our government at work

BLM

Commonly know as the Bureau of Land Management
is now the bureau of land MIS management.

Pure and simple.

How could they cut these trees ancient trees?

Illegally! That's how.

The organization I worked for, Umpqua Watersheds http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/ along with other organizations in southern Oregon, took the BLM to court last year to stop the logging of this old growth forest. They lost the legal battle but cut the road through illegally before the court decision. We won the decision, the court sided with us. Hey, wait, put back the trees....

And now they want to

revise their management plans for western Oregon to get around the law. The Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) is the BLM's process of removing and weakening important environmental protections. The BLM wants to log the last of the old-growth in Oregon's heritage forests.

"BLM Draft plan released, and its a whopper!

The BLM released its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the "Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR)" on August 10, 2007. The preferred alternative would increase logging of trees 200 years and older sevenfold over the next decade. Yes, you read that correctly, a
700 percent increase in logging Oregon's last old-growth forests!"

Quoted from http://www.oregonheritageforests.org/

Wow - supersize the cut.

Some background:
BLM lands, also known as “O&C” lands, are in a square-mile checker-board land ownership patterns. 2.6 milllion acres of public land.

Above: The Coos Bay BLM recreation map of lands about 20 miles west of Roseburg BLM lands are yellow, private industrial forest lands are white.

The federal government took these lands back from the Oregon and California (O&C) Railroads in the early 20th century because of fraudulent land deals.

In 1995, the BLM set aside reserves for endangered species like owls and salmon as part of a way around the Endangered Species Act when owls were listed. Somehow the recovery plans mandated by law for endangered species was only held to public lands. Private timber lands got away with murder.

Still the timber industry was not pleased, sued for a bigger cut on public lands (after there was no more big timber on private land ) and Bush "settled" with them by making a deal to let them eliminate wildlife reserves on BLM land, using an old 1937 O & C law of timber production.

I am reading the Draft Environmental Impact Statement so that I can make "comments" on the document and supposedly these public comments are taken into consideration. It is a 1,500 page tome and the planning process must have cost them a fortune already. The law says they have to have alternatives, so what, they are all terrible. Increase old growth logging by 700% - are they nuts. You can't pay for the expenses of the twenty first century with the resource extraction of the 18th century. Hello, does this look like 1937?

Only 18% of the northwest's ancient forests remain. Some sources say as little as 13%. Most of it now on public land, the private land cut theirs a long time ago. This is sustainable? We should cut what, more?

Check out Oregon Heritage Forests

http://www.oregonheritageforests.org/old_growth_giveaway

for more information and ways you can become involved - it's your public land, let them know how you want it managed. Even just caring helps on an energetic level.

This is not timber, it's a forest of grandfather trees.

Credit:

Almost all of these awesome photos were taken by my boss at UW, Francis Eatherington, seen here counting the rings on this over 300 year old tree.

Will they ever let a tree grow that long again?

It's so short sighted to cut these giants. It's like selling your family jewelry to pay the water bill. What are you going to do next month?

I hope in the future humans will understand that live trees are much more valuable to them

than dead ones. You can't even begin to match the power of these forests,

with an industrial tree farm. Which do you want to take your grandchildren too.

And that's what I think.

I'd love to know what you think.