Right now, the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary takes in 2.5 million acres in Lake County, Oregon. When complete, the sanctuary is expected to encompass more than 11.4 million acres. Long story short, the designation is the result of numerous officials and individuals who took steps to curb artificial light pollution and preserve the starry skies.
The Oregon Outback is the 19th sanctuary certified by DarkSky International, a nonprofit that works to “protect the night” for people and wildlife by advancing responsible outdoor lighting.
The organization maintains a database of scientific research on artificial light at night. “When used indiscriminately,” DarkSky says, “artificial light can disrupt ecosystems, impact human health, waste money and energy, contribute to climate change, and block our view and connection to the universe.”
The group who spearheaded the designation is known as the Oregon Outback Dark Sky Network. Members collaborated for more than four years and include federal, state and local government officials, nongovernmental organizations, tourism agencies, chambers of commerce, businesses and private individuals.
“Regenerative tourism” is one benefit of the sanctuary, says Bob Hackett, executive director of Travel Southern Oregon, who helped with the nomination. The basic principle, Hackett says, is to work toward creating a travel experience that leaves the destination better than it was before, for both the people who live there and the natural environment.
“By working with a wide range of federal and state agency partners, whose missions all align around resource protection and conservation, the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary invites visitors to actively support communities who support the fight against light pollution in a sustainable, low-impact way.”
DarkSky Delegate Dawn Nilson, a Portland, Oregon, resident and the environmental consultant who managed and authored the nomination application, adds: “Establishing such a large sanctuary may have the effect of not only sustaining the dark skies experienced today but may improve night skies to the quality they were even just a few years ago before the huge growth in the Boise, Idaho, and Bend, Oregon, areas outside the Outback.
“It’s hoped that a landscape-scale dark sky place will send an alert to surrounding communities near and far to practice responsible outdoor lighting so that places like the Outback aren’t at risk of losing their starry night legacy.”
Phase 1 of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary comprises a remote area of southeastern Oregon, made up primary of public lands, that’s about half the size of New Jersey.
Numerous jurisdictions had to agree on a joint Lighting Management Plan for the sanctuary designation. The communities also participated in night sky monitoring, lighting inventories, lighting improvements and public outreach to bring the nomination together.
Nilson says public agencies like the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service retrofitted many of their outdoor lights to help meet a minimum requirement of 67% lighting consistency. Ninety and 100% of all public lights within the sanctuary must be consistent within five and 10 years, respectively.
A few private businesses like Warner Ski Hill and Ana Reservoir RV Park also showed their support by updating all their lights to provide “a supreme, night sky recreational experience,” Nilson says.
If you want to plan a visit to the Oregon Outback sanctuary, there are hotels in the gateway communities of Lakeview and Summer Lake and Burns and places to eat, Hackett says.
For more-independent visitors looking to camp, there are primitive campsites and cabins at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Lakeview District and the Fremont-Winema National Forest. The Lake County Chamber of Commerce also has a comprehensive list of recreational vehicle sites and other accommodation options.
“The Colorado Plateau Dark Sky Cooperative did an economic impact study for night-sky tourism that found visitors engaged in ‘night sky tourism activities’ spend three times as much money in a community as visitors not engaged in night sky activities,” Hackett notes.
“Why? Most visitors engaged in night-sky activities are spending the night in a community, and probably also having dinner and breakfast as well. Studies have also found night-sky enthusiasts more likely than other visitors to engage with guided activities to enhance their night-sky experience, which offers additional opportunities for local experts to work with night-sky visitors.”
Prior to this latest development, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota was the largest dark sky sanctuary, at just over 1 million acres. That’s also not a bad spot to visit.
Plans are already underway for Phase 2 of the Oregon Outback sanctuary, expanding it to 11.4 million-plus acres including Harney and Malheur counties to the east.
