a responsibility to ensure that the auction environment welcomes competitive bidding.”

Anyone taking part in a timber auction must be a “qualified purchaser” who has submitted a written bid and deposit for at least one of the sales in advance.

“Only those who meet the requirements and have submitted a bid are allowed to be part of the meeting,” she said.

Sexton disputed the idea that a public building could be closed and said the move was more about keeping the public in the dark.

KS Wild is suing to stop the Take A Chance Timber sale, which would produce 10.6 million board feet.

Sexton said the sale includes cutting old-growth, building roads and cutting trees in the riparian areas of Grave Creek, and that a government report indicated the sale “may affect, and are likely to adversely affect the northern spotted owl and its designated critical habitat,” according to a notice of intent to file the lawsuit.

“We’ve been very transparent about our lawsuit and that we wanted to attend the timber auction,” Sexton said. “I was very surprised to see this militarized apparatus they set up to keep us out. I mean, we were just one old tree-hugging hippie, our young conservation attorney and a JPR reporter. They had the place locked down like we were barbarians storming the gates.”

“Defending the forest and public process is defending Democracy. If we want to hang onto public lands and our right to dispute these (timber sales), it’s kind of now or never.”

Bennett stressed that BLM has sought to be more transparent than ever with timber sales.

They’ve started sending out news releases detailing each timber sale and the results of timber auctions.

She noted that the public and media has multiple chances for involvement throughout the timber sale process.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 18 years and is host of theExplore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached atzurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors and BlueSky atoregonoutdoors.bsky.social.