State and Federal Forests

The Impact of Sound Forest Management Practices on Wildfire Smoke and Human Health

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– Some would have us turn our forests back to a time before any of mankind inhabited North America.
– Some suggest that we should limit our management of forests to that done by native Americans pre European times.
– Some of us see a problem with limiting ourselves to these past practices because of the current population level.
– Some of us even see that properly validated forest science carried out in environmentally sound ways can improve the sustainability of our forest ecosystems and all of the species that depend on them for habitat, store carbon and reduce our dependence on the use of non-renewable, environmentally unfriendly resources which are being extracted from their long term, safe, natural storage underground.

This article (J. For. 115(●):000–000 http://dx.doi.org/10.5849/jof.16-042
Copyright © 2017 Society of American Foresters) “fire & fuels management Aligning Smoke Management with Ecological and Public Health Goals” seems to me to be a good starting point for a much neglected discussion on why mankind has to manage our federal forest better just from the point of protecting human health.

A) Motivation for the study comes from:
1) “mismatches between the scale of benefits and risks make it difficult to proactively manage wildland fires to promote both ecological and public health.”
2) “A recent update to wildfire smoke policy proposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recognized the need to restore and maintain more frequent fire regimes through intentional use of fire, while asserting that protecting human health remained the agency’s “highest priority” (Office of the Federal Register 2015). Therefore, addressing both forest restoration and air quality objectives remains a central challenge.”
3) “Hurteau et al. (2014) found that under a business-as-usual climate scenario, this escalation in fire potential is likely to increase wildfire emissions in California by 50% by the end of this century unless agencies take a more proactive approach to fire use.”
4) “… current policies have permitted regulators to curtail fires intentionally managed for resource objectives in response to nuisance complaints by a few individuals, despite the potential for such
fires to have long-term collective benefits (Engel 2013). Because the impact and likelihood of smoke increase the longer that fire is kept out of the system, extensive fire suppression can result in a vicious cycle that becomes more and more costly to escape until the system fails, as represented by extreme
wildfires (Calkin et al. 2015).”
5) “Smoke and wildfires can impact public health in ways other than particulate pollution, including ozone pollution, increased stress during and after wildfires, and strains on medical services and communication systems (Fowler 2003, Kumagai et al. 2004, Finlay et al. 2012). Despite these broader
considerations, public health regulations for smoke typically focus on a 24-hour average of PM2.5. Values that exceed 35ug/m3 are considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, which include pregnant women, young children, elderly individuals, smokers, and people with chronic respiratory problems such as asthma (Delfino et al. 2009, Kochi et al. 2010, Moeltner et al. 2013).”

Please note that this study was not offered as a be all and end all study. In my opinion, the main objective was achieved. That objective being to give order of magnitude numbers to justify further research and further stimulate the process of rethinking current regulations and forest management policies.

B) Known Facts:
1) California: “The wildfire emissions in 2008 represented 68% of all PM2.5 emissions in the state, and they caused notable public health impacts (Wegesser et al. 2009, Preisler et al. 2015)”
2) “An important spatial mismatch results from the fact that large wildfires can create smoke impacts on distant urban populations. The risk to urban populations from regional-scale smoke impacts has increased as California became the most urbanized state in the United States, with 90% of its population residing within cities that have more than 50,000 people and another 5% living in smaller urban clusters (US Census Bureau 2015). Many of those urban areas are situated in valleys or basins that have poor air quality due to human activities as well as natural conditions that often trap pollutants (Ngo et al. 2010, Nakayama Wong et al. 2011). For example, the four metropolitan areas in the United States with the highest levels of particle pollution are all located in California’s Central Valley (American Lung Association 2015). Because many urban populations already experience poor air quality during the summer, they are particularly vulnerable to health impacts from wildfires (Delfino et al. 2009, Cisneros et al. 2014)”
3) “Within the study area, daily emissions from both prescribed burns and resource objective wildfires remained well below 500 tons PM2.5 , whereas the Rim Fire had 20 days exceeding that threshold (nearly half of its entire period of active fire growth) and peaked at nearly 11,000 tons PM2.5 /day on Aug. 26, 2013 (Figure 2). During the late summer, air quality is already problematic in downwind areas such as the Lake Tahoe Basin and San Joaquin Valley”
4) “Ground-level monitoring indicated that these large smoke plumes coincided with highly polluted days in Reno, which occurred on August 23–25 and again on August 28–29, when PM2.5 values exceeded the “unhealthy for all populations” standard (55.5ug/m3) (Figure 4F). Such high levels are such a serious health concern that people are advised to avoid going outdoors. Navarro et al. (2016) reported that very unhealthy and unhealthy days occurred at 10 air monitoring sites in the central Sierras, northern Sierras, and Nevada during the Rim Fire.”

C) Data – Smoke Plume data was used to “compare differences in smoke impacts between resource objective wildfires and full-suppression wildfires within the San Joaquin River watershed in California’s Sierra Nevada, the Sierras that burned between 2002 and 2013, including 10 resource objective wildfires (totaling 20,494 acres), 17 prescribed fires (totaling 6,636 acres), 4 small wildfires (totaling 12,025 acres), and the exceptionally large Rim Fire (257,314 acres). … the limited availability of smoke monitoring data, particularly before 2007, requires a focus on modeled emissions.”

D) Findings: Reasonable Expectations from the use of increased forest management to reduce the impact on human health of catastrophic wildfires include:
1) “Our results indicate that the 257,314-acre Rim Fire of 2013 probably resulted in 7 million person-days of smoke impact across California and Nevada, which was greater than 5 times the impact per burned unit area than two earlier wildfires, Grouse and Harden of 2009, that were intentionally managed for resource objectives within the same airshed.”
2) “The combination of a warming climate and accumulation of forest fuels ensures a future with more large fires and smoke in dry western US forests. We have outlined framework to more directly account for regional-scale smoke impacts from these events using surface monitoring and satellite observations of smoke. Managing large fires for resource objectives can shift the release of inevitable emissions to conditions that minimize large-scale smoke impacts, by controlling fire spread based on available dispersion and monitored impacts and creating anchors for containing future hazardous fires. When well supported by firefighting, air quality monitoring and modeling, and public communications resources, this approach can overcome existing disincentives for achieving ecological and public health goals.”
3) “August 31 … Altogether, medium- and high-density HMS smoke from the Rim Fire on that day covered a large area (251,691 mi2) with a population of 2.8 million people, more than 2 million of whom resided below high-density smoke … In contrast, the Grouse and Harden Fires burned slowly over the early summer of 2009, with very modest emissions until the last week of June … Our analysis of HMS maps indicated that there were only 2 days when medium-density plumes overlaid substantial populations in California and Nevada, amounting to 25,000 person-days”
4) “the Rim Fire burned 55 times more area (257,213 acres) than the combined footprint of the Grouse and Harden Fires (4,695 acres), but our analysis suggests that it had at least 275 times greater impact in terms of persondays, or 5.5 times greater impact relative to area burned.”
5) “Our analyses help to illustrate and begin to quantify many of the potential benefits of resource objective wildfires compared with those of extreme fires:
– 1. Reduced fuels and reduced consumption. … We accounted for this effect within the 10,385 acres of the Rim Fire’s footprint that had experienced prescribed fires or resource objective wildfires since 2002 by changing “typical” fuel loads to “light,” which reduced estimated emissions in those areas by 53%.
– 2. More favorable dispersion and potential for less ozone. As maintenance burns reduce fuel levels over time, managers may be able to burn more safely earlier in the summer and or later in the fall, when dispersion is often more favorable and ozone concentrations are lower (Jaffe et al. 2013). Fires managed for resource objectives are less likely to result in the greater lofting and concentrations of smoke reported from extreme fires, which often deliver pollution to distant, large urban populations in lower-elevation valleys (Colarco et al. 2004, Peterson et al. 2015).
– 3. Greater ability to regulate fire spread. Because wildfires would be managed for resource objectives when weather and fire behavior conditions are more moderate than under extreme wildfires, their slower fire spread can curb daily emissions. In addition, managers can employ the push-pull tactics burn described for the Grouse Fire to regulate daily emissions based on monitored concentrations fire will become increasingly important for reducing the likelihood and extent of large-scale, extreme fires like the Rim Fire (Westerling et al. 2015).”

Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades

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How should we deal with the new math on forest fires?

If this article published in the February Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is not a fluke then it would seem to me that our expanding population dictates the need for more forest management not less. The less desireable alternative would be to severely restrict access to our federal forests. The main conclusion of the article is that humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires and caused nearly half of the acreage lost to wildfire. This number excludes intentionally set controlled burns.

From the above, I would deduce that human initiated fires caused proportionally less acreage loss because they were closer to civilization and to forest access points and therefore closer to and more easily accessed by suppression resources. The fact that nearly half of the wildfire acres lost occur in these areas suggests that we would get more bang for our tax dollars if we increased and focused federal sustainable forest management around high traffic areas easily accessible to humans.

Knowing that humans who cause wildfires are, by definition, either careless or malicious, we might deduce that they are generally not inclined to put great effort into getting to their ignition set points. This would lead us to consider that human caused fires might prove to be in less difficult terrain areas with high human traffic. Fires like the Rim fire being the exception. That, if true, would suggest that forest management for risk reduction on these sites could be done at lower costs per acre than other less accessible forest acreage. Focusing forest management efforts on these high benefit to cost areas would have the biggest bang per tax dollar expended in order to lower the total cost of federal wildfire control. If my thinking is correct, this should play a large part in setting the priorities as to where we should: 1) apply controlled burns to reduce ground and other low fuels, 2) utilize commercial thinnings to reduce ladder and proximity fuels or 3) use commercial regeneration harvests to create greater variation in tree heights between stands in order to provide fire breaks for crown fires when appropriate for the site and species. The net effect would be positive for all species including endangered and threatened species. There would still be plenty of lightning caused wildfire, controlled burn hotspots/breakouts and a significantly reduced acreage of human caused fires to satisfy those who don’t mind national ashtrays. Reducing the number and size of human caused fires would also free resources to attack lightning fires earlier and harder when allowing the fire to burn was not an option.

Pertinent Quotes:

  1. “After analyzing two decades’ worth of U.S. government agency wildfire records spanning 1992-2012, the researchers found that human-ignited wildfires accounted for 84 percent of all wildfires, tripling the length of the average fire season and accounting for nearly half of the total acreage burned.” Italics added
  2. “”These findings do not discount the ongoing role of climate change, but instead suggest we should be most concerned about where it overlaps with human impact,” said Balch. “Climate change is making our fields, forests and grasslands drier and hotter for longer periods, creating a greater window of opportunity for human-related ignitions to start wildfires.”” Italics added
  3. “”Not all fire is bad, but humans are intentionally and unintentionally adding ignitions to the landscape in areas and seasons when natural ignitions are sparse,” … “We can’t easily control how dry fuels get, or lightning, but we do have some control over human started ignitions.””

IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND

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It seems like an exercise in futility for the “New Century of Forest Planning” group to be discussing and cussing forest planning &/ policy when we haven’t even agreed to the scientific fundamentals that serve as the cornerstone and foundation for any such discussions.

Below, I have developed a tentative outline of the high level fundamentals which any Forest Plan or Policy must incorporate in order to have a reasonable chance of meeting the desired goals. Until we can come up with a version of these “Forestry Fundamentals” that we generally agree to, we are pushing on a rope and wasting each other’s time unless our objective here is simply to snap our suspenders and vent on each other.

In your comments, please note the outline Item that you are responding to. Maybe we can revise my initial effort and come to some common ground. In doing so we would perform a service and make a step forward that would be useful outside of this circle instead of just chasing our tails. Coming to such an agreement would be a step towards developing a priority hierarchy and eliminating the internal conflicts which make current federal forest policy and law ambiguous and self-contradictory. Until we reach common ground, the current obviously unworkable policies will continue to doom our forests to poor health and consequentially increase the risk of catastrophic loss of those forests and the species that depend on them for survival.

– FORESTRY FUNDAMENTALS – 1st Draft 12/15/16

ESTABLISHED SCIENCE WHICH MUST BE INCORPORATED IN PLANNING FOR

THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOREST DEPENDENT SPECIES

I) The Fundamental Laws of Forest Science which have been repeatedly validated over time, location, and species. They include:
— A) plant physiology dictating the impact of competition on plant health,
— B) fire science dictating the physics of ignition and spread of fire and
— C) insects and pathogens and their propensity to target based on proximity and their probability of success being inversely proportional to the health of the target.

— D) Species suitability for a specific site is based on the interaction between the following items, those listed above and others not mentioned:

— — 1) hydrology, the underlying geology and availability of nutrients in the soil.

— — 2) latitude, longitude, elevation, aspect and adjacent geography.

— — 3) weather including local &/ global pattern changes.

 

II) The Fundamental Laws controlling the success of endangered, threatened and other species dependent on niche forest types (ecosystems):

— A) Nesting habitat availability.

— B) Foraging habitat availability.

— C) Competition management.

— D) Sustainability depends on maintaining a fairly uniform continuum of the necessary niches which, in turn, requires a balanced mix of age classes within each forest type to avoid species extinguishing gaps.

— E) Risk of catastrophic loss must be reduced where possible in order to minimize the chance of creating species extinguishing gaps in the stages of succession.

 

III) The role of Economics:

— A) Growing existing markets and developing new markets in order to provide revenue to more efficiently maintain healthy forests and thence their dependent species.

— B) Wise investment in the resources necessary to accomplish the goals.

— C) Efficient allocation of existing resources.

 

IV) The role of Forest Management:

— A) Convert the desires/goals of the controlling parties into objectives and thence into the actionable plans necessary to achieve the desired objectives.

— B) Properly execute the plans in accordance with the intent of: governing laws/regulations and best management practices considering any economies.

— C) Acquire independent third party audits and make adjustments in management practices where dictated in order to provide continuous improvement in the means used to achieve goals.

— D) Adjust plans as required by changes: in the goals, as required by the forces of nature and as indicated by on the ground results.

— E) Use GIS software to maintain the spatial and associated temporal data necessary for Scheduling software to find and project feasible alternatives and recommend the “best” alternative to meet the goals set by the controlling parties.

What did I miss, what is wrong, what is right, what would improve this list of Forest Fundamentals?

Sage Grouse and Gubernatorial Politics in Colorado

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Gov. John Hickenlooper, left, and Republican challenger Bob Beauprez debate over Western Slope issues at the Club 20 debates in Grand Junction Saturday night. photo by Lauren Glendenning/lglendenning@cmnm.org |
Gov. John Hickenlooper, left, and Republican challenger Bob Beauprez debate over Western Slope issues at the Club 20 debates in Grand Junction Saturday night.
photo by Lauren Glendenning/[email protected] |
Normally I pretty much tune out the hoopla around elections (truth is not usually found anywhere in the vicinity), but thought these two op-eds were of interest, in the sense that sage grouse has come out in gubernatorial politics. Probably would not happen with an endangered species in Texas, Florida, or New York, and maybe not California. These issues are a big thing to our people and hence to our governors. It could be about federal to private land ratios.. it could be due to people trying to make a living from natural resources compared to the proportion of people in the state as a whole. Or ????

Last Sunday there were these two op-eds in the Denver Post
yes Colorado could manage federal lands better
and no.

Here is the “no” one on sage grouse (written by a member of the Hickenlooper administration):

This doesn’t mean acquiescing to every federal decision. Colorado has the expertise and clout to push against the federal government when we disagree. The Hickenlooper administration has done so on numerous occasions, most recently in protecting sage grouse habitat.

Hmm. if it is really about following the law on ESA, then states shouldn’t be able to “push back” when they disagree.

Here is the “yes” one on sage grouse:

Need another example? The feds have now threatened to list the Gunnison sage grouse after years of hard work, compromise, and collaboration with farmers, ranchers, neighborhoods and local governments. It took nearly three years for Gov. John Hickenlooper to finally realize what a disaster the listing could be to all involved. He hired a friend of mine to run interference at a cost of additional hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay the efforts of bureaucrats who have no appreciation of our Western way of life or culture of self- reliance and responsibility for the land.

First, the fact that this is political this year raises the complex situation that we all understand to the simplistic “take over public lands by states” idea and that dog won’t hunt. That’s why we know it’s political and not real.

We have states winning lawsuits because they weren’t consulted the right way (California southern land management plans). We have courts supporting the feds not allowing Wyoming to be a cooperating agency on 2001 Roadless. BLM has (or did have) formal discussions with the governor’s staff on management plans. I sat in on these, a presentation to the DNR Executive Director (Harris Sherman at the time, small world!) during the period we had a joint FS/BLM management plan. The FS does not (last I looked, have such a formal process). Seems to me that if your interest is good public policy and not political theater, there are a great many choices of how to involve states in federal decision-making that have not been explored, or seem to be more or less random depending on agency history, case law, etc.

What Should Congress Do? II Trusts

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Pages from JayOLaughlin_US-Senate-testimony_03-19-13

This post involves information from Mac McConnell, Jay O’Laughlin and about the Valles Caldera experiment.

Solving these many and diverse local problems require local solutions based on local know-how. The current topdown,
one-size-fits-all land management by the feds has proven itself incapable of problem-solving at the forest
level. Removal of selected lands from federal oversight and transferal to local autonomous authority, similar to
state trust lands, would seem to be the most direct and efficient way – perhaps the only way – to secure reliable,
adequate funding and cut through the tangle of shifting, restrictive, and often conflicting laws, regulations,
executive orders, litigation, and judicial mandates that make federal management a hopeless cause.

Here is an in-depth look at this option, from Mac.

Jay O’Laughlin has also published some papers on trusts as a solution to some federal lands problems. Here is avery thorough one with charts and tables, and here is his testimony from a hearing in March. rough and one and here is his testimony at a Congressional hearing in March.

I’m interested in 1) what you think of the trust idea in general, and 2) whether you think a pilot might be feasible as a test case (or adaptive management). Perhaps O&C lands? Or somewhere else? Why would that area be good for a pilot?
3) What have we learned about trusts through the Valles Caldera trust experiment?
I was just reading about how:
from the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club, Caldera Action, National Parks Conservation Association, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Coalition of NPS Retirees, Audubon and others have been pushing to replace the current experimental trust management with the National Park Service since around 2007.

Many people feel Valles Caldera is a National Park-quality place and it could be well protected and a tremendous economic asset to Northern New Mexico when the National Park Service assumes management of the land as a preserve.

Maybe any place placed into trust would be a “non-National Park quality” place? But I wonder if to the NPCA,to the retirees, and to the Sierra Club everyplace is “National Park quality” either now, or once current users are removed.

The grazing language now reads that the National Park Service “shall” permit livestock grazing but the NPS will have full discretion about where cows can be, when, and how many.

So to a pilot, we would have to find a place that most folks would say is not “National Park Quality”. Perhaps lots of timbered country, no pretty canyons, lots of existing roads. In a state with existing land trusts. Perhaps Northern Washington or Idaho?

State Management Has Issues as Well, at Least in Oregon- Krieger’s Bill

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So there are many problems with management of federal forests. A helpful and eagle-eyed reader sent these links about efforts to stop physical protests of timber sales on Oregon State forests.

Here’s the link to this story and below is an excerpt.

The 2011 protests were less about speech than about a sanctimonious form of thuggery. Perched precariously in trees, the protesters dared loggers and authorities to dislodge them. They tore up a culvert to protect their protest site.

Critics of Krieger’s bill complain that it “criminalizes protest.” Similar complaints have been voiced about a federal law, signed by President Barack Obama last year, that allows prosecution of anyone who knowingly enters federal buildings to disrupt government functions. (It’s known as the “anti-Occupy law.”)

Writing a law to punish hooliganism, without unduly restricting freedom of expression, is a tricky business. Courts have interpreted the First Amendment to cover a variety of non-verbal protests. But a physical, potentially deadly confrontation surely reaches beyond constitutionally protected free expression.

Making it a felony may be overreaching on Krieger’s part. He has a companion bill that would let loggers sue protesters for lost income, and it may be easier to pass. But monetary loss is a less effective deterrent than the threat of jail time and a felony record.

If Oregon seriously wants to harvest timber from state forests, it has to find a way to deter the protesters’ guerrilla tactics. If not, the guerrillas own the woods.

Here’s the Cascadia Wildlands view (it’s long, but I’m going to put it all in so it’s clear I’m not cherry-picking, plus it’s not a news story):

When it comes to the fight for old growth forests in the state of Oregon, Cascadia Forest Defenders (CFD) have recently been enjoying the sensation of winning. The fight for the Elliott State Forest, which has been escalating since 2009, has had all the elements of a successful grassroots campaign. Multi-tiered woods blockades at the point of extraction, a series of escalating direct actions at the point of decision, coalitions built with interested parties all over the spectrum of environmentalism, and relationships forged with the communities that will be most affected by horrific clear cutting. The projects that CFD has contested were enjoined by a lawsuit brought by conservation groups in Oregon declaring the cutting in the Elliott illegal under the Endangered Species Act. As I write, the Elliott is protected under legal injunction and not a single old growth tree has been felled there since early May. We have been celebrating our victories, growing in numbers, plotting our next moves in the Elliott and expanding our focus to include other campaigns– all the things a healthy campaign should be doing.

Unfortunately, with increased escalation, success, and support comes increased state repression. Now, forest defenders in Oregon and all of their allies are facing a bill that would create a felony out of forest defense protest tactics. HB-2595, which specifically mentions the Elliott State Forest, clearly intends to stop CFD in their tracks. This nasty bill, financially backed by the shameless timber industry, requires a MANDATORY MINIMUM of 13 months in prison for a first offense of “interfering with state forestland management”, with a second offense earning protesters a full 5 years in prison! Interfering is defined as, “The person, while on state forestland or an access road, intentional hinders, impairs or obstructs, or attempts to hinder, impair or obstruct, the performance of the forest practice.” In practical terms this means– tree sits, road blockades, and anything that costs Oregon Department of Forestry, logging companies, or law enforcement money.

On Monday, members of Cascadia Forest Defenders went to Salem to attend a House of Representatives hearing about this bill and deliver their testimony. They report that the only supporters of this bill were — surprise surprise — lobbyists from the timber industry. Those opposing the bill included a lobbyist from the ACLU, members of Occupy Salem and Occupy Portland, CFD and even a union lobbyist from the timber industry, who gave testimony that this bill could be used to take away their right to go on strike.

This isn’t the first time that a law has been written to specifically target Earth First! activists. In 2000, a law called Criminalized Interference with Agricultural Operations was passed and 99% of the times it was used was to prosecute forest protesters. In 2009, the Civil Liberties Defense Center lawyer Lauren Raegan (savior of those who take risks in the woods) had that law declared federally unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Act. This time around, CFD has the ACLU on our side. Lobbyist Becky Strauss testified at the hearing that this law, among many other problems, violates Article 1 Section 16 of the constitution that calls for the punishment to be proportionate to the crime. She calls this punishment “very unbalanced”.

Mandatory minimums are a tactic that is popular with lawmakers because they want a quick fix to the problem of a certain crime. They leave no room for individualized sentences and are exorbitantly expensive to taxpayers. It costs $28,000/year dollars to incarcerate a federal prisoner. Looking at a list of the crimes that have mandatory minimums, most of them are related to drug and weapons possession, robbery, assault, child pornography and other violent crimes. Nonviolent direct action has no place in the mandatory minimum category, and this will not be a quick fix. Says Jason Gonzales of CFD in his testimony, “Creating a mandatory minimum prison sentence won’t stop us from fighting these projects but it will change the way we have to fight them. My very genuine concern is that it will force large sections of our movement to take their actions further underground. Indeed, instead of stopping us, it may encourage us to accomplish more when risking so much. Ultimately it will further clog an already burdened court and prison system with peaceful protesters who clearly do not deserve such an outrageous mandatory minimum sentence.”

A novel could be written about all the things that are frustrating about this bill and what it could mean for the work that CFD does. For starters, if this bill had been in place in 2011, three of our members would just be getting out of prison right now. “I don’t think that I’m the kind of person that the State of Oregon wants to see behind bars at any cost to the state. And having a law that elevates a simple protest crime to a felony, that would require the state holding me for 13 months, seems absurd and a waste of public time and money,” says Grace of CFD regarding being a target of this bill.

Further, CFD and other forest defenders in Oregon have been specifically choosing above ground tactics so that we can avoid the prison industrial complex and enjoy the luxuries of being active participants in our larger communities. We choose civil disobedience because it is a tactic that allows us to escalate our campaigns while still participating in reasonable public discourse. Says Jason Gonzales on this issue: “The people this bill targets are not violent criminals. I’m a parent. I coach kindergarten soccer. I spend my days chopping firewood in the woods and meeting with my neighbors. We have students, we are professionals, we meet with governors, we present at panels. And when its the last resort we put our bodies on the line. We’re regular citizens who care. Isn’t this what our democracy is for? I don’t understand why we want to see less of this instead of more.”
Will this law pass in the chambers of our lawmakers who supposedly represent us? Will they use their legislation powers to erode democracy and box activism into a corner of petitioning and standing on street corners? CFD is inclined to say they won’t be able to. As we organize against this, the striking thing is how many different types of people support us. We have many allies who believe that direct action is an important tactic in what has become a very widespread struggle for the forests we love. Luckily for us, we are supported by fellow activists, lawyers, environmental non-profits, journalists, the citizens of the towns we live in, our friends and families; all who want us to keep kicking ass in the woods! We will not be intimidated by this state repression, and we will continue to confront this bill, the chainsaws, and whatever else they throw at us. We are still winning, after all.
Said Grace after the hearing, “The silver lining of this bill is that politicians finally have to admit that we are costing our enemies unmanageable amounts of money. I was really scared in that hearing room, but at least now I finally know that we are doing the right things.”

If you support forest defense, civil disobedience, and want to keep Oregon’s old growth standing tall, call Oregon’s House Judiciary Chair Rep. Jeff Barker (503) 649 1767. Tell him to drop HB 2595.

This raises a couple of questions for me.

1) What is it about west side Oregon? This doesn’t seem to happen elsewhere. I wonder what cultural/historical/social aspects may have led to the use of these kinds of tactics..

2) RE: their quote

Plotting our next moves in the Elliott and expanding our focus to include other campaigns– all the things a healthy campaign should be doing.

What is a “campaign”? Is it different from trying to express a point of view about one thing? It gives an outside observer the impression that this is just one issue, but that the underlying goal is something else, doesn’t exactly build trust…

3) I’m interested in brainstorming about who else could participate in civil disobedience to express our beliefs…for example, if some of us believe that project disputes should not be settled in courtrooms, could we just block access to courthouses where they occur?