WOPR & Beyond Coalition: Contact Samantha Chirillo
THE BASICS: The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) of the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) has been released to the Governor and the public. The Governor has til Dec. 8 to review how the WOPR would undermine the state’s current laws and plans and take a stand. The BLM’s final proposal would cut 100,000 acres of old growth and ten of thousands of acres of native forest that is future old growth. 70% of all logging under the plan would be clear-cutting. The WOPR would also cut waterway protections in half from those under the current Northwest Forest Plan, a comprehensive federal policy governing all of Oregon’s public forests. The WOPR would remove the BLM from the guidelines of the Northwest Forest Plan, a compromise agreement between the timber industry and environmental interests. With only about 5% of our old growth remaining in the U.S., 10% in Oregon and Washington, we need to take steps forward from the Northwest Forest Plan for more responsible forest management that will increase our percentage of old growth. The WOPR is a takeback by the already heavily subsidized timber industry, threatening regional and global climate, and hence our long-term economic stability, at this very moment when we need to take decisive action to ensure climate security.
ECONOMIC IMPACT: Congress just voted (10/3/08) to bail-out (provide federal payments to) Western Oregon counties, phasing out over the next four years. Both the bailout and the WOPR are short-sighted solutions. While WOPR will add some timber jobs in the short-term, it will subtract still more jobs in recreation, ecotourism, and fishing. The tourism/recreational sector of the Oregon economy is more than twice as large as the timber sector. The erosion and pesticides that accompany clearcut logging have substantially contributed to the decline of Oregon’s salmon stocks. Salmon fishing has been prohibited for much of the last two years, in fact, because of the decline, and coastal communities are suffering. Moreover, because of its large scale (1 million acres managed for timber harvest under the plan), WOPR would seriously jeopardize the essentials that forests provide us for free, like carbon storage, soil retention, cooling, and clean water. More water treatment needed as the result of erosion from clearcuts would be very costly. Moreover, clearcuts will diminish property values of the many rural folks who live next to BLM lands and diminish quality of life for all Oregonians. The trend in the timber industry over the years has been toward mechanization and exports, by which many jobs have been lost. The capacity to mill old growth trees is still held by only a handful of mills in the NW. Private forested lands and contracts for public lands logging have gotten condensed in the hands of a few, already-wealthy CEOs, while the boom-bust pattern of clearcut logging, including on BLM lands, has wrecked many rural communities. Therefore, a loss in timber jobs has resulted, in part, from trends in the industry that have served to maximize and concentrate profit in the short-term. The Northwest Forest Plan was intended to slow logging because the previous rate was plainly unsustainable, as it still is today although it’s definitely slowed markedly. Unsustainable logging means a decline in timber jobs in the long-term in addition to environmental degradation. The WOPR hurts rural and urban Oregonians alike. The Citizens’ Alternatives involving more sustainable forest management and proposed to the BLM during the public comment period were crafted by rural citizens; unfortunately, the BLM chose to ignore them.
CLIMATE IMPACT: The WOPR threatens both regional and global climate. Forests provide regional cooling and moisture, whereas clearcutting promotes desertification. Deforestation has been a major contributor to the fall of civilizations, no longer able to grow food on their dry, nutrient-depleted land. Our intact forests on public lands are our priceless buffers against regional climate change. Because Pacific NW forests have the highest carbon storage density of any forests on Earth, and clearcutting has been shown by peer-reviewed research to release almost all of the carbon stored in the forest, the clearcutting of some of Oregon’s last old growth stands under the WOPR would have an impact on global climate, as well. According to Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild, in Oregon, the amount of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, or CO2, released annually into atmosphere from private forestland logging equals that emitted from all of the cars and trucks registered in the state of Oregon. WOPR would add to the climate crisis, resulting in 180 million metric tons more carbon in the atmosphere compared to a plan that would conserve our forests as carbon storage systems, based on the BLM's own estimates. This is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 1 million cars driven for 132 years. Thus, the WOPR clearly contradicts the greenhouse gas reduction targets set forth in HB 3543, passed by the OR legislature and promoted and signed by Governor Kulongoski in 2007. Oregon is extremely unlikely to meet these ambitious targets simply by reducing fossil fuel-derived emissions if it increases deforestation-derived emissions and squanders the carbon storage potential of its forests. The WOPR would contribute to the climate change crisis at the time (right now!), when we desperately need to be reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. Although climate change is having a negative impact on forests in some ways (die-off, pests, megafires, etc.), unsustainable logging is an even greater and more certain threat that makes these impacts all the worse. Replacing old forests with young, fast-growing forests is not a solution. Young monoculture trees, like those with which the BLM intends to replace complex old growth stands under the WOPR, may never produce substantial net carbon storage because they would have to store more carbon than was lost from the old forest; they are intended to be clearcut before they could do so. After clearcutting, forest soil and especially decaying material, like large stumps, continue to release CO2 into the atmosphere long after the trees are hauled away. Studies have shown that monoculture plantations have less carbon storage potential than native, biodiverse forests, such as the ones threatened by the WOPR. Moreover, plantations are known to be more prone to fire than old growth forests. Fire releases CO2 into the atmosphere, although not as much as clearcutting releases over the same acreage.
Urge the Governor to Reject the WOPR!
Governor Kulongoski’s 60-day period to review and comment on (in opposition or support of) could start as soon as 10/17. Now is the time to contact the Governor. There will be no public opportunity to comment on the FEIS or final decision. The Governor is the only entity standing between the Bush Administration and our public forests, our buffer against climate change. The Governor has the authority to stop the WOPR in its tracks; if we pass up this opportunity to persuade him, then costly and lengthy litigation is the only strategy remaining, during which logging could proceed. Urge the Governor to leave a positive legacy by opposing the WOPR.
Governor Kulongoski,
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Call the Governor’s Citizens’ Message Line regularly at 503-378-4582
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