Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

What started as a fairly routine Board of Forestry Meeting on June 5, 2013 turned passionate and intense as the BOF reviewed a report from the Subcommittee on State Forests Financial Viability.

Following Department of Forestry Staff’s recommendation to accept the subcommittee’s report, BOF Chair Tom Imeson opened the meeting for public testimony. Chuck Bennett from the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, COSA, and Mary Botkin from the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, spoke to the vital need to increase timber harvests from all public forest lands, including State Forest lands.

Environmentalists from Northwest Oregon sought further restrictions on State Forest management. The timber industry responded with timber war veterans Jim Geisinger, Associated Oregon Loggers, Dave Ivanoff, Hampton Affiliates, and Chris Jarmer, Oregon Forest Industries Council.

Meanwhile, BOF member Sybil Ackerman tried in vain to get the presenter’s to focus on the narrow issue of State Forest Financial Viability. Mary Botkin responded with her long-time experience on the timber issue, including trips to Washington D.C. to encourage the Clinton Administration to try to solve the timber crisis that has decimated rural communities in Oregon.

Botkin reminded the BOF that the Clinton Administration’s Northwest Forest Plan was intended to solve the debate. Instead, the timber supply of the “compromise” has never been seen. Botkin also pointed out the most Oregonians that see dead, gray trees can’t decipher if the trees are on state, federal or private forests.

Eventually, the BOF accepted the subcommittee’s report and will continue to develop plans that will increase the financial viability of State Forests.

Kitzhaber wants Oregon forests to be model for region

Majority of state's timber being shipped overseas

From Salem Statesman Journal

Written by

Jeff Barnard

AP Environmental Writer

By Jeff Barnard

Gov. John Kitzhaber on Thursday called on the state Board of Forestry to take a new approach to managing state forests that will make them a model for resolving regional conflicts that have pitted logging against fish and wildlife habitat in the Northwest for more than 30 years.


Speaking to the board at its regular meeting in Forest Grove, Kitzhaber said since national forests in Oregon cut logging 90 percent to protect old-growth forest habitat for salmon and northern spotted owls, the bulk of the timber now comes off private lands. Too many of those logs are being shipped to China rather than sustaining jobs in Oregon mills, he said.


"This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and our jobs," Kitzhaber said. "We are at risk of becoming a timber colony for Asia, while undermining our mill infrastructure and their surrounding communities."



The governor's speech comes as his office and Oregon's congressional delegation are struggling to save rural timber counties from going broke when a federal safety net expires at the end of this year. The Secure Rural Schools Act has made up for the big drop in federal revenue sharing based on logging.


In the past four years, West Coast log exports from private lands have gone from $42 million to $500 million, Kitzhaber said. Meanwhile, federal forests, which amount to 59 percent of Oregon's land mass, produce just 12 percent of the timber. State forests produce 10 percent of the timber from 3 percent of the land. And private forests produce 75 percent of the timber from 19 percent of the land.


Legislative efforts to increase logging have just eroded trust on all sides, he added.
To make Oregon a model for resolving these issues, Kitzhaber said the state will have to work closely with agencies managing federal and private forests.


He suggested the board adopt strict performance standards to measure the success of forest policies and re-examine the longstanding model that produces timber by cutting forests in a way to encourage structures similar to old growth, rather than for maximum timber yield.

He also encouraged the board to act more aggressively to protect fish and wildlife habitat, particularly along salmon streams and on hillsides vulnerable to landslides, which will create conservation jobs and give everyone a better idea about what to expect from state forests.

Kitzhaber told the board to take a new look at its business model, taking into account the economic problems faced by timber counties, where plummeting federal timber revenues have left them struggling to survive.


Oregon Board of Forestry Chairman John Blackwell said he liked the fact the governor was giving them permission to be more aggressive protecting fish and wildlife habitat.


Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, a timber industry group, said he was encouraged by the governor's recognition that management on public forest lands, state and federal, is not working and needs changing.


Josh Laughlin of Cascadia Wildlands project, a conservation group, said the speech did not follow with the governor's recent vote to approve a 40 percent increase in clear-cut logging on the Elliott State Forest.

Jobs? How about cutting some trees???

As Oregon's legislative session heads into the home stretch, leaders are desperately looking to take action to boost jobs.  Republicans, and some Democrats, are seeking to revive State Forest management bills that have been lying dormant for the past four months. 

Last week, Senate Republicans tried a parliamentary move on the Senate Floor to revive SB 464.  Unfortunately, the move failed on a 16-14 party-line vote.  SB 464, like HB 2001, would increase timber harvests on State-owned forestlands.  Timber sales could provide jobs for loggers, truckers, millworkers and merchants that provide for the timber industry and its employees.

Schools and counties would also benefit from increased timber harvests.  State forests are operating significantly below their sustained yield capacity, depriving schools and counties of much needed revenue and rural communities of critical jobs.

Oregon Senate rejects GOP attempt to increase logging in state forests