Healthy Forests Healthy Communities

As someone who understands the importance of a vibrant forest products industry to our rural economies and the health of our forests, I know you're frustrated with the past 20 years of endless gridlock in our federal forests. That's why I'm writing to formally introduce you to Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, a new effort to help address the crisis in timber-dependent communities by promoting active, sustainable management of our federal forest lands.

We are all aware of the problems: county governments are struggling to fund basic services, forests are more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire, insects and diseases, and our rural communities are faced with high unemployment, poverty and high-rates of chronic disease.

The health of our forests and well-being of our rural communities depends on Congressional action to reform how these forests are being managed. The mission of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities is to help empower the growing number of Americans who are calling for action in our nation's capitol. We need your help to share this exciting news with your friends and colleagues. Please see how you can help below.

Introducing Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities

Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities is a new grassroots coalition created to support Congressional action on a comprehensive and permanent solution to restore the health of our rural counties and federal forest lands.

We support a lasting solution that assures active, sustainable forest management, stable revenue sharing for local governments and more jobs in our rural, forested communities. For far too long elected officials in Washington, DC have avoided finding real solutions to the challenges facing our forests and local communities.

Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities is a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(4) organization. It’s supported by businesses and individuals who are passionate about improving the health of our forests and the future of our rural communities.

How to Support Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities

Through your membership or involvement with organizations such as American Forest Resource Council, you are already involved in seeking a solution. The best way to help grow our new organization and spread our message is to share Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities with your friends, neighbors and business associates. Here's how:

1. Ask them to visit our web site at HealthyForests.org to sign-up to learn more about the issues and receive regular updates. We must expand our reach if we are to succeed in urging Congress to take action!

2. Ask them to "Like" us on our Facebook Page or "Follow" us on our Twitter feed.

Supporters will receive regular updates on breaking news, legislative developments, and will be alerted to special opportunities to contact their elected officials directly.

With your help and support for Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, we can grow a grassroots movement that will compel our federal leaders to reach a solution. Thanks for your time.

Nick Smith
http://www.healthyforests.org/ 

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Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities · United States 

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Lawmakers Want To Crack Down On Logging Protests

Citing 'environmental terrorism,' Oregon House passes bills targeting tree-sitters, environmental activists

Lawmakers Want To Crack Down On Logging Protests

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By Yuxing Zheng, The Oregonian 
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on April 29, 2013 at 6:42 PM, updated April 29, 2013 at 6:48 PM

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View full sizeEnvironmental activists previously staged sit-ins, road blockades and protests at Elliott State Forest. Two bills passed in the Oregon House Monday target tree sitters and others who interfere with state forestland management.Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

SALEM -- With talk about "environmental terrorism," the Oregon House approved two bills Tuesday that target tree sitters and other environmental activists who interfere with logging in state forests.

House Bill 2595, which passed 51-4, would create the crime of interference with state forestland management.House Bill 2596, which passed 43-12, would allow private contractors with the Oregon Department of Forestry to sue environmental protestors for the cost of damaged equipment, employee wages, attorney fees and similar costs. Both bills head to the Senate.

The legislation comes amid divisive efforts to increase logging in Elliott State Forest near Reedsport and proposals to increase logging in federal forest lands. Environmental activists affiliated with Cascadia Forest Defenders and Cascadia Earth First! staged protests at Elliott State Forest in recent years and at the Oregon State Capitol in May and June 2012, which led to arrests.

"They are known to overturn their vehicles on roads, chain themselves to trees, chain themselves to equipment, damage equipment, dig ditches in the roads, drive spikes in trees to cause injuries to workers, among other dangerous acts," said Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach, who carried both bills. "This type of conduct cannot and should not be tolerated."

House Bill 2595 would allow district attorneys "to charge these terrorists with a crime and make them accountable," he said.

View full sizeEnvironmental protestors in June 2012 locked themselves together and refused to leave the offices of Secretary of State Kate Brown and Treasurer Ted Wheeler in the Oregon State Capitol. State police arrested six protestors.Oregon State Police

Krieger also cited protests at a State Land Board meeting in 2011 and sit-ins in the offices of Secretary of State Kate Brown and Treasurer Ted Wheeler in June 2012, when protestors locked themselves together. One protestor also urinated on the carpet in the offices of the treasurer, and protestors howled and made animal noises, Wheeler's spokesman said. State police arrested six protestors.

The bills passed despiteconcerns from environmental activists and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregonthat they would infringe upon free speech rights of environmental protestors. Activists can already be prosecuted for disorderly conduct, trespass, property damage and criminal mischief, said Becky Straus, legislative director of ACLU of Oregon.

"House Bill 2595 is effectively criminalizing civil disobedience for one particular group, and we think it's really very dangerous to give this sort of discretion to law enforcement," Straus said. "It's taking conduct that can already be penalized under our criminal code and heightening the criminal penalties of the conduct, simply because of the content of the speech and the type of person who engages in the conduct."

Defendants convicted of interfering with forestland management for the first time would face up to a year in jail, a $6,250 fine, or both. Subsequent convictions would net a minimum of 13 months in jail and a $25,000 fine. The maximum penalty would be 18 months in jail and a $125,000 fine.

If House Bill 2595 becomes law, environmental activists vow to challenge it in court.
"I can assure you that as soon as this bill becomes law, we'll have as many people arrested and prosecuted under it as possible," said Jason Gonzales, a spokesman with Cascadia Forest Defenders. "There's no law that can stop somebody from acting on something they passionately believe in. There's not some level of punishment that will make us not want to do that."

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Cascadia Forest Defenders has staged road blockades, tree sits and protests in Elliott State Forest in recent years. The group is opposed to an October 2011 decision to increase logging in the forest. Three environmental groups in May 2012 filed a lawsuit that said logging would threaten the marbled murrelet, a threatened sea bird.

Jim Geisinger, executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers, welcomed the passage of the two bills Monday. Although contractors can already sue for damages, current law is "a little vague and nebulous," he said.

"When protestors or obstructionist activities in the forest cause a contractor to go home, and they're unable to perform their duties, that costs money," he said. "The value of these bills is to put people on notice that there are consequences to their illegal actions."
-- Yuxing Zheng

The Problem is not in Salem

When Rough & Ready Lumber Company announced the closure of the family-owned sawmill on April 18^th; legislators filled Oregon’s Capitol with speeches denouncing the loss of 85 family-wage jobs and the closure of one of Oregon’s venerable companies after 90 years.

The speeches brought bipartisan offers to do something, anything, to help. Unfortunately, the problem is not in Salem, the problem is in Washington D.C. Federal forest management has failed forest health, county receipts, rural communities, and the public timber dependent industry the U.S. Forest Service encouraged to locate in the Pacific Northwest following World War II.

Jennifer Phillippi, granddaughter of Rough and Ready’s founders, has graciously responded to media requests for the rest of the story. Her portrayal of the paradox of having a mill located in the middle of a productive National Forest yet her company is unable to purchase sufficient raw materials that would allow Rough and Ready to provide lumber for the improving housing market.

Jennifer’s poise in a difficult situation would have made her late father Lew Krauss, swell with pride. While keeping the sawmill operating, Jennifer has served the timber industry and the public tirelessly as a member of Oregon’s Board of Forestry and before that a board member of the Oregon Forest Resource Institute.

Ron Wyden faces great opportunity or peril In navigating federal forest policy

Will Oregon’s Senior Senator Grab the gold ring?

As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sen. Ron Wyden is perfectly positioned to resolve the federal forest health/timber supply/county payments conundrum and claim a grand prize.

By rescuing the nearly insolvent O & C counties, restoring forest health in Eastern Oregon while providing much needed timber supply to create family-wage jobs in rural Oregon and also increase business for banks, technology developers, and lots of other suppliers in Metropolitan Portland.

Such achievements will cement Sen. Wyden’s legacy alongside other Oregon political greats such as Mark O. Hatfield and Tom McCall. Reps. Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, along with Governor John Kitzhaber’s O & C task force spent months developing a compromise plan for the 2.3 million acres of forestland in 18 Western Oregon Counties.

Sen. Wyden has labored for three years crafting a collaborative plan for improving forest health on the National Forests of Eastern Oregon while reinvigorating the timber dependent communities a long way from the I-5 corridor. His new leadership position in the Senate provides the platform to craft and pass generational federal forest legislation.

Ron Wyden once again faces perils of trying to navigate federal forest policy

Oregon O&C forest proposal receives House hearing and a promise: negotiations will continue

Wyden proposes giving some O&C timberlands to tribes

House Takes Up Proposals to Raise Revenue Through Logging

Timber split

The great divide