CAMPAIGN - Natural Resources

     My father put food on our family table thanks to the timber industry. He worked for Nordic plywood in Sutherlin, and then its successor Mount Mazama plywood. He retired before the current owner, Murphy plywood, took over the operation. Nobody knows the importance of natural resource-based jobs more than I do.
     Ever since the Endangered Species Act was enacted around 1990, the timber industry has been in limbo. Numerous timber harvest proposals have been put forth, and then shot down by the courts after being challenged by various conservation and environmental groups. Currently, both Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio and Senator Ron Wyden have different pieces of legislation that they're attempting to get approved....legislation that would allow some form of timber harvesting on federally-owned O & C lands. While neither proposal is perfect, I support both of them.
     I have always supported sustained yield timber harvesting. I believe that old-growth trees in environmentally-sensitive areas should be protected. But I also believe that second-growth land should be set aside for harvest, free from any type of court challenge. I believe that timber in areas damaged by forest fires should be salvaged, instead of left to rot.

THE ENDS DO NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS

     While I was employed at KOBI-TV from 2004-2007, there was an environmental protest on Eight Dollar Mountain Road leading into an environmentally-sensitive botanical wayside in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area. Loggers were scheduled to remove dead trees (logs) that were left over from a forest fire.
     In order to prevent salvage crews from accessing the land, environmentalists cut down two old-growth trees from the environmentally-protected area in order to block the road leading into the salvage area! In other words, some environmentalists had cut down trees they were purportedly wanting to protect, in order to block the removal of trees that were already dead!
     When I, as a reporter, asked the environmentalists why they would destroy old-growth trees, their answer was simple. They had to look at the big picture. If destroying a few old-growth trees helped save other trees, then their action was justified.
       My reason in sharing this story is to illustrate how illogical some of the arguments can be, that are put forth by those who oppose all logging on public lands. Sometimes it appears that protestors will attempt to block local timber harvests....not because the specific harvest itself is damaging to the environment....but because it will help their larger cause of blocking timber harvesting nationwide.
     Society needs to stop polarizing the debate over timber harvesting, and begin to evaluate each timber sale on individual merits. Once a decision is made by the Bureau of Land Management or U.S. Forest Service, it should be free from future court challenges.