The Campaign to End Clearcutting in Oregon – Josephine County

ECO- JOCO 2021

In a state that leads the nation in timber production, the ending of clearcutting here in Oregon could be the biggest historical event in the story of how the people of Oregon saved the last of the wild woods and changed the way the country values trees. An effort this big and fundamental can and necessarily needs to change the way we use wood in our lives and the way we work in the woods to make a livelihood. The people to make this happen are the communities that live in the heart of the timber producing woods, areas which are here for everyone to enjoy, but which are ultimately up to the community to steward. These forested hills are part of our everyday views, and they are supposed to inspire us and inform us of the quality of our ecology, specifically our watersheds and wildlife. The wildness and beauty is why many of us moved here, way back in the 70’s and up until recently. Whether its public or private land, these hills are part of the whole, and everyone who owns these lands has a responsibility for keeping the wholeness intact. Recent increases in the rate of clearcutting here in Josephine County indicate that it is urgent, right now, to change the reality of our woods management and possibly its ownership. A change this big can happen quicker at the county level than statewide, and can provide an example for the rest of the state to follow.

The Sasquatch Woods People (SWP) organization is evolving from a very local, Illinois Valley grassroots community woods stewardship group to lead this campaign in Josephine County (ECO-JOCO 2021). Our current mission is to end clearcutting immediately in this county, while simultaneously helping unify all similar efforts statewide. In Oregon, there are currently quite a few other groups and campaigns with similar goals toward ending clearcutting. This SWP campaign comes along at a critical time for the Illinois Valley, where we are currently struggling with a dramatically increased rate of clearcutting by wall-street timber corporations, and the destruction wrought by large-scale marijuana growing, which acts on our natural resources and ecology in the same devastating, possibly irreversible manner. It also comes at a time of two other major worldwide crisis: climate change, and the Covid Operation. We have hit rock bottom, and everyone feels it and knows that the time has come to respond, and to make real change.

When I moved here with my family 8 years ago, there were hardly any clearcuts visible from the valley floor. We assumed it wasn’t allowed here, which made sense because of the intense summer heat that can bake the ground, and because of the slow re-growth of ground cover due to the poor soils. We had moved from a valley in northwest Washington State where big clearcuts could be seen in almost any direction. Having to see the scars and knowing that most people in the community accepted it was depressing and factored into our moving to Oregon.

I would like to investigate the history of clearcutting in Southern Oregon and the 60-year rotation. I spoke with a neighbor who said he was here during that cutting, and I wonder if we could gather comments from others and combine them with the official documentation to tell a story of how the lands were first cut, and how they have recovered. I suspect they were not replanted nor managed as a tree plantation, but instead were allowed to naturally regenerate. I also suspect that the ground was not as torn up and compacted, and that the work was done with more “boots on the ground” at a pace much slower than that of the current “big machine era”.

Fast forward to now, and not only are the clearcuts appearing for us all to see but they are bold and shocking (i.e. Wilderville and the Barnes Way Scalp). I watched a recent clearcut through binoculars, and all I could see were 3 huge machines flattening the ground in their tracks and ripping trees out of the ground. They are on steep slopes and right over watersheds. The only limits are that each clearcut remain under 120 acres (!!) and that a few habitat trees are left standing. Almost no slope is too steep, stream protections are minimal, and even the oldest of the trees are fair game. In this state of Oregon, known for its environmental awareness, those are the only limits. Does the rest of the world know what we are allowing to happen in Oregon? They should and will know after this campaign has hit full stride.

The most shocking thing about all this is that it is happening in the midst of a global climate crisis. The timber industry is the largest carbon polluter in the state of Oregon. After the logging has come and gone, a clearcut takes 13-25 years to recover to a net zero balance of carbon sequestration. This doesn’t even consider the longer and more frequent droughts that are happening now. Climate experts agree that if we don’t reduce the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere by half over the next decade then we will be facing a major catastrophe. Drawdown, re-investing the atmospheric carbon into soils and into living things like trees, will also be critical to stop climate change. This should be something that everyone is aware of, as well as how much carbon sequestration is being lost with every 120-acre clearcut that is going to happen in the next couple of months (FYI it’s about 1300 tons! Or, as much as 350 passenger cars emit in a year, and that doesn’t even account for the emissions from the logging or all the waste; that is just the carbon from the trunks of the trees). Whatever the numbers, I think it is a basic intuition that we need to stop the clearcuts now.

After a clearcut, trees of the same type and age are planted from nursery stock to create a monoculture plantation that must be sprayed with herbicide until they reach a “free to grow” status within 6 years. How many years after this until you can walk under a canopy of woods and recreate, hunt, and feel a sense of being in the woods? My guess would be at least 40 years. How can we stand to lose 40 years of the existence of a woods? The idea of privately owned timberland not by people and families but by huge wall street investment corporations allows this lack of care. There is actually a campaign of Oregon Coast Range counties right now that is trying to take this timber land from the corporations and give it back to the public. Corporations are too big, removed, and focused on the bottom line of profits to steward the woods and be good neighbors and members of the community. I spoke with an ODF Stewardship Forester who stated very frankly that he is limited in his role as an overseer to just what is required by the Forest Practices Act (FPA), which in a cut like the one about to happen on the Kelly Creek Watershed is a written plan for if and how they plan to remove big trees from within a 100 ft. buffer of the small fish designated Kelly Creek. That is it. There is no protection for the point of diversion, private spring, nor the spring gulches. There is even an absurd shout-out to the wildlife in the Act that states the landowner must leave a small amount of wildlife trees. The only other protection that came up in our conversation was that against sediment delivery to the waters of the state, but detection and enforcement comes after the stream is killed, when it is too late. Once the trees are gone, they are left with a slap-on-the-wrist fine and some band-aide erosion control measures. Living rurally makes you think of a neighboring landowner as a person you could talk to, but corporations are not this. These large tracts they own make them into more of a common entity like the state or county, except they have no accountability to residents only to their shareholders. The land needs to be taken away and returned to the public, just as the O & C Lands were taken back from the railroad companies.

Some ideas to end clearcutting here in Southern Oregon are as follows. All changes in land protection should begin at the county level, because current state requirements are insufficient, and state-level changes are too slow. We need to ask the commissioners to pass an emergency ordinance to end clearcutting and then we need to collect signatures to petition it into law. The Brookings mills and their storage yard is full (see article in the Daily Courier, Oct. 13, 2021), but most logs are waiting for ships to take them out of the country for cheaper processing elsewhere; this must stop immediately, and all trees cut must be processed here. Simultaneously, we need to develop a strict and careful selective cutting regime for our county, one that provides some timber, but emphasizes intact ecosystems, carbon storage, and access for residents to enjoy the woods year round for generation up generation. The selective logging needs to address: keeping canopy closures intact, leaving big, fire-resistant trees and their legacy, watershed protection, and a net-zero loss of carbon sequestration target. The recently emerging carbon credit market should also be considered as an alternative to cutting trees, as landowners can now be paid cash annually for committing to not cut their trees.

Alternative methods for working in the woods and deriving a full and complete value from them has to be led by stewardship groups, alternative family-owned working woodlands, family run logging companies, but not by timber and investment corporations. In addition to developing more careful ways of working in the woods, we need to develop the market for high value lumber, non-timber material and products, and conscious-raising, inspiring events, education, instruction, and stewardship. This is why we founded the Sasquatch Woods People organization, to gather in community to work toward these goals. This is also why we bought our own private woodland so that we could create a working model of caring for and honoring the woods ahead of making money and undervalued sticks of lumber. Activism must be followed by creation of the new and better ways. My human-powered work in the woods and our woodland sanctuary are intended to serve as a beacon of hope and a glimpse of what a future of higher tree consciousness can hold. We need to get back to a point of being excited for the future. Combining the heads of people who love to work in the woods to figure out how to harvest sustainably here in these hills is an exciting project. Maybe we could figure out ways to get the most out of our harvest as well. How about establishing small mills through out our county to make truly local Southern Oregon lumber that can be the exclusive lumber sold at our building supply centers. We can sell the excess to the rest of the country as premium, eco-conscious, super “green” wood with higher price tags that people want to pay. The Southern Oregon stamp could mean something big.

This brings me to my final point of truly and fundamentally changing the way we think about trees. They are the great standing ones. They are the oldest and wisest beings on our planet. They have spirits that can communicate with us. These ideas are common among ancient, indigenous cultures around the world. Once we reach this level of enlightenment as a community and society, then our working relationship turns into a loving relationship. The woods can be listened to and tell us how to take care of them. They can inspire us with their form and with how to use them. There is so much waste in logging from piles of treetops to small trees cleared and incidentally damaged that could be utilized for building, woodcraft, soil building, and erosion control. Working in the woods needs to be a holistic, long-term process that involves a lot of people. On the consumer side of the equation, our over-use and under-valuing of lumber presumes that we have an infinite supply. Look at all the trees splintered up into thin boards, closing ourselves off from our neighbors and isolating us onto fragmented land, blocking others from picturesque views of our valley. People don’t draw the connection when they choose to purchase, waste, or destroy lumber that their actions directly lead to clearcuts. Clearcuts are the only way you can make lumber that cheap, and even if the price ever goes up, you can bet that the extra revenue goes to shareholders and not to loggers, truck drivers, or taxes. The ‘we need timber’ rant must be turned into ‘we need to use timber more respectfully’ rant. We need to build smaller houses and reduce our material possessions to what we really need so we don’t need so much storage space. We need to honor the enormous, but invisible, energy investment in the wonderfully convenient ‘flat surface’ of a board. The energy it takes to convert trees from saw logs into boards is not human-scale and the ease that lumber can be transported and built with is a powerful, consumptive force. We need to slow down and go into the woods more where we can spend time around trees that are alive. We need to discover amazing tree features and forms in the woods where they are part of the mystery and sacredness instead of a trophy in a museum or someone’s yard. It can make sense to bring these gifts home if they are honored, cherished, and talked about, but too often they are forgotten about and too far removed to inspire us. They become meaningless relics.

We need to save the trees of Oregon now so they can help save our planet. We need to lead the way of higher tree consciousness for the rest of the country. We need to have the largest impact on our country’s role in solving the climate crisis. A crisis is meant to unify us. Stopping the clearcutting in this county might be the beacon of hope we need to see right now.