bright-witch:Clearcut Oregon is something very important to me. When I saw this organization trying
bright-witch:Clearcut Oregon is something very important to me. When I saw this organization trying to stop clearcutting in my beautiful state, particularly the Oregon coast where I live and see horrible clearcuts every day like the images shown, knowing that others actually cared inspired me to help in some way. The website has many pages on information and how to take action, here: http://www.clearcutoregon.com/act–share.html The beautiful Nehalem river watershed where I live is just one example. The river habitat and forests are protected within its small town namesake, Nehalem. Nehalem detests logging, and the estuary river mouth area is protected, laws favoring scenic wildlife are in place. However, as soon as you leave the little coastal town, it’s parks, and drive into the forests surrounding the river, you will see horrible clearcuts everywhere. You can even see logging on Neahkahnie mountain just outside city limits. Wheeler and Rockaway, neighboring towns, sold out huge percentages of their watershed to clearcuts, and it shows. It’s so ugly in multiple ways. As you can see by the Cannon Beach image, the forests rarely grow back as healthy as they were before, and are cut again as soon as possible. I have studied forest succession in the PNW, and the forest service does not follow new, reliable studies/ data on how to best replant a forest. It’s laughable. They clearly treat it as a capitalist industry as opposed to vital habitat.The places left alone amidst the clearcuts are still absolutely beautiful in many areas, in spite of the destruction around them. There are still a few spots with old lichen draping off the trees in areas too steep for logging, which makes me sadly wonder about how beautiful they were before being treated like a tree farm. The old growth forests in protected areas and parks are amazing, but Oswald West is getting trampled by careless people – I’ve seen its quality degrade in a matter of years. Logging has also been allowed in the park, which I’m sure has contributed. Take a road trip to the beach in Oregon… You’ll notice it everywhere. The barriers and riparian buffers are pathetic. Oregon has beautiful forests, but they are already so fragmented (most species prefer interior habitat as opposed to edge habitat….) and poorly managed. We can do so much better. It’s frustrating how our administration supports unsustainable industry as opposed to investing in good sustainable jobs, and uses outdated data to back up their detrimental forest management decisions. I’m sick of it. A petition may not seem like much, but it’s better than nothing. The Clearcut Oregon awareness campaign also paid to put signs on the max trains again, which I think is awesome.A call to the government office would likely be even better, though I’m not educated enough on the subject to know how to go about it. If you are brave and know what you are doing, go for it! And please tell me about it so I can be amazed?! Some politicians in Oregon have accomplished helpful things, and I am glad to live here, but let’s be honest – the environment is usually the platform that becomes compromised, and deals get slid under the rug to keep large businesses satisfied, even when it comes to liberal / democratic leaders. The internet and free press discussing things, oh…I don’t know, like water bottle deals in the gorge, ect., and getting people upset with the truth, are the only reasons our leaders stopped the deal to be completely honest. There was likely an intentional reason it was initially proceeding and we had to fight so hard to stop a giant water bottle corporation from settling in to a pristine watershed forest. It took a while before Kate Brown finally stepped in to attempt to end it. I read the same water bottle corporate giant will try again in spite of the fire that just happened in Eagle Creek. I will say, I am proud of how our governors of coastal states are standing against the awful national coastal drilling proposal from Ryan Zinke, and how they are listening to the people recently. Clearcutting is just one of those things that has never been properly addressed and I refuse to stop talking about it.Streetroots News report, December 2017: “Industrial clear-cutting of Oregon’s forest is now the state’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis released Monday, Dec. 11, by the Center for Sustainable Economy. That’s a move up from second place in the center’s 2015 initial report, compiled in conjunction with the Geos Institute and Oregon Wild. Regardless of its impact, however, the industry remains virtually unaffected by the state’s proposed climate change legislation. Senate Bill 1070, which would create a carbon marketplace with incentives for reducing emissions, doesn’t include the timber industry’s impact on climate at all, which is topping out at an average of 33 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year. By comparison, the previous No. 1 – transportation – emits between 20 and 24 million metric tons each year… “Image Credit: 1 - courtesy of Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, 2- GIF of Cannon Beach Forest Logging from 2001-2016 via http://www.clearcutoregon.com , 3 - Clearcut Oregon information on Clearcuts and Climate Change via http://www.clearcutoregon.com/clearcuts-cause-climate-change.html <– Their presented data is also supported by long term studies on forests stages and their statistics regarding carbon storage, ecosystem health, biomass, and biodiversity, which I studied while getting my degree and while carrying out professional ecology/botany lab work. Also, let’s not forget the disproportionate, vastly unpaid road damage and watershed damage from logging/the overloaded trucks. One fully loaded big rig on average causes roughly the same road damage as ~9600+ passenger vehicles, look up the new studies. Some studies estimate closer to 10,000, others closer to 5,000, regardless… it’s absurd to have 5000-10000x the impact and not be held responsible! They didn’t want to admit it, but it’s irrefutable that large trucks cause disproportionate road damage, and taxpayers have to pay an unfair share of the cleanup. Studies have been coming out the last few years, slowly in the past but more rapidly in recent times – in spite of pushes against this from the logging and trucking industries, who love it when we don’t regulate anything or study the effects of their business’s actions. These industries arguments that their profits and existence as a job sector are more important to maintain than overall environmental health, developing sustainable living practices, and creating new job sectors in sustainable energy for future generations, are inherently ridiculous and closed minded. Their industries job positions have been declining and having a high turnover rate out of necessity. There is too much delivery by truck, conditions for workers are terrible in both trucking and logging, and more efficient long-distance goods transport is desperately needed for multiple reasons, as well as alternative building supplies. The United States would benefit greatly from updating our railroad system since our country is so massive and our roads are so crowded with civilians – trains can be upgraded a great deal here, and our trucks cannot become much more efficient… they are carbon emitting, crash-causing, road damaging monsters based on sheer physics alone. People are realizing we must be more conscious in order to conserve our resources and keep our planet healthy, and younger generations have little desire to work in trucking/logging for good reason. -- source link
#long text