EARTH FIRST! OCCUPIES STATE CAPITOL SAYING ‘PROTECT OUR STATE LANDS’
Salem, OR: Near 10:00 AM, Cascadia Earth First! and Cascadia Forest Defenders converged at the Oregon State Capitol. Activists chained themselves together and staged a “die-in” in the offices of Ted Wheeler and Kate Brown while others climbed the building’s flagpoles, hanging banners reading, “Oregon: For Sale by Kate Brown and Ted Wheeler” and “Defend Oregon, No Compromise, Earth First!”
Protesters are targeting Secretary of State Kate Brown and Treasurer Ted Wheeler – both members of the State Land Board – after passing a plan in October of last year that will nearly double the annual clearcut in the Elliott State Forest. Today’s protest is an escalation in a series of protests calling on the Land Board to stop the clear cutting of ancient forests and to separate public school funding from state forest management.
The State Land Board is responsible for the management of the Common School Fund, a fund that is generated from taxes on certain lands operated by the board. According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, which is overseen by the State Land Board, forestlands are to be ‘managed for timber production’. Some revenue from these lands goes to funding public education in Oregon, but less than one percent of Oregon school funding comes from logging the Elliott State Forest. Governor Kitzhaber himself referred to the Common School Fund as a “drop in the bucket’ when compared to total state spending on education.
“The elected officials of the State Land Board are allowing large extraction-based industries to make a quick profit at the expense of Oregon’s healthy future,” says Emmalyn Garrett of Bandon, OR. “We won’t let narrow industry interests dirty the air and water, destroy biodiversity, and decrease Oregon’s quality of life.” According to Garrett, today’s protest calls on the State Land Board to take responsibility for their failure to protect Oregon’s public lands ahead of private industry profit.
Cascadia Earth First! and Cascadia Forest Defenders demand:
No more clear cutting ancient forests.
Drop the 2011 implementation plan for the Elliott State Forest.
Separate our school funding from public land management.
No more privatization of public lands.
Earth First!
By the way, all those raw logs are coming off of private land. It’s already illegal to export raw logs from public lands.
I wonder: should we not export wheat? Or only flour? If so, we’re gonna make a lot of farmers very unhappy.
These economic issues are not as simple as they may seem from 20,000 feet; our world is shrinking and markets are colliding. It’s a tough thing to regulate even with the best of intentions.
The 2011 Elliot Forest Plan increases the amount of protected acres from 22,370 to over 28,000. All riparian areas and old growth (or in this case, virgin forests) are protected. No ancient forests are being clear cut in the Elliot. Neither are the lands being privatized.
Separating school funding from forest revenues may be an idea to consider, but you still have to explain where the education money will come from. It doesn’t just grow on trees, you know. Wait —
Earth First does itself a disservice when it drapes people from flagpoles based on incomplete, misleading, or outright false information. Of course, if it has a better plan, I’ve yet to read it. It’s much easier to rile folks up against The Man. So far as tactics go, there’s little difference between Earth First and The Tea Party. Both believe “Extremism is the defense of (enter ideology here) is no vice.” No one wins that game.
So who do you think harvested them? This should be good.
Steve, surprised you did not run for office this time. Not all of those logs were harvested by “well paid” or by tax paying Coos County citizens or even some not so citizens. And what’s wrong with the local tax paying citizens of the mining industry?
Those decks of logs were harvested by well paid local workers. That is a good thing. The taxes paid support this county.
I have an Earth First Sticker on my Camper. It says “Earth First. We can mine the rest of the planets later”.
I agree Colandrio. Earth First fought to keep Oregon mills operating for decades, but the timber beasts usually get what they want. Have you all seen the decks of raw logs, in North Bend? Right from our forests being shipped to Asia? It’s amazing. No decent price , but the Chinese mill workers thank you Oregon.
When I first saw the latest plan for the Elliot, it was obvious that they were just rearranging the plattes so that they could access the older growth for cutting while claiming they were leaving most of the property untouched.
Thank you Earth First!