Narrow Way Cafe

Orphangelical

“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.”

Kurt Vonnegut

“Every saint has a past, every sinner a future.”

Oscar Wilde

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They fail to alter their views to fit the facts. Instead, they alter facts to fit their views.

Dr Who.

Arcane Public Forest Policies

Dgg

Are rural communities addicted to resource sales proceeds?

This past week the Oregon Senate approved Senate Bill 1546 – decoupling timber harvests in the Elliot State forest (near Coos Bay) from the funding of public schools. Generally speaking: Is the regulatory convention that public timber sale proceeds fund public institutions arcane? Do we agree that timber harvest fluctuations have harmed rural communities? What alternatives are there, other than continuing the legacy that links resource extraction to public funding? Can you outline modern ways to preserve and manage public lands as well as produce forest products and stable jobs?

Those are questions I’m invited to pose in a virtual town hall with Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

Virtual Town Hall Coos County, 5:30 pm, Saturday, April 9, link to watch

In looking around, the Elliot State Forest example of decoupling forest sales from public financing is either a rare instance or a very first occurrence. The legislation is in fact so fresh it hasn’t been updated at Wikipedia as of this writing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_State_Forest

Here is an OPB article that outlines the circumstance that have brought us to where we are now…

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/06/elliott-state-forest-research-oregon-bill/

There are other groups incubating ideas similar to this. Stay tuned. I’ll write more on forest management soon.