Government should return forest lands to Hispanics: Op-ed

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Here’s the link to an op-ed in the ABQ Journal.

Here is an excerpt:

The recent decision by the U.S. Forest Service to ban motorized vehicles on 100,000 acres in the Carson National Forest (mostly in Taos County) is going to hurt tens of thousands of Hispanic families in northern New Mexico who rely on cutting their firewood each winter in these same lands to keep their families warm during the cold winters.
This Forest Service ban will effectively put all this land off-limits to the Hispanic families and communities of northern New Mexico starting immediately and will make it very difficult – if not impossible – for Hispanic families to cut their firewood for next winter and all future winters, unless this decision is reversed soon.

In addition to firewood cutting, this ban will effectively make it impossible for Hispanic families in northern New Mexico to use these lands for our traditional cultural uses as we have for 400 years.
These traditional Hispano cultural uses include grazing our small cattle herds in these lands, hunting, fishing, and piñon and herb gathering, among other traditional uses.

It seems the Forest Service is now allowing the anti-Hispanic environmentalists to ban the Hispanic families from using these lands controlled by the Forest Service. The anti-Hispanic agenda of the environmentalists and their movement is well-known in northern New Mexico, where Hispanic families, individuals and communities – along with our Hispano culture – have been under attack by this anti-Hispanic movement for many years now.

These anti-Hispanic environmentalists have been running a campaign of lies for many years, falsely claiming their movement is so diverse and so helpful to the Hispanic communities. The reality is the environmentalists have a selfish, elitist and anti-Hispanic agenda whose goal seems to be the destruction of the Hispanic communities and culture in northern New Mexico

I’m assuming that the road closure is for environmental protection or to save money. If that were the case, I think it’s really hard to argue that something happening all over the country is anti-Hispanic. People of all races, and from the Native Americans to this decades’ immigrants use public lands. Note to readers: I disagree with Mr. Martinez that environmental groups are specifically anti-Hispanic. Closing roads may well have different impacts to different ethnic groups and social classes, though. Hopefully that’s addressed in the environmental justice part of the social analysis in the environmental documentation.

What is different for Native Americans, is that they have treaty rights are in a “government to government” relationship, so it’s fundamentally a legal difference compared to run-of-the-mill forest neighbors.

Considering that more than 90 percent of the lands claimed by the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests were stolen from the Hispanic land grant communities by corrupt and racist U.S. government officials, this latest ban is further proof that our government should return the land grant lands to the Hispanic land grant communities in northern New Mexico, who remain the legal owners of these lands.

Our Hispano families, communities and culture in northern New Mexico have a right to exist and a right to survive, just as the Native Americans and other group enjoys that right. Our Hispano communities’ right to exist and survive includes the return of our land grant lands.

If Mr. Martinez’s claim about the origin of the national forests in New Mexico is accurate, then Hispano families also have a unique property right to that land.

However, I hope that all “National forest neighbor” communities have some “a right to exist and a right to survive,” and their traditional uses should be respected.

Lawsuit: “no material threat of wildfire”

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A comment on opposition to another USFS project. I don’t know anything about this project except from the Decision Memo, here:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/ltbmu/landmanagement/projects/?cid=stelprdb5314648

This is a 100-acre fuels-reduction project. There are ~60 cabins and outbuildings within the project area.

Would this project affect the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog? I don’t know. However, having worked on the El Dorado, just over the hill from this project, and having fought fire in that area, including in the adjacent Desolation Wilderness, I disagree with the biologist’s opinion that “no material threat of wildfire exists at all.”

The DM says:

“In project treatment areas the landscape would shift from Fire Regime Condition Class 2 and 3, toward 1 and 2, improving the overall resiliency of the forest to large scale disturbances.”

Article below from Greenwire. A Sacramento Bee article, which mentions that the biologist’s family “has owned a cabin for three generations,” is here:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/17/5919990/unr-prof-lawsuit-seeks-to-block.html

 

Nev. professor sues Forest Service over logging proposal

Published: Monday, November 18, 2013

A biologist has filed suit against the Forest Service for its plans to log above Lake Tahoe.

The agency is ignoring its own analysis of the wildfire risk in the high-altitude, old-growth forests near Echo Lakes, said Dennis Murphy, a biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. The region is located about 8 miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

“Cutting activities on the Pacific Crest Trail/Tahoe Rim Trail in the scenic Lake Tahoe Basin are occurring where no material threat of wildfire exists at all,” said Murphy, who has done research for the agency for more than a decade.

He argues that the logging threatens the survival of the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, which is being considered for endangered species protections.

“In its zeal to implement the project, the Forest Service has disregarded these facts and is violating procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act by blazing ahead,” according to the lawsuit filed earlier this month.

Murphy’s lawyer, Paul Weiland, last week filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order to suspend logging operations. But U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell denied the request, saying Murphy should have made a request earlier if it was an emergency (Scott Sonner, AP/Sacramento Bee, Nov. 17). — JE

How likely is a home to burn in wildfire? New scale rates the risk

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Below are excerpts from Rob Chaney’s article in today’s Missoulian:

It’s common to assume the walls of flame under a towering smoke column pose the biggest threat in a wildfire, said Jack Cohen, a scientist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula. That’s true for people, but not for houses.

“The same heat radiation that on my exposed skin will give me a second-degree burn in 5 seconds, takes 27 minutes to ignite wood,” Cohen said. “Firefighters are way more vulnerable to big flames than a house is. That tends to skew what we pay attention to.”

In most of the lost-house incidents he has studied, Cohen found the residential destruction took place eight to 10 hours after the big flame front moved through. That’s when embers finally ignited piles of pine needles in a rain gutter, or leftover lumber under a deck, and eventually burned the house down.

“Unless houses are mitigated to be ignition-resistant, firefighters can’t be effective in well-developed residential areas,” Cohen said. “There aren’t enough firefighters and resources to assist and suppress ignitions on all houses exposed.”

Several new tools have appeared in the past year that may make the homes lost in Lolo Creek less common. A fire hazard scale developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and U.S. Forest Service can suggest changes in building codes similar to how the Richter Scale defines risk in an earthquake region.

Last month, a task force gathered by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper proposed a way to rank homes based on fire risk. [Note: We discussed the findings of the task force on the blog here.]  Montana Building Association government affairs specialist Dustin Stewart attended the conference where it was unveiled.

“Every home would be given a grade on a sliding scale from 1 to 10 to determine its susceptibility to wildland fire,” Stewart said. “It’s not entirely clear who would use the grade. Insurance companies could potentially use it when developing policies for wildfire. Or it could trigger a mandatory fire mitigation for those homes with high grades.”

Stewart said the Colorado Homebuilders Association members he talked with were not in favor of the plan, warning it could “hang a scarlet letter on the house.”

“It could severely impact resale value,” he said. “And it becomes very politically unpopular when you tell 10,000 residents across the state they have to disclose this number when they sell their house.”….

“The ignition zone is usually on private property, and that changes the social dynamics,” Cohen said. “We don’t have the authority to go in and tell people to make changes or to make changes ourselves. We have to have homeowner agreement, engagement and participation in reducing their vulnerability.”

In other words, labeling people from space won’t save any houses next summer. Stewart, at the Montana Homebuilders Association, had a similar observation.

“I think incidents like Hurricane Sandy, the Oklahoma tornadoes, the wildfires in Colorado – they’re going to become a bigger part of the public discussion in new construction standards,” Stewart said. “But there are things people can do without creating another level of government. That’s a nice thing about living in Montana. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time there’s a storm or fire. We can find a solution that isn’t heavy handed and gets the job done. There may be a big national debate, but the tenor is different as a result of where we live. It would help everyone if a few more homeowners would take care of a few simple things on the to-do list before we enter that debate.”

See also:

Fire Prevention Plans: “Almost impossible unless we have a different mindset”

CO Task Force: Homeowners should pay to live in burn zones; developers/real estate industry oppose parts of plan

Lolo National Forest: “Hunter” Shoots Pet Malamute with Rifle while Dog was 15 yards from Cross-Country Skiing Owner

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Dog shot

I’m just back from a few days of elk hunting in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and woke up this morning to learn about this terrible, irresponsible, unnecessary tragedy, which happened to a guy well-known in Missoula simply as the “Malamute Guy.”

Layne Spence was cross-country skiing on a popular portion of the Lolo National Forest near Lolo Pass when, according to this morning’s Missoulian, this happened:

Layne Spence was skiing with his three dogs on a quiet logging road in Lee Creek when, according to Spence, a rifle shot echoed through the air.

Then, Spence saw his 2-year-old brown and white dog, “Little Dave,” fall down with a shot to a leg.

About 15 yards away from him and his dogs, Spence saw a man in camouflage holding an assault weapon.

“I started screaming ‘Stop, stop,’ and the man kept shooting,” said Spence, 48, and who is often seen walking his dogs around Missoula’s river front. “And he kept shooting.”

“My dog is lying there, dead and I shouted ‘What are you doing?’ and the guy said, ‘I thought it was a wolf.’ ”

After the man allegedly shot Spence’s dog six times, he took off without another word, leaving Spence to deal with the tragedy of his dead dog….

“This doesn’t have to happen,” said an obviously distraught Spence. “Not every big dog is a wolf. These are pets, they all had their collars and lights on, they were all with me the entire time.

“People need to know what a wolf looks like before they start shooting,” he said. “And I was standing right there.

“What if I had a child on a sled, what would have happened if a bullet ricocheted?”

“There are other people who use the woods besides hunters this time of year.”

Make no mistake, I’m seething in anger about this tragedy.  Mr. Spence is entirely correct that other people besides just hunters use their public National Forest lands this time of year.  What about their rights as tax-paying Americans?  They have every right to use their public lands for hiking and crossing country skiing.

One question I have is should the Forest Service allow assault-rifle carrying wolf “hunters” to roam the woods in the middle of popular, high-use recreation areas? Another question deals with the increased use of assault rifles by some hunters. Should it be allowed? [UPDATE:  The Missoulian has updated the story and now says an assault rifle wasn’t used in the shooting of this pet dog.] However, the question still remains.  The practice seems to be taking off among some hunters, at least here in Montana, and this year I’ve heard more rapid “herd shooting” with these modified assault rifles than ever before.

UPDATE: In his own words, this is the account of the tragedy posted on Facebook by Layne Spence, owner of the dog:

What is on my mind is the tragedy that has taken place and the miss quotes from the media and the Sheriffs dept. So I am setting the record straight. This is what happened….

I went crosscountry skiing up at Lee Creek campground where I have gone in the past. Knowing it was hunting season I put the bright lights that are on all three of my dogs collars.

After skiing for about 200-300 yards I here “tat”, my dog in front of me, his rear leg is blown off.  I scream “no,no,no,stop stop” and as I near my dog who was 15 yards in front of me I hear “tat,tat,tat,tat.”

I look up and there is the “hunter” and I screamed “what have you done?” Screaming hysterically, the man says ” I thought it was a wolf.”

I said “You just killed my dog, you killed one of my kids.”

I started screaming “noooooo.”  He started to say something like “can I do something,” not I am sorry.

I said “Do you know what a wolf looks like? You killed my dog.”

The man took off, I just screamed “noooooooo” and tried to put him back together but his leg was torn off and yes 15 yards in front of me and yes he was shot with an ASSAULT rifle, I know I have seen them it was either an AR 15 or AR 14. It was all black had a sound supressor and that was why no big BOOM BOOM semi automatic.

I know guns, I don’t have any but I have shot them before, and yes I have hunted both Bow and Rifle. It is the irresponsible hunters who think they can shoot any animal they see if they are in the woods.

The MT Fish and Wildlife said they couldn’t press any charges because it wasn’t a game animal on the road, it was a domestic animal. What???? Bullshit, So I left my skiis and poles there, put my Little Dave’s bloody and broken body on my shoulder and hiked out to also get my other dogs to safety.

So no charges, I call the police dept who gives me examples of people getting hurt because of the public outcry and are afraid of vigilante violence. But the truth is still one of our rights and so is freedom of speech. I don’t want this guy to get hurt , but something needs to be done…I am heart truly heart broken, everything I do is for my dogs, from where I live, to what I drive, and what I do is predicated on the lives of my dogs…Thank you to everyone who has wished myself and my other dogs Frank and Rex well…Layne

Pisgah “old-school logging project” Appeal

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Here’s a project getting some attention that isn’t in the West: the Courthouse Creek Project, on the Pisgah Ranger District, Pisgah National Forest.

News article in the Black Mountian News yesterday:

Groups appeal to stop Courthouse Creek logging project

Excerpts:

“This is the worst possible place for an old-school logging project,” said D.J. Gerken, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The views from the Blue Ridge Parkway and Devil’s Courthouse are worth far more than the timber this project will generate.”

The logging, which could begin as early as 2015, would include 30 harvest sites that range in size from 4 to 34 acres, dispersed across the 7,000-acre Courthouse Creek area. The project would take four to five years and harvest about 6 percent of the trees in the Courthouse Creek area.

and:

“The Forest Service promised to manage this area as intact, mature forest for black bear,” said Ben Prater of Wild South. “The Forest Service bills this timber sale as a restoration project — but the pristine habitat in this area doesn’t need restoring; it needs to be protected.”

The appeal was filed on behalf of the Wilderness Society, Wild South, and Western North Carolina Alliance.

OK, so I took a look at the EA, which is here:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/projects/nfsnc/landmanagement/projects

There are 10 items listed under Purpose and Need for Action. This one seems to be the one the groups object to:

4) There is a need to develop between 64-192 acres of early successional habitat in MA 3B and up to 324 acres of early successional habitat in MAs 4A and 4D (Forest Plan, page III-31). There is currently no managed 0-10 year age class habitat in MAs 3B, 4A, and 4D in the AA. Two-age and group selection harvests would provide this needed habitat.

Under the preferred alternative, the Pisgah would take these actions:

In stands harvested with a two-age prescription, an average minimum of 20ft2/acre residual basal area would be left in a non-uniform distribution, where some trees are clumped and others are scattered as individuals. Preferred leave trees are hickory species, white oak, and chestnut.

In stands harvested with a group selection prescription, small openings of 0.2 to 1.0 acres would be harvested, distributed over a stand size area, with the intent to establish three or more distinct age-classes within a prescribed rotation.

Some of these stands “would be harvested with the objective to improve golden-winged warbler habitat and would be permanently maintained as shrub habitat. The target basal area for these units would be 20 to 40 ft2 basal area per acre.”

I can’t imagine these activities would bother black bears in the least.

The EA also note that “Many of the proposed activities in the Courthouse Creek analysis area correspond to the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forest Restoration Focus Areas, which were developed collaboratively between the National Forests in NC, partner organizations, and research scientists in August 2008.”

Of course, there’s lots more detail in the 139-page EA.

Is this an “an old-school logging project”? I don’t know anything about the Pisgah. Anyone care to comment?

My main question is why these groups would appeal an apparently benign project, one that would seem to meet the “developed collaboratively” objectives? I can see a lot that I imagine these groups would support. If this was an “old-school” clearcutting project, I could understand. Maybe these groups think all logging is bad. Or maybe they just have to make some noise.

Land Transfer in Idaho: No One Chomping at the Bit

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Eric Anderson sent this and wondered why the timber industry didn’t support it. I don’t know that we know anyone from the timber industry in Idaho who is on this blog, but still someone might have an idea. If I had to venture a guess, I would say they know that dog won’t hunt and distracts from finding dogs that might hunt. But who knows?

Land takeover

The special interest group that would benefit most from a state of Idaho takeover of federal lands is the timber industry. Yet on Oct. 28, during a legislative interim committee hearing on this issue, the timber industry balked at the idea.

Only one on the four-member panel, timber industry lobbyist Jim Riley, even suggested it was a “fruitful avenue to pursue.” Beyond that, timber industry representatives offered familiar alternatives to expand logging on federal lands, such as hobbling environmental review.

The timber industry’s tepid rejection of federal land disposal came after three panels representing tribal, sportsmen and environmental interests strongly condemned the idea.

This marked the second of two public lands hearings where the facts and public opinion line up against advocates of a state takeover. At the Aug. 9 hearing, Deputy Attorney General Steve Strack definitively proved Idaho’s founders did not want responsibility of federal lands.

The irony is that the interim committee was created by state lawmakers who supported a state takeover. Seven months later, that committee has become a powerful soapbox for why land transfer is a bad idea.

DEREK FARR, Grangeville

Here’s the link.

Phillipines Recovery Donation Opportunity with CIEL

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It’s a long story, but I have a soft spot in my heart for CIEL (and have supported them for a number of years). It’s one of those personal trumps philosophical kinds of things.I received this email today and donated; thought I would share this opportunity.

From CIEL: In the catastrophic wake of Typhoon Haiyan, all of us are searching for ways to show our solidarity and offer our aid to the people of the Philippines.

This morning, we received the message below from Filipino lawyer and renowned environmental activist Antonio Oposa. Tony received CIEL’s International Environmental Law Award in 2008 for his precedent-setting work to protect the environmental rights of future generations. For all of us at CIEL, he remains a close partner, a good friend and–as his message below makes clear–a continuing source of inspiration and hope.

Dear Carroll and CIEL friends:

Thank you very much for your concern for me and my family. We are all safe.

I just returned from Bantayan Island yesterday. The devastation is beyond belief. Miraculously, casualties in the Island have been very low. We are helping arrange for the sending of immediate-relief goods and of a medical team. In the School of the SEA (Sea and Earth Advocates), my trusted co-worker (Dodoy Marabi) and his immediate and extended family are all safe. However, their entire village in the island across was wiped out.

Out of the seven structures of the School of the SEA, only two remain standing: the White House (and conference hall) which suffered damage, and the Climate Change House (CCH). The latter suffered very minor damage as it was designed to be climate resilient and to be sufficient in food and water even during an emergency. The Climate Change House is the product of the 2008 Typhoon Frank that totally destroyed the original structure of the School. Yes, we learned the lessons of climate resilience.

The rest of the structures of the School of the SEA are all gone… with the wind. (I try to laugh because it is too painful to cry).

We will rebuild, one way or another, sooner or later.

What is more painful is to see my neighbors and surrounding communities, people who have much less, and yet lost even the little that they had. In my own little way, I immediately started a jobs-generation activity just for people to get out of their daze and back on their feet — clearing the debris, chopping wood, making fish condos and urban edible gardens, etc. Giving people livelihood activities (of only about 200 pesos or 5 dollars a day) will give them a source of income to start rebuilding their lives and restore their sense of self-worth. Hopefully soon, we will start the repair and reconstruction of model climate-resilient structures of the School of the SEA. That should create more jobs.

Many have inquired how they can help. Thank you very much for the thought. More than the resources you share is the moral support you give for our shared dream.

For those who wish to help rebuild the School and with the job-generation activities, CIEL will channel 100% of donations made here to immediate relief.

From our hearts, thank you very much for the kind thoughts, prayers, and for your sincere concern for my family and for our people. It gives us great strength in this time of great crisis.

You have my word: We will rise again … stronger and better than ever.

Tony

Could You Participate in Gallatin Collaborative’s 3 Day, 27 Hour Workshop on Thurs, Fri, Sat?

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We’ve had many discussions and debates on this blog over the past few years about the roll of collaboration in federal public lands policy and management. For example, last week we shared an opinion piece from the Swan View Coalition (Montana) offering up that organization’s perspective on how some of the collaborative processes in their neck of the woods are playing out.  Keith Hammer wrote:

Swan View Coalition will always follow the legally required National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) public involvement process and will participate in optional collaborative processes as time and funds allow. We appreciate both as avenues to better understand all interests and issues.

For my money, one of the more interesting dynamics of all this “collaboration” springing up regarding public lands management is the tremendous amount of time, resources and funding needed for an individual, organization or private business to fully participate in the plethora of optional collaborative processes.  Off the top of my head I can think of at least 10 different optional collaborative processes taking place across the state of Montana (Size: 147,164 sq miles) that deal directly with US Forest Service management.

Complicating the issue – at least here in Montana – is the fact that some of those able to participate in the more controversial optional collaborative processes in Montana aggressively and endlessly take to the media to publicly criticize those individuals and groups that lack the time, resources and funding to participate in these optional collaborative processes.  Of course, ironically some of these collaborators don’t actually fully participate in the legally required NEPA public involvement process.  Unfortunately such facts don’t stop some of these folks from intentionally confusing the public by making it seem that those who fully participate in the legally required NEPA public involvement process aren’t participating in any public process.

In March of 2012 I shared a new, extensive report from Caitlin Burke, Ph.D., with the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, who wanted to know about the factors that affect state and local environmental groups’ participation in collaboration, and how that affects representation, diversity, and inclusion in collaborative processes.

Burke set out by collecting data from eleven western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), conducting a survey of 101 environmental groups that addressed forest-related issues and operated in the study area.  The survey gathered information about the organizations and their attitudes and behaviors toward collaboration to test relationships between organizational characteristics and strategy choice.  Here’s what Burke found:

“The results show that large, more professionalized organizations and those with multiple values use a collaborating strategy; small, less professionalized organizations and those with a single environmental value use a confronting strategy. In other words, collaboration is not representative of all environmental groups – smaller groups and more ideological groups are not involved. This research serves as a caution to those who would use, or advocate the use of, collaboration – its use must be carefully considered and its process carefully designed to ensure the most balanced representation possible.”

“If smaller, more ideological environmental groups are not involved in collaborative decision-making, then collaboration is not representative of all affected interests and collaborative decisions do not reflect the concerns of all stakeholders.”

Now, while Burke’s research was limited to environmental groups that addressed forest-related issues, it’s not a stretch to assume that these same time, resource and money constraints impact the ability of other individuals, smaller organizations of all kinds and private businesses to fully participate in these numerous, optional collaborative processes. For example, while it’s likely that a timber mill with 150 employees could afford to send a representative to an all day, mid-week optional collaborative meeting, it’s less likely that a logging contractor with 5 employees could afford the same luxury for an optional process.  The same goes for a working family with kids, or a college student with 18 credits and a part time job.

So, the reality is that most of the time these optional collaborative processes are made up almost entirely of paid Forest Service staff, paid environmentalists from well-funded, politically-connected organizations, paid logging industry representatives (who also happen to be very politically connected) and retirees (which often times, based on observations, are recently retired from the Forest Service or the logging industry).

So, if that’s the case, as Dr. Burke pointed out, such forms of “collaboration [are] not representative of all affected interests and collaborative decisions do not reflect the concerns of all stakeholders.”  I’d even go a step further and question how such a dynamic and make-up in some of these “collaborations” is really much different from the concept of the “King’s Forest” that existed throughout much of Europe at one time, and which was subsequently entirely rejected by early Americans going back to the late 1700s.

What got me re-thinking about these dynamics this morning was the following announcement from the “Gallatin Community Collaborative,” which was established in May of 2012 around management issues in the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area on the Gallatin National Forest, Montana.

The announcement raises a number of questions.  Would you be able to participate in 27 hours worth of optional collaborative process meetings over 3 straight days (including 9 hours on Thursday and 9 hours on Friday)?  How about other working people, or college students, who aren’t paid to sit around the table?  And if you can’t manage to set aside 18 hours over two entire mid-week days and 9 hours on a Saturday to travel to Bozeman, MT to participate in an optional collaborative process in an attempt to come to some agreements on how to manage a Wilderness Study Area that equally belongs to all Americans, how would you feel if some of those paid to be at the table publicly criticize the inability of others to participate in such a laborious optional collaborative process?

As more and more optional collaborative processes spring up around the country concerning the management of America’s federal public lands hopefully others will rise up and ask similar questions.

Dear friends interested in the Gallatin Collaborative:

First, to those of you who participated in the initial workshops for the Gallatin Community Collaborative (GCC) earlier in October, thank you for the time and energy that you invested in those workshops.

In those five community workshops, held in Big Sky, Bozeman, Livingston, and Emigrant, participants respectfully listened to each other to develop an initial list of unresolved issues, identified concerns, began the development of a common vision, and began exploring steps to accomplish that vision. During the next several months, we will work together toward successfully resolving many of those issues. A report will be forthcoming from these first workshops and will be posted mid-November on the GCC website.

We have a few things to share coming out of that October workshop:

NOVEMBER WORKSHOP: As our next step, the Collaborative will undertake a three-day workshop, bringing the interested parties from the various communities together, to begin resolving issues related to community empowerment and begin building community capacity to resolve the numerous issues identified in the first workshops. The dates and locations of this workshop are:

Nov. 21 (Thursday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4*

Nov. 22 (Friday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4

Nov. 23 (Saturday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4

Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided each day of the workshop.

The workshop is designed as a 3-day workshop, in which participants would ideally come for the full three days. We recognize that this is a significant time commitment for participants, and we hope that participants are able to be present for the full period of time. This is a complex issue and very important to the wider community. Many of you have already spent substantial time over numerous years. It requires a different approach to successfully resolve. Two hours here, four hours there… hasn’t been sufficient in the past. People will need to decide what works best for them in terms of participation. We hope you will give as much time as you can to this workshop; we’d like to make sure we invest the time to get this issue resolved successfully.

While participating for all three days is important, we understand that may not be feasible for everyone. You will be welcome at whatever sessions you can attend, but you may need to rely on other participants to bring you along and update you on what you may have missed.

Since we want to ensure as much opportunity as possible to provide your input into the process and to build on what we learned from the October workshops, we will provide another chance to engage for those of you who cannot attend the three-day workshop, bringing the Collaborative discussion into more Gallatin Range communities: we are adding a few evening meetings earlier in the week. These meetings will take place at the following locations and times:

Nov. 18 (Monday) from 6-9pm in West Yellowstone at the Holiday Inn (315 Yellowstone Ave.)

Nov. 19 (Tuesday) from 6-9pm in Gardiner at the Best Western Plus (905 Scott St. W.)

Nov. 20 (Wednesday) from 6-9pm in Livingston at the Best Western Yellowstone Inn (1515 W. Park St.)

Refreshments will not be provided at these meetings; please bring what you need to be comfortable.

If you plan to participate in the workshop or evening meetings, please register using this link on the Gallatin Collaborative website.

We will have a second three-day workshop in January or February, addressing issues around the themes of change and/or scarcity, depending on what we learn in November. We will be able to announce those dates at the November workshops.

ROLE OF THE US FOREST SERVICE: A number of you asked questions about the role of the US Forest Service in the Collaborative process, given that the government shutdown was underway during the October workshops. The Forest Service will be participating in the November workshop and is looking forward to getting back on track with this group. For more on the Gallatin NF’s role in this process, see the Collaborative website.

SUPPORTING THE GCC: Finally, a foundation supporting the work of the Collaborative has provided a “challenge grant,” offering to match dollar-for-dollar each dollar raised from local individuals and organizations by the end of 2013, up to a total of $7,000. This support will help the Collaborative by providing needed funds for meeting space, meals and refreshments, and other costs. We still have $4,000 to go to achieve this match, so if you’re interested in helping to support the Collaborative, please send a check to our fiscal sponsor: Park County Community Foundation, PO Box 2199; Livingston, MT 59047 and please note “GCC” in the memo line of your check. Thanks so much for your support.

Thank you again for your time and interest in this important process,

Jeff Goebel, Facilitator
For the Exploratory Committee of the Gallatin Collaborative

UPDATE: The following information was just sent to me from Travis Stills….thanks Travis.

From: Federal Advisory Committees: An Overview, Wendy R. Ginsberg, Analyst in American National Government, April 16, 2009, Congressional Research Service,  7-5700, www.crs.gov, R40520

According to GSA’s FACA Database, in 2008, the federal government spent more than $344 million on FACA committees — including operation of advisory bodies, compensation of members and staff, and reimbursement of travel and per diem expenses. According to GSA, $39.8 million was spent on committee member pay (both federal and non-federal members) and $166.2 million was spent on staff. An additional $14 million was spent on consultants to FACA committees.

UPDATE 2:  Another 3 days worth of meetings, covering 24 hours, was just announced by the Gallatin Collaborative.  I hear Bozeman, MT is really easy (and cheap) to drive into or fly into during January.

Dear Friends,

On behalf of Jeff Goebel, the GCC Exploratory Committee wants to sincerely honor and thank you for your hard work and participation in the recent 3-day workshop at the County Fairgrounds.

It was a powerful and insightful time together. As you all know, this is a marathon not a sprint, but significant progress is being made. The issues we covered and questions answered are not what many of us expected, but they are equally as important as any of the traditional on-the-ground concerns. We are off to a great start.

The entire group of October Collective Statements, along with updated FAQs and materials from the November workshop,  will be posted on the GCC website at www.gallatincollaborative.org before the next scheduled sessions beginning January 9.  Below are the details on the January GCC workshop. Please forward this to anyone interested in the process, and encourage them to attend any or all of these meetings.

The purposes of the January meetings will be to explore the change that is desired for the communities surrounding the Gallatin Range, design the operating structure of the Gallatin Community Collaborative, and develop new and more effective ways of valuing the people involved in the region.

Thursday, January 9 – 1:00pm to 9:00pm

Friday, January 10 – 1:00pm to 9:00pm

Saturday, January 11 – 9:00am to 5:00pm

Best Western
1515 W Park St

Livingston, MT

Food and refreshments will be served.
RSVP at www.gallatincollaborative.org

If any of you are interested or planning on practicing the consensus building skills Jeff has been sharing with our community and you are looking for support or have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Exploratory Committee at [email protected]. Be sure to include this email in your Contact list to avoid it getting sent to the junk folder.

May you all have an enjoyable and safe Holiday season and we look forward to working with you all again soon.

With Respect & Gratitude,

Jeff Goebel

A New Generation of Tree-Sitters

by

The essay below mentions a new generation of tree-sitters, such as those at the White Castle Variable Retention Harvest, a Demonstration Pilot Project designed “for the purpose of illustrating the principles of ecological restoration developed by Drs. Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson,” according to the EA. 187 acres, with “78.4 aggregate retention acres.”

www.blm.gov/or/districts/roseburg/plans/files/WhiteCastleDR.pdf‎

In September, the BLM initiated a Temporary Area Closure for up to 2 years: “The purpose for this proposed action is to quickly implement a temporary closure of the area to public use during active logging operations. The need for action results from the danger to timber sale protesters within harvest units of an active timber sale; risks to personnel engaged in timber harvest operations; and potential damage to roads, vehicles, and equipment.”

Anyone know what’s going on at present with the sale and the protesters? Are the protesters using the same techniques, aside from occupying trees, such as leaving steel “jumping jacks” on roads to puncture tires?

Just background for the essay, from High Country News’ Writers on the Range:

 

Protesters still take to the trees

By Robert Leo Heilman/Writers on the Range

If you think that sitting high up in a tree to block a timber sale is a thing of the past, then you should have come with me recently to what’s called the Whitecastle timber sale in southern Oregon. There’s a new generation of protesters up in the trees there, and in many ways they’re more sophisticated than the Earth First! radicals I interviewed back in the mid-1980s.

 

Today’s tree-sitters are much more likely to have been involved in other movements, such as Occupy, or in environmental struggles against coal, tar sands and power plants. There are also a lot more women involved.

 

Not surprisingly, the sitters can seem abysmally ignorant about some things; they’re young, in their 20s for the most part, and largely raised in cities. Most of them believe that the century-old second-growth forest they’re camping in is old-growth dating back to Shakespeare’s day. But like the folks who blocked roads and chained themselves to logging equipment during the Reagan administration, they are idealists, willing to put their freedom on the line for what they believe in.

 

Probably the most interesting generational change is that the “old guard” were often elitists, college-educated folks who thought timber workers were too stupid and ignorant to know what was good for them. The kids nowadays want to ally themselves with the workers and take on the bosses alongside them in a fight for both ecological and labor justice.

 

This is not such a far-fetched notion. When the Reverend Jesse Jackson came to Roseburg, Ore. — which calls itself the timber capital of the nation — at the height of the “Timber Wars” of the early 1990s, he received an ovation from a mixed crowd of timber workers and environmentalists. He brought them to their feet when he said: “This is not about workers against environmentalists; this is about workers and environmentalists against the greedy and the wasteful.”

 

This change of attitude can be traced back to Judi Bari and Gene Lawhorn. She was an Earth First! activist from the redwood country of Northern California, and he was a mill worker employed by the Roseburg Forest Products Co. After they met in the late 1980s, at the University of Oregon’s annual Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Lawhorn persuaded Bari to renounce tree-spiking and other activities that could harm loggers or mill workers.

 

She, in turn, was able to convince her fellow protesters that their struggle was against the bosses, not against the workers. Endangering workers was both morally reprehensible and stupidly playing into the hands of the very folks who were cutting too much timber too fast, even as they cut the wages and benefits for their employees.

 

Bari went on to become the victim of a bombing attack, surviving that only to die of cancer a few years later. Since her death, she has become something of a saint in leftist radical circles, her name invoked reverently by this new generation. But Gene Lawhorn has been largely forgotten. He had complex views about logging old-growth forests, and he had the courage to voice his opinions. For this he received death threats, beer bottles were smashed in his driveway and the windshield on his pickup was shattered. After he lost his job with Roseburg Forest Products Co., he couldn’t find employment anywhere in Douglas County. Neither could his wife, who found that job offers disappeared as soon as prospective employers heard her last name.

 

When the local daily newspaper finally published an article about the so-called “timber wars” and the death threats circulating around the county, Gene Lawhorn’s predicament was exposed right in front of God and everybody. Yet not one leader in Douglas County — no politician, preacher, member of law enforcement or of the court system, and no teacher, mill owner or government agency head — spoke out against neighbors threatening to kill their neighbors. There was a letter to the editor of the local weekly, but the writer said that Gene Lawhorn was a traitor who deserved whatever he got. By then, Gene and his wife had already fled to Portland.

 

The tree-sitters I talked with recently had never heard of this former neighbor of mine, a man who reached out to people whom he’d been told were his enemies. Nevertheless, these kids are now making his argument for him.

 

Robert Leo Heilman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an award winning essayist, author and journalist living in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.