Wyden's Eastern Oregon Forest Attack
Eastern Oregon Timber Baron Welfare Act of 2013 (The "Orwellian" title is the Oregon East-side Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection, and Jobs Act, SB 1301).
Sign A Petition to Oppose Senator Wyden's Two Ancient Forest Logging Bills
Democrat Senator Ron Wyden has introduced a direct legislative assault against approximately 9 million acres or 14,000 square miles of National Forest lands east of the Cascade Crest in Oregon with Senate bill 1301 in an attempt to save Oregon’s ailing mega tree fiber operations and biomass extraction industries. It mandates that not less than 60,000 acres of eastern Oregon’s National Forests will be “treated” - “predominantly comprised of mechanical treatment… that emphasize saw timber as a byproduct”- in the first year. In the second year it mandates 80,000 acres be chain-sawed back to “health”, and in year three not less than 100,000 acres will be “treated”. Every year subsequent not less than 25,000 acres per National Forest (x6) will be “treated”. To pay for such doctoring the bill allows logging inside ancient forests where trees up to 200 years old can be butchered for market. This declaration if enacted would sunset in 2029!
Here is what Steve Pedery, the Executive Director of Oregon Wild, had to say about Wyden's eastern Oregon logging bill and betrayal.
"Having a Democratic senator from Oregon pushing legislation that says we're going to log trees up to 200 years old to pay for timber sales essentially subsidizes the timber industry. That's not a good precedent to have out there."
To read the original Story about this on December 2013 from the Public News Service.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2013-12-19/public-lands-wilderness/groups-last-minute-changes-gut-wydens-eastside-forest-bill/a36394-1
The EXF Sale in the Deschutes NF was touted a model Fire Fuels and Forest
Restoration Project.
A new video released reveals how the once native forest Pringle Falls Experimental Reserve Area is now a
degraded landscape that may never recover in the new era of climate chaos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNiyu_TjvzQ
Here is a Guest Opinion written by the Director of the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project in the local Bend newspaper.