Con[ffljffl ...... ------JULY 1997 VOL. 3 No. 2 Dear Reader As a rule, Cascadia Times prefers to publish articles from impartial third-party observers - in a word, journalists. But there are stories which require special expertise and background that reporters often lack. This month, we turn to two writers outside journalism who nonethe• less possess strong journalistic credentials in tandem with extraordinary experience. Our cover story is by Ian Gill, a long- EDITORIAL time former environmental reporter for the Vancouver Sun and the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His byline has also appeared in such places as Outside The Path Less Traveled Magazine. In recent years, however, Gill A Missed Opportunity has been working more directly for the First Nation People of Clayoquot Sound Seek New Interior Columbia Basin Plan Will cause of protecting rainforests as execu• Environmental and Economic Prosperity tive director of Ecotrust Canada. And Continue Ecological Decline now, he is a co-author of a new book, by Ian Gill Page 9 by Ellen Morris Bishop Page 7 Seeing the Ocean Through the Trees: A Conservation-based Development Strategyfor Clayoquot Sound, the primeval forest on Vancouver Island. THE USUAL STUFF The other piece is by Ellen Morris Bishop, a former science columnist for FIELD NOTES: Oil industry eyes more Arctic REALITY CHECK: 16 The Oregonian who also is the author of a oil. Montana mine blocked. Alaska's space new book, Hiking Oregon': Geology (for a POINT OF VIEW: Don't Quote Chief Seattle. review see Cascadia Times March 1997). program. and wild coho trampled in Oregon by Andy Kerr .16 Morris, who holds a doctorate in geology, forest. 3 is now outreach coordinator for the MAIL: 17 Columbia River Bioregion Project. She GROUND TRUTHING: Eugene confronts the writes about a new management plan for BOOK REVIEW: The Heat is On. reviewed by the Interior Columbia Basin. dark side of growth. by Kathie Durbin 3 Gill and Morris offer keen insights Patrick Mazza: 18 on a poorly understood subject: ecology. CAPITOL BUZZ: GOP revolts against redwoods While both are now associated with orga• deal: 5 · nizations that are involved with the issues COVER PHOTOGRAPH OF A Nuu-CHAH-NULTH BOY BY they write about in this edition of CASCADIA RESOURCE GUIDE: 15 ADRIAN DORST Cascadia Times, we believe their analyses carry considerable weight. Part of the problem is that the main• stream media seems to have little Editor/Publisher Paul Koberstein patience for stories about the ecological Operations Manager/Publisher Robin Klein implications of land management deci• sions. As Bishop makes plain, the Interior Art Director Bryan Potter Columbia Basin plan will guide future Contributing Editors Kathie Durbin.Jo Ostgarden decisions in an area that encompasses ful• ly one-fourth of all federally owned land How to Reach Us in the U.S. Failure to address the basin's BURRO OF RDUISOBS Phone (503) 223-9036 Fax (503) 736-0097 ecological problems may lead to unfortu• Susan Alexander. San Francisco, Calif. Email [email protected] nate economic consequences in the World Wide Web http://cascadia.times.org future. However, as we see in Gill's Peter Bahouth. Atlanta, Ga. Mail 25-6 NW 23rd Place, No; 406, Portland OR 97210 Pamela Brown. Portland, Ore. report from Clayoquot Sound, addressing ecological problems can help bring eco• Ellen Chu. Seattle, Wash. nomic prosperiry. Cascadia Times is published IO times a year by David James Duncan. Lalo, Mont. We at Cascadia Times would like to Pat Ford. Boise, Idaho CascadiaTimes PublishingCo. , 25-6 Northwest express our deep gratitude for generous 23rd Place, No. 406, Portland OR 97210-3534. Michael Frome. Bellingham, Wash. support from an anonymous donor. Subscriptions are $20 per year; $36 for two years. Ian Gill. Vancouver, B.C. The entire contents of Cascadia Times. are copyright Peter Lavigne. Portland, Ore: © 1996 by the Cascadia Times Publishing Co., and James Karr. Seattle.Wash. may not be reproduced in whole or in part with• Ken Margolis. Kitamaat Village, B.C. out permission of the publisher. The publisher Marshall Mayer. Helena, Mont1 encourages unsolicited manuscripts and art, but Christopher Peters. Arcata, Calif. cannot be held responsible for them. Manuscripts Catherine Stewart. Vancouver; B.C. or material unaccompanied by a self-addressed Randy Showstack. Washington, D,C. stamped envelope will not be returned. Cascadia Jim Stratton. Anchorage, Alaska Times encourages electronic submissions to e-mail Sylvia Ward. Fairbanks, Alaska box [email protected]. We reserve the right to Charles Wilkinson, Boulder, Colo. print letters in condensed form. w,~ ..._._ Mary Wood. Eugene,__, Ore. _ Field ~-from-Cas------cadi-a Oil Industry Plans a Grand Arctic Sweep
by Paul Koberstein environmental impact statement now under way. Critics doubt the study will he Yellow-billed loon is provide enough answers, given the no lucky loon. In March major gaps in knowledge about this 1989, just as thousands of frozen landscape. There also seems to this deep-voiced water• be a rush to develop. By the end of fowl were stopping for 1998, the U.S. Department of Interior Tdinner in Alaska's Prince William hopes not only to have completed the Sound, the Exxon Valdez hit a rock. study, but also to have already begun NPR-A Hundreds of them perished in the oil leasing up to 4.6 million acres to oil spill. The loons had been en route to developers. Why now? "There is the Arctic seascape far to the north, strong demand for an appropriate land where the entire U.S. yellow-billed management plan for both surface and loon population nests. subsurface resources," says Deborah Before the major oil discovery at Williams, special assistant to Interior Prudhoe Bay in 1969, the loons and Secretary Bruce Babbitt for the state of numerous of other wildlife species had Alaska. the Alaska Arctic nearly all to them• But Sylvia Ward, executive direc• selves. Since then, the industry has tor of the Northern Alaska been growing within the eastern sec• Environmental Center in Fairbanks, The oil industry wants to expand into the northeast comer of the National Petroleum tion of the Arctic. However, the indus• says the administration is simply doing Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). a 23.4 million- acre landscape teeming with wildlife. try had stayed out of the vast, the oil industry's bidding. "The oil unspoiled region of tundra, waterfowl, industry is subdividing our Arctic," she spective, the real issue is profits, which advocate of leasing the reserve. shorebirds, large mammals, mosquitoes says. "The cumulative impact of this will decline as older fields run dry - Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who and, yes, loons to the west. kind of development has never been unless, of course, they are replaced. began a tour of the area July 6, says That could soon change. Within a studied." The industry has strong allies in leasing is "absolutely" the goal of the few years, oil drillers likely will enter One reason often given for Congress, particularly Sen. Frank EIS, but the administration will also the western section, raising the ques• increased oil development in Alaska is Murkowski, R-AK, who is threatening consider the needs of wildlife. tions of whether Arctic wildlife can the fact that the U.S. imports more to introduce legislation to lease the "This Administration's philosophy thrive when all of its habitat is shared than half its oil supplies. But this new entire Arctic seascape to the industry, is that there are lands chat may be suit• with oil rigs, pipelines and the litany of oil rush has little to do with U.S. ener• without setting any land aside for the able for oil and gas drilling and should problems that come with them, includ• gy needs. Since April 1996, federal law area's extraordinary wildlife or wilder• be developed in an environmentally ing the inevitable spills. This and oth• has permitted exports of North Slope ness values. Alaska Gov. Tony er questions should be answered in an oil to Asia. From the oil industry's per- Knowles, a Democrat, is also a strong FIELD NOTES CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 GROUND Eugene Confronts the Dark Side of Growth TRUTH ING By Kathie Durbin
he Eugene where I grew up in the 1950's was town of about 50,000 nestled downtown graced by forty venerable shade trees, sweet gum and black walnut and between two buttes at the point where Oregon's upper Willamette Valley nar• bigleaf maple, some more than 75 years old. Early on the morning of June 1, a Sunday, T rows. Meadows and ryegrass fields stretched north down the valley. To the tree-cutters hired by the city moved in co cut the trees so the city could build a $12 west rose the lush Oregon Coast Range forest, and to the south and east nearly unbro• million underground parking lot. They were greeted by about 200 distraught citizens, ken forest stretched to the snow-capped including members of Eugene's forest activist community, who climbed some of the COMMENTARY Oregon Cascades. Crystal-clear trout streams trees co stop the urban clearcut. and uncrowded ski slopes and ocean beaches Instead of delaying the cutting until the Eugene City Council could hear from the beckoned, scarcely more than an hour public at its regularly meeting the following away. Eugene itself, half mill town, half night, or initiating negotiations or just waiting the university town, with its riverside parks The Eugene I return to now is a city of 120.000-plus demonstrators out, police in riot gear moved in and leafy residential streets, was a stimu• armed with pepper spray, tear gas and batons. lating place to come of age in the 1960s - that is being torn painfully asunder by the stresses of What followed was an astonishing and unneces• an environmentally aware Berkeley North sary show of force against nonviolent protesters of backpackers and plywood workers, craft growth and the politics of aggressive economic devel• as police tried co remove the tree-sitters and clear fairs and pickup trucks. It was, in retro• the area of onlookers. The town's mayor, city spect, a dream that could not last. opment. If sustainable growth can't coexist with the manager and police chief initially defended the The Eugene I return co now is a city police action, but public outcry - fueled by of 120,000-plus that is being corn painfully preservation of nature in Eugene. it's hard to imagine videotapes that clearly show excessive use of asunder by the stresses of growth and the where in Cascadia this vision can be realized. force by police - have not abated. A human politics of aggressive economic develop• rights panel is considering calling for a review ment. Like so many cities in Cascadia, it is board co conduct an independent investigation of facing the tradeoffs that development brings. Its hinterland is scarred by clearcuts and the police response. There's talk of recalling Mayor Jim Torrey. Meanwhile, a large logging roads. But because Eugene is the center of ecological consciousness in the fenced pit in the ground is the only reminder of the trees that once shaded this Pacific Northwest, it feels those stresses more acutely than other places. If sustainable Eugene neighborhood. Ribbons of corn cloths adorn the fence; one carries the message growth can't coexist with the preservation of nature in Eugene, it's hard co imagine "Forgive Our Greed." where in Cascadia this vision can be realized. What makes this confrontation even more disturbing is that the 742-space parking Eugene's latest growth pang fulfills the lyrics of the old Joni Mitchell song. As I structure, part of a planned mixed-use development on a city-owned lot, is being built write this, the city is in fact paving a piece of paradise and putting up a parking lot. at least in part co fulfill a promise city leaders made co Symantec, an electronics com pa- Paradise in this case was a block on the edge of c Nu E PAGE 4 --~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~___.O ON 11 O ON Field Notes CONTINUED FROM coNr1NuEa------PAGE 3 and scientifically sound manner," wealth of genetic information about that was supposed to deliver 10 billion bears, as well as grizzly bear habitat. Babbitt says. "At the same time this prehistoric creatures. barrels. Mukluk yielded nothing, the The area is rich in waterfowl, Administration remains fundamentally NPR-A is home to most of the most expensive dry hole ever drilled. which are naturally attracted to what is opposed to oil and gas development in lnupiat Eskimos of the American According to plan, by 2000, the "one of the largest and most stable col• areas such as the Arctic National Arctic, the largest of all the Eskimo industry will reach the Colville lections of wetlands in North Wildlife Refuge." cultural groups. Today, all of River, the eastern border of America," according to the The 4.6 million acres the North Slope the National Petroleum Bureau of Land under study are at the Eskimos reside in Reserve. There, just Management. The wet• northeast corner of eight villages, of outside the boundary lands support large the 23.4 million which four are in of NPR-A, on the numbers of breeding acre National the area. It also Colville's delta, and post-breeding Petroleum contains one ARCO is developing loons, terns, gulls and Reserve-Alaska city, Barrow, a 365-million barrel shorebirds, including (NPR-A), which with a popula• oil field. Equally "' ,-,,,, Steller's eider, which was originally tion of over important, ARCO is was listed by the U.S. designated in 4,000, of which extending a branch of - Fish and Wildlife 1923 by President 63 percent are the Trans-Alaska Pipeline ,,,,,,, Service as a threatened Harding for meet- lnupiat Eskimos. to service it. By then, the species just this June. ing the Navy's Barrow has hotels, network of satellite drilling sta• Some 19 species of swans, needs in an emer• restaurants, a tions, roads and pipelines will lay geese, and ducks breed in the NPR-A. gency. It is located movie theater, a mod• across 130 miles of the Arctic Coastal Aerial surveys in 1990 estimated there between the crest of the ern grocery store, an air• Plain, from the Canning River on the were 310,000 dabbling ducks, 471,000 Brooks Range and the Arctic port with a paved runway west to the Colville. diving ducks, 102,000 geese and 6,200 Ocean, and west of the Arctic's and an instrument landing sys• Ward says areas close to the sea tundra swans on the Arctic Coastal largest U.S. tributary, the Colville tem, a hospital, a college, and is the are too valuable as habitat to be com• Plain. An area near Cape Halkett is a River. seat of the North Slope Borough gov• promised by oil drilling and should be molting area for more than 100,000 The "National Petroleum ernment. The total population of permanently protected as National lesser Canada geese, black brant, Reserve" name underscores this as a NPR-A is 5,400, or about one person Wildlife Refuges, including the white-fronted geese and snow geese. land of contradictions. The reserve for every 7 square miles. Teshekpuk Lake and the To some species, NPR-A provides contains an estimated 15 billion gallons Developers began Colville Delta. However, irreplaceable habitat. Up to 23 percent of oil and perhaps more than 40 per• drilling for oil here in the state says 90 per• of the world's Pacific black brant molt cent of the remaining supply of U.S. 1940, and continued cent of the oil lies to the north and east of Teshekpuk coal, but has never delivered an ounce intermittently ever within 30 miles a Lake. The entire North American pop• of either commodity to market. It since. But test 30-mile strip along ulation of Stellar's eiders and 80 per• boasts the largest contiguous wetlands wells, which yield• the coast. cent of the world s populations of spec• and wildlife habitat in the U.S. Even ed nothing like the The EIS will tacled eiders nest on the North Slope, given this wetland the size of Indiana, big score at examine potential most within the NPR-A. The king 36,000 square miles in all, not one acre Prudhoe Bay, dis• oil industry eider migration alone has been esti• is protected as wilderness or wildlife couraged develop• impacts on mated at 1,000,000 birds passing Point refuge. Continuous civilization has ers who were hunt• numerous species. Barrow. Almost all of the United States existed longer here than anywhere else ing for the one big Caribou are easily breeding king eiders are on the North in the western hemisphere, but it is as strike. Now, however, the most abundant Slope, with the majority found in the remote as any place on the planet. there's new thinking large mammal on NPR-A. The nearest all-weather road is 75 among oil executives in Alaska's North Slope. "Jeopardizing this amazing natural miles east of the Colville River. The the Arctic. With a vast infra• There are four caribou herds, area for another oil fix brings this Liscumb Bone Bed, the farthest north structure now in place, the industry with overlapping ranges. One of nation no closer to a more secure ener• occurrence of dinosaurs in the world, can make money drilling the smaller these herds, the Western Arctic, is the gy future," Ward says. "They are lies within the NPR-A on the river fields, which are what developers largest caribou herd in the world. This spreading east and west, making a bluffs above the Colville. It is the only expect to find in NPR-A. The risk of herd and the much smaller Teshekpuk grand sweep. They want it all." • known place on earth where dinosaur going for large discoveries is high, giv• Lake herd make extensive use of the remains still contain DNA, preserved en the mid-1980s experience at a NPR-A. The area also contains impor• in the Arctic environment, providing a North Slope field known as Mukluk tant maternity denning areas for polar
Ground Truthing continued from page 3 ny, to induce it co locate in a vacant down• Hyundai behind closed doors, then Hyundai in trying to overturn the measure residential work. town department store. The Eugene announced that the company would build in the Oregon Legislature. In June the Those who believe growth is by defin• Weekly newspaper reported chat an innov• a $1.3 million semiconductor manufactur• industry hired former Governor Neil ition a good thing may regard chis explo• ative design drawn up by a citizens' group, ing plant in west Eugene, in the process Goldschmidt to try to broker a deal that sive burst of development as an unquali• which would have left most of the trees filling 34 acres of wetlands. The site is would weaken Eugene's toxics reporting fied plus - a sign that in Eugene, at least, standing, wasn't given serious considera• immediately adjacent to a Nature law. Hyundai, which says the reporting there is life after the timber industry. But tion by city planners. There are questions Conservancy reserve that protects the best standards are impossible to meet, has Eugene is home to a critical mass of citi• about whether the city invited meaningful remaining wet prairie in the Willamette threatened to scuttle the entire project, zens who do not automatically welcome public involvement during the lengthy Valley. When it's finished, the Hyundai even though construction of its first phase growth with open arms. In Eugene, there planning process. And there is anger that plant is expected to employ 1,400. Already, is far along, if the Legislature fails to undo will always be those who climb street trees the city is going ahead in the wake of a tax it has transformed the town's political land• what Eugene voters did when they to save them from the chainsaw, who limitation measure that has forced it to scape and sent ripples north to the Scare approved the measure last November. demand to know what chemicals new co...., consider closing recreation centers, swim• Capitol in Salem. The Hyundai plant has spurred plans industries plan to introduce into their water ::&: ming pools and senior citizen centers. Last year a citizens' group concerned for several additional development projects and air, who insist even multinational com• t= As charges and counter-charges fly, about the safety and environmental in rhe Willow Creek area, a designated panies have an obligation to protect rare what is clear is that in a town of rree-hug• impacts of the chemical-intensive semicon• enterprise zone that was bucolic country• plants and wetlands that lie within their gers, a responsive city government would ductor manufacturing process mounted a side just a year ago. Traffic now chokes footprint. There will always be those who have found a way to resolve the impasse successful "right to know" initiative cam• west Eugene arterial streets serving the carry the memory of leafy neighborhoods, without the Sunday tree massacre - and paign to amend the Eugene city charter. Hyundai sire; it is expected to worsen once of fields and forests at the edge of town. r-, perhaps co reexamine its priorities. The new measure requires Hyundai and the plant begins operating, and expensive They may be fighting a hopeless g.:: The parking lot debacle is only the all similar companies to report to the public street-widening projects will soon get cause. Or they may be the vanguard of a », most recent of Eugene's growth pains. The the kinds and amounts of toxic chemicals underway. Meanwhile, Eugene is experi• vigilant new force in the Northwest: ::i battle for Eugene's future was joined in they transport, store and use in the manu• encing a general construction boom. In Citizens who ask hard questions, not only 1995, when pro-development leaders facturing process. The American May, the city approved permits for $147 about what is to be gained from growth, 0 courted the South Korean industrial giant Electronics Association has joined with million worth of industrial commercial and but about what is to be given up. • Field Notes en N 11 Nu HJ Ca 1itollfflffl------naught. Nobody is proposing to send Montana Tribes any Alaskan satellites into space. A few politicians, maybe. • Go P Revolts Against Stop Gold Mine Redwood Deal Expansion Mine Giveaway A federal board has blocked the he deal to buy part of Northern nergy deregulation was supposed expansion of the Zorcman-Landusky Hits $15 Billion California's Headwaters Forest to be the hottest issue in cyanide gold mine in northern Tto save its ancient redwoods E Northwest legislatures. Too hot, Montana. The controversial mine, Since Clinton took office in 1993, from logging has hit another snag - it turned ouc. No deregulation bill located next to the Fort Belknap the U.S. government has sold$15 bil• House Republicans stripped a $250 passed. Meanwhile, the new regional Indian Reservation poses a "risk of lion worth of mining patents to private million appropriation for the purchase energy plan developed last year by a long-term, if not permanent, contami• corporations and individuals. In return of 7,500 acres of forest. Headwaters fell select group from industry, government nation of groundwater" at the reserva• for the minerals, the taxpayers haven't victim to a revolt by House and the environmental community has tion, the Interior Board of Land exactly hit the jackpot. Their take: Republicans against a balanced budget become just a bad joke. Mose Appeals said. Jc found chat the minc's $24,511, according to the Interior agreement reached by House GOP Northwest utilities are now refusing co "effects on the people and the environ• Department. leaders and President Clinton. go along with conservation goals they ment of the area outweighs the eco• The antiquated 1872 Mining Law If the Headwaters deal collapses, had earlier agreed to implement. nomic harm" to the mining company, forces the government into making Californians face the prospect of The Washington Legislature, which Pegasus. these deals, no matter how bad the hit renewed confrontations over any adjourned in May, passed more than 30 The board granted a stay of a on taxpayers. The law, signed by attempt to log Headwaters and the laws chat would have rolled back envi• Bureau of Land Management decision President Ulysses S. Grant, and still surrounding forest. "Either situation ronmental safeguards, but new Gov. approving the mine expansion (See effective today, allows miners to spells disaster for Gary Locke, June 1997 Cascadia Times). In the "patent" or take ownership of mineral• the citizens and who set a record appeal of the decision, the Assiniboine rich public lands for $2.50 or $5 per taxpayers of for number of and Gros Venere Tribes said the mine's acre. California," said If the Headwaters deal vetoes, tossed record of pollution was an example of And so, on June 25, to cite just one Sen. Dianne out most of "environmental racism." recent day of trading, Babbitt turned Feinstein, D-CA. collapses. Californians chem. Locke "This is an important decision over $16.8 million worth of minerals on "If Frank Riggs face the prospect of rebuffed efforts because it shows what a grave danger public lands co lucky miners from (the Republican to cripple these mines are to the Tribes and to Wyoming, Montana and Alaska. In congressman from renewed confrontations Washington's everyone in the region," said Tim return, the miners paid Uncle Sam a Humboldt County) Growth Coulter of the Indian Law Resource mere $910. and other over any attempt to log Management Center, which represents the tribal "When will Congress end this form Republicans don't Act, as well as government in a state court action of corporate welfare?" Babbitt said. rally to keep this Headwaters and the bills to weaken against the state of Montana for "Unfortunately, until Congress steps deal moving, it's protection for approving the mine expansion. • forward to enact meaningful reform of going to go down. surrounding forest. forests. Another chis law, I must continue to give away And if it goes down, veto gutted a America s mineral resources for an we've got big prob- bill establishing unfair return to taxpayers." lems." a new water• • shed planning system that Locke did• Alaska Joins the laska Sen. Frank Murkowski is n't like. On the other hand, Locke thinking about a run for governor signed a bill that lifts a moratorium Space Race Ain 1998. But incumbent Tony against new water rights on the Wild Coho Knowles, a Democrat, will be tough to Columbia River, a move environmen• If you're interested in sending a beat. Linda Smith, the first year con• talists say will hurt salmon satellite into space, give Alaska Gov. Trampled in gresswoman from Washington state, is Locke did sign two bills favored by Tony Knowles a call. Thanks to favors considering a challenge for Patty greens, including one chat makes per• from Alaska's congressional delegation, Oregon Forest Murray's seat in the U.S. Senate. manent the state's ban on off-shore oil he has a place for a launching pad ready Meanwhile, Rep. Elizabeth Furse, D• drilling, and another chat strengthens and waiting. But, hey, watch out for the Off and on since mid-May, chain• OR, an ally of conservationists, says she state drinking water safeguards. bears. saws have been roaring through an old will not seek a fourth term. The end of the session was fraught Jeff DeBonis, executive director of growth area in Oregon's Siskiyou Save Americas Forest, a Washington, with "sneaky legislation and last• Public Employees for Environmental National Forest known as "China D.C., group, has reintroduced legisla• minute amendments," said Bruce Responsibility, exposes chis scam in the Left." The result hasn't been much tion banning logging on public lands. Wishart of People for Puget Sound. group's Winter 1997 newsletter. The different than your grandfather's Though the bill is not given no chance "Many legislators and corporate lobby• story begins in 1991, when the state set clearcut. of passing, executive director Carl Ross ists want to be seen as pro-environ• up a corporation to carry Alaska into the China Left is in the Sucker Creek promises to fight on indefinitely. He ment, yet at the same time they are commercial space· launch business. watershed, a tributary to the Illinois has new allies: for the first time, the making special deals that harm public Now, six years later, the project is set River in the Rogue River Basin, locat• Sierra Club is backing a "zero cut" bill health and our quality of life." for construction - on Kodiak Island, in ed about 5 miles north of the California as well. Greens' best hope for new for• pristine grizzly habitat. border. The logging at China Left is est legislation is the Porter-Kennedy he Oregon Legislature over• As DeBonis makes clear, the straight from the 50s, complete with its bill cutting $40 million worth of new whelmingly passed a bill that Alaska space program would be noth• massive 540 acres of clearcuts and par• logging roads. A vote is expected in opposes a federal proposal to ing without support from senators T tial clearcuts, numerous road failures, mid-July. House Budget Chairman burn nuclear weapons materials at Frank Murkowski and Ted Stevens, severe landslides and decimated John Kasich, R-OH, is among 114 Hanford. The bill, developed by and Rep. Don Young. As a result of salmon habitat. Even protesters at the members in support. Hanford Action, a Portland-based citi• behind-the-scenes pressure, three fed• site have been dealt with in a harsh zens group, calls on U.S. Department eral agencies said a space base on style consistent with the civil rights he Interior Columbia Basin of Energy to focus all of its energy and Kodiak Island would present no envi• era. Ecosystem Management funding at Hanford on cleanup. ronmental impacts. But a fourth, the As a mid-elevation patch of ancient Project has its faults (see page U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, raised T forest, China Left is part of the 5 per• 7), but Sen. Larry Craig, R-ID, has Meanwhile, Pacific Salmon Treaty questions about the failure to do envi• cent that still remains in Cascadia. But vowed to kill $125 million in funding. negotiations between the U.S. and ronmental studies and possible viola• its ecological significance doesn't end Says Mike Med berry of the Idaho Canada collapsed three times in May tions of at least five environmental there. It is also home to threatened Conservation League, "Craig can't face and June. The treaty may be dead. laws. According to DeBonis, Young spotted owls and one of the few the simple truth that forests of Idaho Both sides have decided to set harvest demanded that the supervising biolo• healthy wild coho populations on the have been abused by logging and that seasons on their own, rather than in gist be brought to Washington. Soon coasts of Oregon and California. threatens the very survival of fish and cooperation with each other. after, the beleaguered agency signed Con seq uencly, protesters are not the wildlife." off on the project. only ones concerned about the China As of yet, the effort has been a II for FIELD NOTES CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Field Notes coN11N uEo------· Left timber sale and its potential Service. It sold 12.7 million board feet destructive effects on the salmon. The of timber at China Left for $4.6 million National Marine Fisheries Service to Rough & Ready Timber Co. of Cave declared in February 1996 that the sale Junction, and wanted it cut despite the would be likely to "adversely impact" warnings from Ml•S. "The China the coho. Left Timber sale is entirely legal," the It turned out the agency wa right. Illinois Valley Ranger District said in an One ew Year's Day, a storm destroyed August 5, 1996 press release. the logging road built last year co China Keating said the situation illus• Left, burying what had been coho trates his concern that federal agencies spawning habitat. ow no one knows will not enforce environmental laws in what will become of these fish. The the face of pressure from the timber effects on coho and steelhead have not industry. Nor, he said, does it bode well been studied, but activists say the dam• for a group of coho from central and age is obvious. "Tons of harmful sedi• northern Oregon coastal streams that ment entered the stream while fish are also in peril but were not listed by were spawning," says Joe Keating, a NMFS. Instead, they would be protect• Portland activist. ed under a plan devised by Oregon Their prospects seemed to bright• Gov. John Kitzhaber that calls on the en on June 5, when NMFS listed the timber industry to take voluntary Sucker Creek coho as a threatened actions on behalf of the fish. species, as part of a transboundary Bue at China Left, where Rough & group of coho ranging from the Central Ready Timber Co. rushed co cue as California Coast to Cape Blanco on the much timber as possible before the Oregon coast. At the same time, it June 5 listing date, that volunteer spir• A protester stands in a forest road culvert washed out by a winter storm. The road had been built to access old growth timber China Left in Southern Oregon. objected to the logging at China Left. it was hardly evident, Keating says. But in late June, NMFS withdrew Activists who took it upon them• On June 4, 15 more activists were "While I was getting my picture its opposition. It now says at least two• selves to protect resources at China arrested, including Ream. "I was kept taken, the officer came over to me as if thirds of the China Left sale is legal to Left have also taken a beating. On May in jail five-and-a-half days, in solitary to adjust my position, and instead cut, and as of press time was weighing 28, three loggers cackled Tim Ream of confinement, in a 7-fooc-by7-foot cell smashed the back of my head up a plan to allow clearcutting on the oth• Eugene, an activist who was document• in Josephine County Jail," Ream says. against a cement block wall. I got my er third. The reason for this change of ing the clearcutting for the Eugene "They had me on $20,000 bail. The head smashed against the wall at least mind, said NMFS spokesman Rob cable TV program "Cascadia Alive!" guy "in the cell next co me was in for once, and likely more (I can not Jones, had a lot to do with the road col• Ream received bruises, scratches and wife beating, and his bail was just remember clearly. I was semi-conscious lapse. Now NMFS contends there's lit• strains, and a stern warning from a law $15,000." and was revived by something that left tle it can do under the Endangered enforcement officer. The camera was More trouble erupted on June 25, a burn under my nose. I had fallen on Species Ace to protect whats left. "The destroyed. The video, however, was after an arraignment in Josephine County the floor and an officer pulled me back environmental baseline has obviously not damaged and has been played on Circuit Court. Frances Eatheringcon and up into the seat using two handfuls of changed there," Jones said. public access television. The cape another protester, Debbie Lukas, had hair. I was then put in solitary confine• In spring, crews rebuilt the road, catches a policeman's admonition, and refused to agree co certain conditions, ment for 18 hours with no explana• and soon began logging with permis• in its last scene, shows a logger lunging such as staying away from the China Left tions." sion from a second federal agency coward the camera. Six activists were site. What happened next, said Josephine County Sheriff Dan involved at China Left, the U.S. Forest arrested that day on various charges. Eatherington, 59, was this: Calvert is investigating the incident. • ------, TO Senators Wyden and Murray, Governors Kitzhaber and Locke, and Alert! Agriculture Secretary Glickman:
I SUPPORT THE COLUMBIA RIVER BIO REGION CAMPAIGN'S CALL FOR: A (ICBEMP) SUPPLEMEN• TAL ENVJRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (SEIS) AND ALTERNATIVES THAT FOLLOW CREDIBLE water, redu SCIENCE. importq · I want a plan that puts roadless areas, wilderness, Basi ancient forest and important habitat off limits to industrial exploitation. Ecosystems supply our water, mitigate flooding and landslides, provide recreation, and produce important natural resources. An invest• ment in ecosystem restoration is a sound and necessary investment in our future.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, US Senate, Washington D Sincerely, Oregon Governor John Kirzhaber, Scace Capitol, Salem, Washington Senator Patty Murray, US Senate, Washingt Washin on Governor Gary Locke, State Capitol, Olym Name And send a co to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, USDA, Washington, DC 20500
This advertisement sponsored by the Columbia River Bioregion Campaign, an alliance of 40 natural resource conservation organizations. Phone# 8 South Second Avenue, #608 Walla Walla, Washington 99362 0 .._ For more information about ICBEMP, contact us at (509) 529-6883 or by email at [email protected] .J. ~ . A Missed Opportunity nteriur ~a um~ia ~asin Wi ~untinue ~uwnwar~ lu u~i~a ~~ira
By Ellen Morris Bishop
nee, so the Isaac Asimov story goes, a man who trav• eled through time stepped on a butterfly when he vis• ited the Cretaceous era. OWhen he return ed to his own age he dis• covered that his tiny perturbation 100 million years in the past had transformed the natural and political landscape. And it was not a change for the better. Like the hero in Asimov's story, we are learning the hard way that our activi• ties have far-ranging, long-lasting, and usually destructive cumulative effects on ecosystems and communities. Here on the east side of the Cascades the litany of loss is particularly painful. Our natural heritage - yellow belly pines shading cloistered valley bottoms, sockeye salmon reddening the waters of Wallowa Lake, sage grouse lekking on a crisp May dawn - is nearly gone. Without care, it will not be here for future generations. In an effort to stem this tide of loss and restore ecosystem functions, in 1993 President Clinton directed federal agen• cies to "develop a scientifically sound, ecosystem-based management strategy for Forest Service and BLM lands on the east side of the Cascade Crest." The ensuing three-year, $35 million dollar The ICBEMP documents noted that roads are the greatest source of stream sediment. Here. a Forest Service road sign from eroded logging project focused on public lands in water• road now contributes to woody debris in Catherine Creek. a chinook salmon and bull trout stream. Wallowa Whitman National Forest. sheds of the Columbia River, a 76 million account. For three years, teams of scien- to logging and introduced disease. At forest soils. Thatch ants - those mound- acre area known as the Interior Columbia tists and economists worked to compile least 80 percent of grasslands are degrad- ed nests that often punctuate the forest Basin. It encompasses eastern Oregon, information about the natural and human ed. Of 88 species of fish native to the floor - are part of a complex forest eastern Washington, all of Idaho, and systems of the basin. Two alliances of basin, 45 are listed as threatened, endan- "immune system," including woodpeck- portions of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, environmental groups watched-dogged gered, or of concern. Soil productivity ers, songbirds, and even bears, that con- and Nevada - fully 25% of all public the effort - the Columbia River has declined. Forest fires have increased scantly protects trees against spruce bud- lands in the contiguous 48 states. Bioregion Campaign monitored the in severity. The ICBEMP science docu- worm, tussock moth, and other forest Today we are faced with the omi• Eastside portion of the project in Walla merits paint a portrait of an Interior land- "pests." This ecological immune system nous results of Clinton's well-inten• Walla, and the Northern Rockies scape in ecological peril. has been disrupted by logging practices, tioned directive: the Interior Columbia Campaign watched the upper basin pro- The lengthy ICBEMP science again diminishing ecosystem health. And Basin Ecosystem Management Project, jeer based in Boise. The resulting ICBE- reports clearly detail the ways we have plants we barely notice sustain the eco- "ICBEMP" (pronounced "ice-bump"). MP scientific and economic documents, been stepping on figurative butterflies logic vitality of grasslands. These are the Rather than fostering a new vision of while containing some serious flaws and for more than a century. The threads of microbiotic crusts: complex and nearly managing the ecosystem, ICBEMP omissions, may prove very useful to pub- our ecological fabric are unraveling. invisible communities of lichen, algae, ensures business as usual. And, as the lie debate. They are often threads so fine and intri- bacteria, and moss that protect and nour- science makes plain, it condemns the The scientific documents of ICBE- cately woven that we are barely aware of ish the soil on arid grassland sites. These ecosystem to further degradation. MP confirm unequivocally that the them. The black lichens that curtain crusts guard against invasion of non- ecosystems of the Interior Columbia dying tree limbs in moist north slopes, native plants, absorb and retain moisture c he ICBEMP's first mission was Basin are degraded. More than 80 per- for example, provide winter food for deer in an arid environment, and provide -<"" to establish a scientific and eco• cent of the Ponderosa Pine stands have and elk, nesting material for birds, and organic material for the soils. But they
&6 For a long time, before the great Creator's universe people perish, that changes took place, First Nations without seeking the good powers the dark people had visions and consequently powers would prevail. These visions were understood their place in the universe. It understood in the heart and spirit and was understood that without a vision peo• issued from the mouth in untold numbers ple perish, that without an understanding of teachings." CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 of place in the
First Nation People of Clayoquot Sound Seek Environmentaland Economic Prosperity • •• By J ;I '. IAN •' ... ., .. GILL
Photos by Adrian Dorst Cover Story c o N r I N u E o
So begins a powerful statement by ed, diverse and determined population Through the Trees: A Conservation-based one of the most sophiscicaced cultures in Urneek, an hereditary chief of the of non-Natives who called in markers Development Strategy for Clayoq11ot So1111d. North America. Ahousahr First arion, that appears in a from around the world, and turned the As the title implies, the vision calls for a Unlike aboriginal groups in most '\ ' .. .. 1.: -: ~ ...() I t'>J \~' t .,_ " 1:.,,, new book just published in British fate of the forests of Clayoquoc Sound shift away from our collective fixation on pares of the new country, the uu-chah• V o _,f· I . • -.._-. . r"--,_,.. ' Columbia by Ecotrust Canada. into an international cause celebre. forests towards a whole-systems view n ulrh signed no treaties with Canada yet Map 10'. C~mbined Reserves, Existing Protected Areas and Pristine Watershed According to Umeek, the untold num• Today, Clayoquor Sound has faded that reflects the much greater impor• were confined co small reservations and 5t bers of teachings include: "Hawilh, love from the headlines - but the funda• tance, in historical terms, of the marine denied access to their traditional There exists a widespread belief your people." "Always be kind one to mental issues have not. There is still a economy of the coastal communities of resource base. The Europeans who dis• that the remaining untouched another." "Be generous." "Feed your crisis there, although it is no longer a cri• Clayoquot Sound and beyond. placed chem viewed the natural abun• watersheds in Clayoquor Sound guests." "Pay respect to those who own sis chat invites wholesale protest and dance of Clayoquoc Sound simply as should be protected from devel• land and resources for they help to sus• civil disobedience. Instead, Clayoquot ogging on the West Coast of resources co be extracted for profit. Over opment. This map illustrates the tain everyone." "Take to heart and prac• confronts a vastly more complex chal• Vancouver Island is an economic the course of two centuries, a succession . t' previous composite constraints tice all the good teachings, pray with lenge than the mere saving of rain anomaly chat has lasted barely of intensive fisheries systematically L [J map with the additional constraint thanksgiving every day, cleanse yourself forests. Here, as perhaps nowhere else half a century, but has come to dominate depleted sea otters, fur seals, whales, that there be no development in regularly, seek for good spiritual power in orth America, the industrial our land-use discourse, a sort of loud• pilchards, halibut and salmon. prisnne watersheds. which will contribute to the well-being machine was turned back, was slipped mouthed boor who crashed the parry Meanwhile, especially after a road was of the community." "Avoid evil." out of gear and essentially made idle. So and refuses co leave. Seeing the Ocean punched through to Clayoquot Sound in "Through these visions," Umeek in Clayoquoc Sound now, the challenge, Through the Trees is both an invitation for the 1950s, ancient trees were targeted said, "people knew that the Creator indeed the crisis, is one of opportunity. large-scale industrial use of the forests co for logging. Logging practices were poor, made all things to have sacred life. For all the talk about sustainability, be shown the door, and the scare of a less the rate of cut was unsustainable, and Therefore all life forms were created local decision making, local control, and noisome conversation about how coastal there was minimal economic benefit to with respect. the need to balance economy and ecolo• communities might begin to plan a path local communities. "Then everything changed. gy, in very few places is uch a future back to a society that respects natural By the 1980s, an upwelling of oppo• Newcomers came with new teachings, even imaginable. Clayoquot Sound is systems, and co an economy that pros• sition to the unchecked industrial the chief of which might be expressed one of those places where there is a pers within those systems' ecological exploicacion of British Columbia's forests as 'maximum exploitation of resources fleecing chance to get it right. carrying capacity. But co appreciate that found its most ardent expression in for maximum profit.' Profit rook prece• Umeek states chat che environmen• vision requires some familiarity with his• Clayoquoc Sound. Two attempts to cre• dence over people, communities, and tal crisis confronting Clayoquot Sound tory and geography. ate a sustainable development strategy environmental integrity. This single- in the past two decades "presents the On the rugged west coast of failed in the face of continued logging. Meanwhile, there were ongoing legal skirmishes, blockades, injunctions and IJ arrests. All the while, the clearcuccing continued. In 1992, for example, they were still cutting 900,000 cubic metres LEGEND of wood a year in Clayoquoc Sound (a \ cubic metre is the equivalent of one c;::::i, Arus to be~ ,l"ORI f°"1t pl'M:tK'e\ telephone pole), while pretending to be c::;> Areas potant.ialfriwad.lbl efo r fore1try - St11dya.....a ~.tiry engaged in a meaningful search for "sus• -,.,._,., ...~ _t.et$hedc..._, bounQri, ... ~eJ __...... tainability." lukillfol'ffllll1:k>n.M8J' l.lOOOOWa--.dAtbs ~Altttt'l-~n Then in l 993, the BC government l'l.p,MKtd•"'"ICCofl~~~ltt. imposed its own land-use decision, giv• en that none of the "stakeholder"
processes had worked. b~ -..:.-:.·::....-·-- In the absence of consensus, the &otrust Cu.nadn 10 " social democratic government of l\like kilomecrcs scale 1:300,ffl Harcourt decided co "solve" Clayoquoc ' l (\ with, of course, a plan. The 1993 land• use decision was masqueraded as a vic• tory for conservation, in chat 48,500 !f a~I the remaining unprotected pristine watersheds in Clayoquot Sound were protected. only 10.784 hectares would be open to Logging. The yellow areas in the map. above. hectares (an hectare is a metric unit indicate the location of tracts where logging could occur. equal to 2.4 7 l acres) of protected areas minded reaching about profit has creat• obvious danger of continued destruction Vancouver Island, Clayoquot Sound con• were added to the existing 39,000 forest industry and unions condemned for telephone directories in Europe and he government did cwo things in conclusion chat had been reached in one ed an environmental crisis." at the expense of planetary well-being, nects several large inlets and extends for hectares already accorded park status in the decision not only for the reduction the US. In the summer of 1993, several response. One, it agreed on a form or another by a succession of forest Umcek should know. His home, but it also presents an opportunity of roughly I 00 kilometres along the coast the Sound. The government promised in timber supply and loss of jobs, but for thousand people visited the "Peace T mechanism for including First resources commissions for 80 years but Ahousaht, is the largest First arions creating a new vision. This new vision between Kennedy Lake and the the highest possible logging standards in including no clear strategy for dealing Camp" established in a clearcut near an Nations in decision-making in the had never been effectively addressed. le community in one of the most fought would do well co incorporate the best Hesquiaht Peninsula. The Sound is the rest of the Sound, and trumpeted with several hundred displaced workers. access road to current logging opera- Sound, a long-overdue accommodation logically followed that planning should over pieces of rain forest anywhere on principles of ancient environmental wis• renowned for the scenic beauty of its the whole package as a great day for bio• The environmental movement decried tions. The blockades whose implications are still playing out. focus on what was retained in the forest the planet, Clayoquoc Sound. In dom now referred to as 'traditional eco• rain forescs, beaches and seascapes. Fish diversity. the continued logging of one of the that followed led to Second, in order to convince a skeptical rather than what was removed, and Clayoquot Sound, the profit-seekers logical knowledge.' Ancient resource and shellfish populations are among the In face, with the exception of a sin• most magnifi• the arrest of more than public that it would deliver on better should be based on natural ecosystem came to do what they'd done with cxcracrion strategies were guided by a highest and most diverse on the Pacific gle large watershed, the Megin, the new cent examples 800 people and the logging standards in the Sound, the gov• boundaries - chose of watersheds - impunity all along the coast of the profound respect for living ecosystems. coast. The highest average annual rain• protected areas were largely made up of of coastal rem• largest mass trial in ernment appointed a blue-ribbon, inde• rather than fragmenting ecosystems. Pacific orthwesr, And for a while, they Inherent in chis principle is a demand fall and the mildest climate in Canada unproductive fragments of land chat had perace rain for- ' Canadian history. pendent scientific panel charged with Moreover, planning should draw not almost succeeded. for balance and harmony. J use as a gen• nurture the most biologically productive limited value for timber extraction in est remaining in Government and producing a plan for world-class logging only on currently limited scientific Except in Clayoquor Sound, a cou• uine respect between human groups forest - and some of the largest trees the first place. The remaining unlogged the world. And industry were terri• practices. understanding but also on the tradition• ple of things conspired co stop chem. allows for a balance of power, a type of - in the country. watersheds - the most productive and the N uu-chah• fied. B.C. forest At first, typically, the panel was co al, detailed knowledge developed by First, the folly of their ways had been harmony between chem, so too does For several thousand years the bio-diversc lands - remained entirely nulch criticized a produces achieved be made up only of mainstream scien• aboriginal peoples over several thousand laid bare across the landscape of genuine respect for living ecosystems uu-chah-nulth people carefully man• or partially open co harvesting. failure co consult pariah status on tists. However, after objections from the years. Vancouver Island in a succession of allow for a balance of power and a type aged the natural abundance at sea and Moreover, the decision provided virtual• them over the international mar• Nuu-chah-nulth people, First Nations The scientific panel found that the clearcut hillsides and choked salmon of harmony. While chis kind of relation• on land by relying on their understand• ly no protection of contiguous old• allocation of their kers, and Canada's representatives were added to the panel. existing approach co forest management screams, and by the time the machinery ship between living entities cannot ing of seasonal cycles co draw on a wide growth and marine ecosystems, or of the traditional lands reputation for Umeek, in fact, became ics co-chair. did not come close to meeting ics guid• of the industrial age began to sink its ensure life in perpetuity on planet variety of resources without depleting shores of sheltered marine areas and for parks and log• equanimity was in Umeek's role, along with chat of three ing principles. The status quo did not claws into the slopes of Clayoquot Earth, it can ensure chat life on planet them. Their relationship with the world estuaries. Seveney per cent of the Sound ging. A local envi• tatters as televi• elders on the panel, was a major and adequately recognize First Nations' val• c Sound, society was ready co call industry Earch is nor destroyed by human folly." in which they lived was shaped and sup• remained open to development. ronmental group, sion screens filled long overdue recognition that aboriginal ues and perspectives, was inadequate for Friends of each night with and local ecological knowledge play a sustainable ecosystem management, and c and government co account. le is such a search for balance and ported by a belief system in which nat• The land use decision fell squarely =u The second key factor in the eleva• harmony, and an acknowledgement of ural bouncy was viewed as a gift to be in an established tradition in which gov• Clayoquor Sound, images of citi• fundamental role in anchoring science, was insufficient for the protection of 00 c tion of Clayoquoc Sound from just the power of such ancient environmen• treated with respect and not wasted. rallied support zens being liter• rooting it in a place. undeveloped watersheds in Clayoquot u ernments make unpopular decisions by another place to plunder to a veritable tal wisdom, that informed Ecorrust The refined skills and detailed knowl• compromise, hold eight, and weather out against the decision ally dragged off The scientific panel began by Sound. In keeping with its emphasis on donnybrook in Canadian environmental• Canada's attempt to sketch the "new edge needed for a prosperous way of life the predicted storm of criticism. In across the country to prison for developing a set of general and guiding the integrity of ecosystems, the panel ism, was the people who call the place vision" co which Umeek refers, and to were passed from generation co genera• Clayoquot Sound, however, both the and internationally, their beliefs. principles based on the premise that recommended that conventional i home. Urneek's people, and other First which people well beyond the shores of tion through an elaborate mix of stories, stakes and expectations of local resi• painting a picture of timber harvesting cannot be sustained clearcutting methods in Clayoquot Nations who between chem make up Clayoquoc Sound aspire. That vision is songs, dances and masks inherited as dents had become too high over the the last of the rain over the long term unless forest ecosys• Sound be replaced with the adoption of forescs being pulped tems are understood and sustained - a half the Sound's population; and a spirit- captured in a book, Seeing the Ocean family property rights. The result was years for such a strategy to work. The CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 e Cover Story c o N 1 1 N u E o a variable-retention silvicultural system areas are set aside, cue-block plans can already protected. That means 67,220.55 the scientific panel's recommendations that would ensure maintenance of natur• then be developed on what is left over. hectares of pristine watersheds remain can be applied throughout the Sound, al age and class distributions of trees, In Seeing the Ocean Through the Trees, a unprotected in Clayoquot Sound. and nearly 11,000 hectares of land can and chat yarding, log-handling and road• series of maps is presented as a progres• The scientific panel's rules, howev• be safely opened up to logging to world• building methods be altered to mini• sion - a set of filters which build to a er, effectively constrain logging in the class standards. According co available mize their impact on ecosystems. In final constraints map. Sound, as mentioned above, co an area forest cover data, the land in question essence, che panel concluded that the The series of nine maps shows that totaling 22,916.31 hectares. Most, but would yield a total of 100,700.76 cubic critics of B.C. forest practices had been the amount of land that can actually be not all of the pristine watersheds are metres of wood over five years, or right all along. logged in the Sound amounts co thus de facto protected by the "world• 20,140.15 cubic metres per year. Clearly, In the 18 months of its existence, 22,916.31 hectares if the scientific pan• class standards" promised by the provin• this is not sufficient co support an indus• the scientific panel produced an extraor• el's rules are followed. Then, the analy• cial government and prescribed by the trial forestry base that used to routinely dinary body of detailed analysis and rec• sis is taken one step further than the sci• scientific panel. Taking the scientific take 40 times that amount of timber ommendations. This was the first time entific panel's recommendations by panel's work one seep further and explic• from Clayoquot Sound every year, a rate in the history of the province that demonstrating the effect of not allowing itly constraining any future logging in of cut which has since been shown to resource management practices had logging in the remaining pristine water• pristine watersheds means that the fate have been utterly unsustainable. It is been so meticulously analyzed with a sheds in Clayoquot Sound. Despite the of just 12,132.48 hectares of land, or a also significantly less than the 900,000 primary view co ecosystem integrity and cubic metres over five years being long-term social and economic needs. In demanded by the International July 1995, the provincial government Woodworkers of America-Canada, which adopted the scientific panel's more than claims that 80 union jobs are in peril in 120 recommendations in their entirety. the region if 180,000 cubic metres per At the time, then forests minister year is not cut. Andrew Petter conceded that imple• Bue according co the provincial gov• menting the panel's recommendations ernment's own figures, 1.34 jobs are cre• would "cum forestry on its head in ated for every l ,000 cubic metres cut Clayoquot Sound." Of course the gov• according to standard logging practices. ernment didn't promise "world-class" So at the very least, the 20,140.15 cubic logging standards anywhere else in the metres per year that is available to be province, fearful that it had already con• logged sustainably can support 27 jobs. ceded far coo much in order co appease However, the scientific panel's prescrip• public dismay over the cutting of the tion for world-class logging will by defin• Clayoquot. ition increase the number of jobs per thousand cubic metres because the pan• emarkably, the government, First el calls for more sophisticated planning, Nations, most environmentalists and a more selective and less mecha• Rand - begrudgingly - industry nized approach to logging. In addition, accepted the scientific panel's forest extra processing jobs can clearly be cre• blueprint as the new standard for ated through a concerted effort to add Clayoquot Sound, yet no-one had any value to the raw resource before it leaves real appreciation for what this wholesale Clayoquoc Sound. Finally, it is important shift in forest management values might co include into the calculation of har• mean on the ground. vescable area the potential for forests co In Seeing the Ocean Through the Trees, regenerate. Assuming complete regener• the consequences of the scientific pan• ation of areas that have already been cut, el's recommendations are revealed for and applying the scientific panel's rec• the first time, and they are dramatic. At ommendations of re-harvesting only in the risk of falling into the old trap - environmentally and culturally appropri• focusing coo much on forests, and not ate areas, an additional 27,938.08 cubic enough on the whole ecosystem - metres will eventually come on stream Ecotrust Canada undertook a landscape for sustainable harvest. Thus, upon analysis of how the scientific panel's rec• regeneration of already developed ommendations might play out on the watersheds, the total sustainable yield in ground. Clayoquot Sound will rise co 48,078.23 This analysis decisively demon• cubic metres per year, enough to sustain strates that industrial forestry no longer 65 jobs in perpetuity. It is the stated has a place in Clayoquot Sound. Using desire of government, industry, labour scientific panel criteria, the analysis and local communities to log more shows that, if faithfully implemented, responsibly, at a sustainable rate, and to the panel's guidelines effectively con• promote value-added manufacturing. strain logging on all but a small area of fore than 20,000 cubic metres of wood forested land in the Sound. A series of a year is a sufficient base from which co maps, produced on a Geographic start building a viable, selective, scientif• Information System, provides com• ically sanctioned, and sustainable log• pelling evidence that only the most lim• ging and forest products industry in ited amount of timber extraction can be Fishers net a herring catch in Clayoquot Sound. Clayoquot Sound, and to create forestry sustained if Clayoquot Sound is to be employment in perpetuity. The work in developed according to the "world-class the woods can continue in Clayoquot standards" promised by the provincial widespread acceptance of the scientific mere 4.76 per cent of all Clayoquot Sound, and the war in the woods will government. The analysis should not be panel's recommendations, it has been Sound, is all that stands in the way of finally be over when the pristine water• seen as cause for alarm. Far from signal- criticized for its failure to address the completing the protection of the Sound's sheds are given the protection they so rn ing an end to prosperity, it announces fate of pristine areas. superb pristine watersheds for all time. richly deserve. :E the beginning of a new economy based The amount of land in the scientific Put another way, an agreement to pro• In the entire coastal temperate for• .= on ecosystem and community health. panel's study area - that is, all tect all the remaining unprotected pris• est of British Columbia there are 354 c The scientific panel calls for ecosys• Clayoquot Sound with the exception of tine watersheds in Clayoquot Sound, primary watersheds (those that empty ci tern sustainability rather than timber the town of Tofino, and Meares Island totaling 67,220.55 hectares, really only into the ocean) larger than 5,000 c u supply co be the key governing criterion (subject of a court claim, and thus involves a net removal from the area hectares. Of the 60 watersheds of this Ml c for forest management in the Sound. In excluded from the panels' inquiries) - open co logging of just over 12,000 size on the west coast of Vancouver c., order to achieve this, the panel recom- totals 254, 726.04 hectares. Of chat area, hectares of land. Island, only five are pristine - chat is to S:: mends chat at the watershed level, maps 138,672.38 hectares, or 54.4 per cent, are The effect of doing so would be to say, showing virtually no evidence of CJ' should be made which designate considered pristine (a watershed is leave a total area of 10, 784.38 hectares human or industrial activity. Three of -€ reserves of sensitive areas where no har• judged co be pristine if it is less than 2 open co logging in Clayoquot Sound. these five - the Sydney (5,885 ha), the vesting should occur. The idea here is per cent developed). Of the pristine That is, there can be total protection of Megin (24,300 ha) and the Moyeha e that, once highly valued and sensitive watersheds, 71,451.83 hectares are the remaining pristine watersheds, and (18,220 ha)- are in the northern part of Clayoquoc Sound. Together they make worth taking the risk when so little is the largest timber licensee in the region, who held these rights were responsible up the largest contiguous area of unde• left and so much remains to be learned said he disagreed with Ecotrust for ensuring that the fruits of natural veloped primary watersheds on about the true effects of human inter• Canada's conclusions, although he con• abundance were shared among families Vancouver Island. Three large sec• vention in undisturbed ecosystems? ceded that the landscape analysis that and communities. This system was ondary Clayoquot Sound watersheds - In 1992 it was estimated that each was undertaken is a "legitimate called hahuulhi. the Ursus, upper Bulson and Clayoquot 100,000 cubic metres of Clayoquot approach." - are virtually pristine. The Moyeha Sound timber would create 45 person The government, meanwhile, is n Clayoquor Sound an economy is watershed is protected as part of years of woods employment for resi• doing its own analysis of the panel's emerging that marks a symbolic Strathcona Provincial Park, the Megin dents of the Alberni-Clayoquot region, report - assisted by industry. le is not I return to the original Nuu-chah• through the Clayoquoc Sound land-use and 69 person years of timber process• expected to release its findings for at nulth approach co the management for decision. The Ursus remains open to ing jobs. On this basis, it takes about least another two years. abundance, which provides an excellent timber harvesting subject to protection 1,000 cubic metres, or approximately 30 However, the communities of precedent for the development of a bal• of wildlife needs. The upper Sydney logging-truck loads, to create slightly Clayoquot Sound have in many ways anced, diversified economy that rewards and Clayoquot, and the entire upper more than one direct job. This is a high already moved on. There will undoubt• care and respect. Bulson, remain open co development price to pay for future human enjoy• edly be future questions about the dif• Years of bruising argument and divi• with no special requirements under the ment and employment - let alone the ference between Ecotrust Canada's sion, of international attention and a land-use decision to accommodate inherent value of undisturbed forest - analysis and government and industry's, relentless media glare, exhausting years wildlife, recreation or scenic values. in the last pristine watersheds. but frankly the hig questions now con• of planning and analysis and conflict Failure to protect the pristine cern the inevitable transition away from and dissent, have forged in Clayoquot he value of maintaining the watersheds will invite a return to forest dependency and towards eco• Sound a community of people who have integrity of these watersheds is protests, blockades and a continued nomic diversity. the experience, the durability, the T far less easy to quantify than international campaign to embarrass Meaningful support for economic resilience, the knowledge, the ingenuity the economic worth of their timber. government and industry in key mar• development that conserves natural and and the drive co govern themselves and One cannot measure their cultural or kets for Canadian forest produces. So cultural values must begin in places like their resources in a way that has never spiritual significance to First Nations the pristine watersheds must be protect• Clayoquot Sound. The residents of been attempted before. As one B.C. people, or the worth of undisturbed bio• ed and - according to the analysis pre• chose communities have a vested inter• government official said, "They're war• diversity in the natural ecosystem chat sented above - can be protected with- est in conserving the forests and oceans riors out there. They are skilled, and an entire watershed represents. Each ,·;,,· o;,w .~- watershed has entirely separate biologi• cal characteristics, and existing scientific understanding of the biological commu• nities in intact watershed is far too sparse to begin co draw conclusions about the needs of the species they con- tain. or can the value of intact water• sheds to the tourism industry be deter• mined solely on the basis of existing tourism activities. Currently, the eco• nomic potential of forests to tourism is measured primarily according to their cenic value. Bue people drawn to wilderness value the experience of being in a forest as much as looking at it from a distance. This is especially true in the Pacific Northwest, the fastest• growing region in orth America. As long as the assumption persists chat forests held in tree farm licences are unavailable for purposes other than tim• ber production, any vision of the true long-term economic potential of wilder• ness will remain blocked. le is important to keep in mind that, as publicly owned land, tree farm licences may at some time return to public use. Yet once pris• tine or near-pristine valleys are devel• oped, their value as wilderness is dimin• ished, if not destroyed. One way of appreciating the value of the intact watersheds of Clayoquot Sound is co consider the consequences out compromising Clayoquot Sound's that are their home-the place they look there are two things they have: they of development elsewhere. A recent ability to provide forest sector employ• to for spiritual well-being, economic work hard and they are as educated as study of 12 developed watersheds in ment. The key difference is that in the sustenance, and recreation. They nei• anyone. They understand what is and Clayoquot Sound found that the majori• new economy of Clayoquot Sound, the ther want co exploit nor save their envi• isn't possible." ty had suffered a high level of scream forest sector will no longer be such a ronment. They merely want co live in it. What is possible in Clayoquot channel and riparian disturbance from dominant and distorting faccor and, for Together with an inherent motivation to Sound, first of all, is to re-imagine its woody debris, bank erosion, loss of the first time in decades, it will be truly provide responsible stewardship, they borders. A wholesale rethinking of the shading, and slash and gravel dams. sustainable and a source of economic bring an intimate knowledge of the land Sound's administrative and jurisdiction• Logging-induced landslides have stability for local communities. and sea-knowledge that can be al boundaries is required. Clayoquot dumped sediments that take years co enhanced but not duplicated by scien• Sound should be managed on the basis pass through scream systems. The stag• learly, Ecotrust Canada's con• tific knowledge or technical expertise. of its marine resources and its water• gering decline in runs of spawning tention that just 20,000 cubic In Clayoquot Sound that knowl• sheds. It should be managed as a whole salmon in Clayoquot Sound streams C metres a year can be safely har• edge is particularly rich because it is system, not subject to an overlapping must be attributed at least in part to vested from Clayoquot Sound - espe• rooted in several thousand years of and inconsistent matrix of imposed industrial forestry's contribution to the cially in light of a rate of cut that once Nuu-chah-nulth tradition. To the Nuu• administrative systems. It must follow destruction of their habitat. It must be· exceeded a million cubic metres a year chah-nulth, natural resources were the recommendation of the scientific remembered that much of this damage - has provided a significant jolt to regarded as gifts that must not be panel that "Hahuulhi will be used in occurred during years when the forest companies, bureaucrats and workers squandered. This notion that "every• determining ecosystem management industry trumpeted its high standards. who have variously suggested that a thing is one" was embodied in the tradi• within traditional boundary lines." Now, as a result of the scientific panel minimum cut would have to be tion of lzishuk ish ts'awalk. Ownership Those boundary lines are traditional recommendations, those standards will between four and 10 times that amount. and use rights to lands and resources Nuu-chah-nulth boundaries, and to undoubtedly be far higher. But is it A spokesman for MacMillan Bloedel, were strictly defined, and the chiefs CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 provincial and regional perspectives have their place in Clayoquot Sound. A solely local perspective and process runs the Cascadia Resource Guide risk of a new tyranny driven by local stakeholders, and still subject tO inordi• nate influence, as in this warning from JULY Michael McCloskey, chairman of the Sierra Club in the U.S.: "Industry thinks its odds are better in these forums. It is ready to train its experts in mastering this process. It believes it can dominate Nore Information fuents them over time and relieve itself of the burden of tough national rules. It has Alaska Oil • "Spirit Walk for the Wild Siskiyou", July 25-26 to urge ways to generate pressures in communi• an end to violence against forest activists and the wild • Northern Alaska Environmental Center. Contact: ties where it is strong, which it doesn't Sucker Creek watershed. People can walk, bike or Sylvia Ward, NAEC, 218 Driveway St Fairbanks, AK have at the national level." skate the 16 miles from China Left (near the Oregon 99701-2895. Phone: 907-452-5021. Email naec@mos• But on the path less traveled, indus• Caves National Monument to the Rough & Ready mill quitonet.com. Internet: try will have no greater standing than (just south of Cave Junction). Also available is a video• http://www.mosquitonec.com/-naec. individuals. Without their timber tape on confrontation between loggers and activists at tenures, the forest companies will no • Bureau of Land Management. A comprehensive web China Left. For more information, contact the longer have an inflated role in decision site on the ational Petroleum Reserve-Alaska: http:// Coalition to Save China Left. PO Box 2093, Cave making in Clayoquot Sound. Likewise, aurora.ak.blm.gov/npra. Junction, OR 97523 (541) 592-4394. community fisheries will lessen the role of the industrial fishing fleet in the local • Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility, for • The 7th Annual Community Strategic Training economy. The path less traveled leads to information on oil pollution in Alaska, P.O. Box 188, Initiative, sponsored by the Western States Center in a new institutional force for change in Valdez, AK 99686. Phone: (907) 835-5460, FAX: Portland, offers intensive one- and two-day skills• Clayoquot Sound, giving the communi• (907)835-5410, http://www.accessone.com/-afersea. building workshops. August 2-5 at Reed College in ties there more power, not less. It Portland. For more information, call (503) 228-8866. embraces the Nuu-chah-nulth principles Interior Columbia Basin of hishztk ish ts'awalk and hahuulhi. It fol• • Interior Columbia Basin Project, operated by the U.S. lows the key principles of conservation• Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. based development. It both captures Phone: (509) 522-4030 for the Walla Walla office or Publications energy and releases it, guided by the (208) 334-1770 for the Boise office. Internet: need tO conserve resources, but at the http://www.icbemp.gov. • "The Federal Chain-saw Massacre," by Seattle area same time promote a viable and ecologi• writer Paul Roberts, in the June 1997 issue of Harper s, cally responsible economy. There are too • Columbia River Bioregion Campaign. Contact: Bob offers a critical review of federal forest policies. 666 few places in the world where we can Beckman, Eight South Second Avenue, #608 Walla Broadway, New York, NY 10012 even attempt to build a new ethic and a Walla, WA 99362. Phone: 509-529-6883; Fax: 509-522- new economy that derives from and 1432. • "Our Living Estuary," a full color poster of Puget enriches an ecosystem as diverse as Sound, is now available from the People of Puget Clayoquot Sound's. There is an historic Clayoquot Sound Sound for $15.00, plus $2.50 shipping and handling. To opportunity now to reinvent prosperity order call (206) 382-7007 or e-mail kbanfield@puget• • Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Box 489, Tofino, BC in the Sound, to craft a future for the sound.org. people, and for the place, that holds the Canada, VOR 2ZO. Phone: 604-725-4218, Fax: 604-725- promise of abiding and enduring pros• 2527, Email: [email protected], Internet: • The Ravencall, the quarterly report from the Southeast perity. It is time to see the ocean diane.island.net/-focs/ Alaska Conservation Council, offers reports on logging, mining and other issues affecting the Tongass National through the trees. • • Cascadianet, an on line project of the Sierra Club of Forest and adjacent lands. 419 - 6th St. Juneau AK B.C. and the Rainforest Action erwork is at www.oly• 99801. Phone: (907) 586-6942. wa.net/cascadianet. Includes 46 aerial photographs of I an Gill is the exeauioe director of Clayoquot Sound. Ecotrust Canada and a member of the • Bear Essential, Summer 1997, issue is on Americana. Are we red, white and green? Published by Orio in Cascadia Times Board of Advisors. Umeek is, • Government of British Columbia, for information Portland, Oregon, to explore environmental issues among other things, a member of the board of about forest policies, http://www.gov.bc.ca. directors of Ecotrust Canada. The author through the arts. To order copies, call (503) 242-2330. would like to acknowledge the contributions of China Left David Greer, Katrina Kucey, David • Siskiyou National Forest, 200 NE Greenfield Rd. Carruthers and the staff of Interrain Pacific in Grants Pass, OR 97526 Phone: (541) 471-6500, Fax: the preparation of the analysis that forms the Books (541) 471-6514. Internet: basis for this article. http://www.magick.net/-siskiyou/ • Reinventing Electric Utilities: Competition, Citizen Ecotrust Canada • Siskiyou Regional Education Project, advocates for Action and Clean Power,by Ed Smeloff of the 420 -1122 Mainland Sc. protection of Siskiyou ecosystems. Contact Steve Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Peter Vancouver BC Canada V6B 5Ll Marsden, (541) 592-4459. http://www.siskiyou.org Asmus. A look at challenges for citizens and utilities in Phone: (604) 682-4141; Fax (604) 682-1944. this new era of competition. Island Press. Internet: http://www.Ecotrust.org Email: [email protected] • Fishcamp: Life on an Alaskan Shore,by Nancy Lord. Hearings Making a life fishing for salmon off the west side of Cook Inlet. Island Press. • A public hearing sponsored by the Oregon Department • Economic Renewal Guide: A Collaborative Process for of Energy and Hanford Action of Oregon will take Sustainable Community Development,by Michael J. comment on the U.S. government's proposal tO Kinsley. Rethinking local economic development. reprocess plutonium from nuclear weapons and burn it Rocky Mountain Institute, 1739 Snowmass Creek in reactors at Hanford. The hearing is 6-9 p.m. Road, Snowmass, Colo., 81654-9199. (907) 927-3851. .... ii Tuesday, July 22 at the State Office Building, 800 NE l"l"I Oregon St., Portland. For more information, call OD Hanford Action, (503) 235-2924.
•Publicize your euent. publication. book. web site or actiuity in [ascadia Times. Send information to Cascadia Resource Guide. 25·6 HIIJ 23rd Place '406 Portland OR m10. Deadline for submissions is the 10th of each month. Point offfl------Don't Quote Chief Seattle
Did you know? by Andy Kerr n testimony and on television and from Ir was in the Victorian oratorical style King Arthur's Court. the mouths of both presidents and of the rime, and was soon forgotten. The fourth and most fatal-but certain• • Scientists predict sea levels will Iple bes, rhe stirring and immortal words Professor William Arrowsmith, who caught ly not final-literary licentiousness was that of Chief Seattle have been invoked in classic literacure at the University of Texas, the Southern Baptises represented the rise between 12 inches (30 cen• staternenrs and debate about protecting our came across the Smith version and modern• speech as Chief Searhl's own words, rather timeters) and°"40 inches (10b environment. The supposed speech/letter ized it in Arion in 1969. He changed it to than a modem text inspired by the original compelling and contemporaneously res• reflect the protest-style of the 1960s. On words of the chief. cm) over the next century as the onates on issues of pollution, endangered the first Earch Day in 1970, Arrowsmith After Home was televised, 18,000 peo• planet grows warmer, if green• species and Earth stewardship. The letter read his modified text before a large crowd. ple wrote for copies of the speech and the closes with: In chat crowd was Ted Perry, a profes• myth was born. It was soon reprinted in house gases are not reduced. Continue to contaminate your bed sor of film, who had been retained by the Environmental Action which claimed it to (CNN June 23, 1997) and you will one night suffocate in your Southern Baptise Television Commission to be a letter to the Grear White Father own waste. When the buffalo are all slaugh• draft a script for a film abouc pollucion and Franklin Pierce. Numerous ocher publica• • f9Jf.?t is being lost at a rate of tered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret the plight of the Earth, called Home, tions and institutions followed with their corners of the forest heavy with the scene In a chi rd execucion of literary license, own versions, including a popular children's 55,000 square miles, a1;1 arra of many men, and the view of the ripe hills Smith curned it into a speech about poison• book. two thirds the:~tte of CJretg@n;· blotted by talking wires. Where is the ing the planer and human indifference to Despite a 1992 front page New York thicker? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. it. Perry's concept was to transport Chief Times story char the immensely popular (142,450 square km) per ye~r. And what is to say good-bye to the swift Seattle into the modern world and imagine and oft-cited words never came out of the (CNN June 23, 1997) ·· . and the hunt; the end of Jiving and the what he would say. Sort of a reverse of Chief's mouth, the myth continues to grow. beginning of survival. Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in The Washington Stare Librarian gees • U~faine\ speq~? $1:l:,·illjo· Generations of people have been numerous inquiries and has issued a pam• Yfl~r to minim&e the effee.,s of moved by the "speech." Chief Seattle soci• phlet scaring the faces. eties have formed in Europe. The sup• Perry's version has become a canon of Chemo5yl. (CNN June 23,'1·997) posed remarks have been reprinted widely environmental thought. le is damn fine and authoritatively cited in serious books rhetoric char does what it is supposed to do: • lf'We keep e>tt[acting oil 9t the on environmental issues. Many teachers move the listener. Thar so many have been Generations of people have cur~ent rat~,.yYo;rld oil ttro~hc• use the Jeerer in environmental courses. inspired is testimony to the power of its However, the Chief never said any• been moved by the "speech." words and sentiment. Wouldn't it have tion will begin Jci decline ln115 thing close co such sentiments. been just perfect if the Chief had said it? years, notes U.S. geologist Craig Yes, Chief Seattle (more correctly Chief Seattle societies have But he didn't. Searhl) did give a speech in 1854 to Isaac Despite the misattribution, the words Bong·Hatfie the jourth3l; Stevens, Pacific Northwest Commissioner formed in Europe. The sup• do eloquently address the modern scare of tvat~r~.· N~ . · lssoverl es. 01f ., of Indian Affairs. Dr. Henry Smith translat• the Earth. They seem even more persua• ed the speech from the original posed remarks have been sive to have come from a prescient Native are .notkeepihg pace with Con• Lushotseed, Smith knew it to be special American Chief over a century before. sumption, which is far. outstrip• and char much was lose in his first oral reprinted widely and authori• Despite the efforts of many-including translation. He supposedly visited the Smith-to kill the myth, it lives on and pj, p9tent,t Chief many rimes in the following decades tatively cited in serious books won't likely die anytime soon. to gee the words right in English. He pub• on environmental issues. The threats to the planet, and to the • A.new Calif lished his translation in 1887 in che Seattle humans and ocher species chat inhabit it, Protection A. Sunday Scar. According to Smith, the Chief Many teachers use the letter are serious enough chat environmentalists spoke of his sadness about the grave injus• should speak in their own voice. We don't xha tice being visited upon the Indians by the in environmental courses. need to quote a mythical film version of European invaders and the absurdity, in events to make our points. the Chiefs view, of claiming land as one's own.and of not respecting ancestral ground. Andy Kerr writesfrom Wallowa, Ore. [!fflll ....
printed a newsletter article arguing the need porary halt to logging at China Left pending Kangaroo Kourt in for fully armed militias "to protect us from the an investigation by NFMS to determine if the Tuttle Says He Kaltspell monster we have allowed our federal govern• cutting of China Left is impacting the coho Was Misquoted ment to become." Chenoweth and Hill salmon. To the editor: To the editor: thanked Pollot effusively for his time. The area is located in the Sucker Creek Helen Chenoweth makes no secret of her drainage at the headwaters of a tributary of the (Regarding the June 1997 issue on min• Our federal representatives wield signifi• dislike for our constitutionally chartered gov• wild and scenic Illinois River. The logging has ing) I neither said that Oregon's mining law cant powers above and beyond voting on legis• ernment. In 1995, she introduced legislation to already dumped sediment into these streams was the toughest in the nation, nor that lation. Through House and Senate commit• subordinate federal law enforcement officers and has definitely impacted the salmon popu• Oregon has a law that requires site restoration. tees, for example, members of congress may to county sheriffs, a la the Posse Cornitatus, lation. We hope that the National Marine I may have said that Oregon may have have subpoena witnesses and otherwise investigate She suggested that the Oklahoma City bomb• Fishery Service biologists are up to the task of the toughest chemical-process mining law, but matters of their own choosing. They can ing might be the result of the government defending our salmon. If not, protests are this law is long on process and short on stan• uncover injustice and corruption, craft wise "pushing people too far." And at a congres• scheduled to restart immediately as part of the dards. legislation and educate congress and the sional hearing in 1994, Congresswoman Cascadia Summer campaign Even Oregon's chemical mining law does nation. However, as Senator Joe McCarthy Chenoweth ordered Undersecretary of China left is an old 318 sale resurrected not require site restoration. Pushing for site taught us again just forty years ago, the power Agriculture Jim Lyons to halt the activity of by the "salvage rider". It is 20 minutes outside restoration, enforceable standards and miner of office can also be used to undermine the infamous and imaginary "black heli• of Cave Junction and just down the road from accountability was the whole point of the 1994 democracy. copters" that militias believe are a tool of the the infamous Sugarloaf sale which was the mining initiative. Furthermore, the law does On May 17 and 19, freshman U.S. tyrannical federal government. sight of numerous protests and arrests last not cover placer or other kinds of hardrock Representative Rick Hill (R-MT) co-chaired With her own subcommittee, and the year. The area has been identified as a key mining operations. In these cases, Oregon may congressional field hearings with Rep. Helen support of Rick Hill, Chenoweth is not a watershed by Clinton's Forest Plan and is sup• have among the weakest laws in the country. Chenoweth (R-ID) in Wallace, Idaho, and harmless fluke-and neither is Hill. Between posed to be protected as a 'late successional Kalispell, Montana. The hearings of the them, Hill and Chenoweth represent most of reserve'. Despite this, the Rough & Ready , · Larry Tuttle House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest the country between the Dakotas and Oregon, Lumber company has been logging since last Center for Environmental Equity Health addressed some of the hottest issues and they demonstrated at Wallace and year without any legal challenge allowed. Portland OR on western national forests: the exploding use Kalispell that they understand how to use the Please write or call: Michael Dombeck, Chief USFS, 14th & Independence SW, of national forest trails by snowmobiles, motor• power of their offices. They also demonstrated Patti Kobersttin responds: cycles, and ATVs, and the maintenance or clo• that they do not honor the democracy they Washington, DC 20250 (202) 205-1661 fax- sure of old logging roads. were elected to uphold. 1765 and demand an investigation of USFS OAR 632-37, an administrative rule Although Forest Service polls show that The Chenoweth-Hill hearings were not law enforcement practices regarding forest that governs hardrock mining in Oregon, 70 percent of Montanans who use our national designed to educate Congress or craft wise protests. The Coalition For China Left requires mining companies to partially forests are opposed to increased motorized legislation. Even if you agree with Chenoweth urgently needs money for legal defense and restore open pits by backfilling them up to access, Chenoweth and Hill did not arrange and Hill on this issue-even if you happen to other expenses. Those in jail need to know the water table, according to Greg Lynch for a single horseman, hunter, hiker, skier, or believe that we ought to turn our public lands they are supported! You can write or send of the Oregon Department of Geology other non-motorized representative to testify into a giant proving ground for Kawasaki, donations to: Kalmiopsis EF! PO BOX 2093, and Mineral Industries. To his knowl• in Wallace. Although roads are a major source Yamaha and Ski-Doo-think about Cave Junction, OR 97523. edge, Lynch says no other state in the of stream sedimentation and fragment wildlife Chenoweth and Hill's methods, and ask your• country requires a greater degree of site habitat, no biologists testified. Instead, in addi• self a simple question: If it's the conservation• Joe Keating restoration. tion to Forest Service employees who were ists who are being harassed and censored by Portland OR invited in order to be intimidated, the hearing our representatives now, who's next? roster read like a Who's Who of off-road vehi• cle clubs. At the close of the hearing, members John Adams of the general public were allowed to testify Missoula MT for four minutes each-four people stepped Access to Nature a forward, including myself and another conser• Right, not a Luxury vationist. Seven hours of what Chenoweth called an "open and honest debate" contained To the editor: only eight minutes of testimony from those Intense Battle Being who disagree with Chenoweth and Hill. Fought at China Left I strongly object to paying a so-called The Kalispell hearing was similarly "user" fee for access to the public lands. Even stacked, until, learning of the hearing a bare To the editor: a small fee is a barrier to some people. The week ahead of time, the Montana Wilderness value of public lands, like other public institu• Association's criticism forced Hill to invite a The effort to save China Left has been tions from public libraries to public schools is few non-motorized representatives. At the intensely fought by a coalition of forest that they are supported by society as a whole, hearing, Chenoweth harassed and attempted defenders. In the past month, 27 people have and available to everyone regardless of income to discredit two of the three conservationists been arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil and means. At some base level they should be who testified by questioning their personal disobedience and direct action, ranging from available for all. Access to the natural world backgrounds, rather than their testimony or blockading roads to playing cat and mouse should be a birth right, not a financial views. When Dale Harms of the U.S. Fish and (putting one's body in front of falling trees), exchange. Wildlife Service testified that increased road inside the timber sale units. Activists have But what is particularly galling about the density negatively impacts grizzly bears, been charged with everything from trespassing entire issue is the fact that while some in Cascadia Times welcomes Congresswoman Chenoweth derisively told and disorderly conduct, to felony charges of Congress say we have no choice but to levy him that a protective mother grizzly would assault and inciting a riot. Some of these fees because of budget cutting, they regularly letters that reflect on issues of "fight Hell with a squirt gun," and, according• peaceful protesters were simply crossing the give away billions in public assets to private concern to the region. Please ly, any biologist who thinks roads degrade griz• street or attempting to give water to fellow individuals and corporations. For instance, the zly habitat "believes in Easter bunnies." activists, who were locked down and were Mining Law of 1872 allows miners to privatize e-mail them, if at all possible. Chenoweth's and Hill's supporters, on refused water by the authorities for the entire billions of dollars of minerals and land - pub• the other hand, were welcomed unquestion• day. On a separate occasion, loggers assaulted lic assets - for dollars an acre. Add to this the to [email protected]. ingly, even when they made claims that protesters and destroyed their video camera. millions we lose annually on below cost timber Or send them to us at 25-6 demanded either investigation or challenge. When law enforcement showed up, nonvio• sales and the huge subsidies we bestow on Mark Pollot, for example, attorney-guru to the lent protesters were arrested and the loggers ranchers and farmers, and suggestions that we Northwest 23rd Place. No. 406. so-called private property rights movement, were allowed to go free. Another activist was can t afford to let people walk in the woods said in Wallace that Forest Service employees hit by an Oregon Seate Police cruiser, and without paying seems almost ludicrous. Portland, OR 97210. Try to learned from the successful prosecution of summarily arrested and charged with criminal Access co nature should be something limit them to 400 words. All Nazis at the Nuremburg trials not to keep self• mischief. that is publicly supported and a public right, incriminating evidence of their crimes, and The Iarional Marine Fishery not a luxury available only to those who can letters are subject to editing now purge evidence of wrongs against citizens Service(NMFS) listing of the Coho Salmon as afford it. for space. from their files. Pollot has served on the advi• a threatened species in southern Oregon sory board of the ational Federal Lands became official June 5, 1997. As a result of this George 1Vuerth11er Conference, a Utah organization that, in 1994, listing, the Forest Service has ordered a tern- E11ge11e OR e [!fflll ....
printed a newsletter article arguing the need porary halt to logging at China Left pending Kangaroo Kourt in for fully armed militias "to protect us from the an investigation by NFMS to determine if the Tuttle Says He Kaltspell monster we have allowed our federal govern• cutting of China Left is impacting the coho Was Misquoted ment to become." Chenoweth and Hill salmon. To the editor: To the editor: thanked Pollot effusively for his time. The area is located in the Sucker Creek Helen Chenoweth makes no secret of her drainage at the headwaters of a tributary of the (Regarding the June 1997 issue on min• Our federal representatives wield signifi• dislike for our constitutionally chartered gov• wild and scenic Illinois River. The logging has ing) I neither said that Oregon's mining law cant powers above and beyond voting on legis• ernment. In 1995, she introduced legislation to already dumped sediment into these streams was the toughest in the nation, nor that lation. Through House and Senate commit• subordinate federal law enforcement officers and has definitely impacted the salmon popu• Oregon has a law that requires site restoration. tees, for example, members of congress may to county sheriffs, a la the Posse Cornitatus, lation. We hope that the National Marine I may have said that Oregon may have have subpoena witnesses and otherwise investigate She suggested that the Oklahoma City bomb• Fishery Service biologists are up to the task of the toughest chemical-process mining law, but matters of their own choosing. They can ing might be the result of the government defending our salmon. If not, protests are this law is long on process and short on stan• uncover injustice and corruption, craft wise "pushing people too far." And at a congres• scheduled to restart immediately as part of the dards. legislation and educate congress and the sional hearing in 1994, Congresswoman Cascadia Summer campaign Even Oregon's chemical mining law does nation. However, as Senator Joe McCarthy Chenoweth ordered Undersecretary of China left is an old 318 sale resurrected not require site restoration. Pushing for site taught us again just forty years ago, the power Agriculture Jim Lyons to halt the activity of by the "salvage rider". It is 20 minutes outside restoration, enforceable standards and miner of office can also be used to undermine the infamous and imaginary "black heli• of Cave Junction and just down the road from accountability was the whole point of the 1994 democracy. copters" that militias believe are a tool of the the infamous Sugarloaf sale which was the mining initiative. Furthermore, the law does On May 17 and 19, freshman U.S. tyrannical federal government. sight of numerous protests and arrests last not cover placer or other kinds of hardrock Representative Rick Hill (R-MT) co-chaired With her own subcommittee, and the year. The area has been identified as a key mining operations. In these cases, Oregon may congressional field hearings with Rep. Helen support of Rick Hill, Chenoweth is not a watershed by Clinton's Forest Plan and is sup• have among the weakest laws in the country. Chenoweth (R-ID) in Wallace, Idaho, and harmless fluke-and neither is Hill. Between posed to be protected as a 'late successional Kalispell, Montana. The hearings of the them, Hill and Chenoweth represent most of reserve'. Despite this, the Rough & Ready , · Larry Tuttle House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest the country between the Dakotas and Oregon, Lumber company has been logging since last Center for Environmental Equity Health addressed some of the hottest issues and they demonstrated at Wallace and year without any legal challenge allowed. Portland OR on western national forests: the exploding use Kalispell that they understand how to use the Please write or call: Michael Dombeck, Chief USFS, 14th & Independence SW, of national forest trails by snowmobiles, motor• power of their offices. They also demonstrated Patti Kobersttin responds: cycles, and ATVs, and the maintenance or clo• that they do not honor the democracy they Washington, DC 20250 (202) 205-1661 fax- sure of old logging roads. were elected to uphold. 1765 and demand an investigation of USFS OAR 632-37, an administrative rule Although Forest Service polls show that The Chenoweth-Hill hearings were not law enforcement practices regarding forest that governs hardrock mining in Oregon, 70 percent of Montanans who use our national designed to educate Congress or craft wise protests. The Coalition For China Left requires mining companies to partially forests are opposed to increased motorized legislation. Even if you agree with Chenoweth urgently needs money for legal defense and restore open pits by backfilling them up to access, Chenoweth and Hill did not arrange and Hill on this issue-even if you happen to other expenses. Those in jail need to know the water table, according to Greg Lynch for a single horseman, hunter, hiker, skier, or believe that we ought to turn our public lands they are supported! You can write or send of the Oregon Department of Geology other non-motorized representative to testify into a giant proving ground for Kawasaki, donations to: Kalmiopsis EF! PO BOX 2093, and Mineral Industries. To his knowl• in Wallace. Although roads are a major source Yamaha and Ski-Doo-think about Cave Junction, OR 97523. edge, Lynch says no other state in the of stream sedimentation and fragment wildlife Chenoweth and Hill's methods, and ask your• country requires a greater degree of site habitat, no biologists testified. Instead, in addi• self a simple question: If it's the conservation• Joe Keating restoration. tion to Forest Service employees who were ists who are being harassed and censored by Portland OR invited in order to be intimidated, the hearing our representatives now, who's next? roster read like a Who's Who of off-road vehi• cle clubs. At the close of the hearing, members John Adams of the general public were allowed to testify Missoula MT for four minutes each-four people stepped Access to Nature a forward, including myself and another conser• Right, not a Luxury vationist. Seven hours of what Chenoweth called an "open and honest debate" contained To the editor: only eight minutes of testimony from those Intense Battle Being who disagree with Chenoweth and Hill. Fought at China Left I strongly object to paying a so-called The Kalispell hearing was similarly "user" fee for access to the public lands. Even stacked, until, learning of the hearing a bare To the editor: a small fee is a barrier to some people. The week ahead of time, the Montana Wilderness value of public lands, like other public institu• Association's criticism forced Hill to invite a The effort to save China Left has been tions from public libraries to public schools is few non-motorized representatives. At the intensely fought by a coalition of forest that they are supported by society as a whole, hearing, Chenoweth harassed and attempted defenders. In the past month, 27 people have and available to everyone regardless of income to discredit two of the three conservationists been arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil and means. At some base level they should be who testified by questioning their personal disobedience and direct action, ranging from available for all. Access to the natural world backgrounds, rather than their testimony or blockading roads to playing cat and mouse should be a birth right, not a financial views. When Dale Harms of the U.S. Fish and (putting one's body in front of falling trees), exchange. Wildlife Service testified that increased road inside the timber sale units. Activists have But what is particularly galling about the density negatively impacts grizzly bears, been charged with everything from trespassing entire issue is the fact that while some in Cascadia Times welcomes Congresswoman Chenoweth derisively told and disorderly conduct, to felony charges of Congress say we have no choice but to levy him that a protective mother grizzly would assault and inciting a riot. Some of these fees because of budget cutting, they regularly letters that reflect on issues of "fight Hell with a squirt gun," and, according• peaceful protesters were simply crossing the give away billions in public assets to private concern to the region. Please ly, any biologist who thinks roads degrade griz• street or attempting to give water to fellow individuals and corporations. For instance, the zly habitat "believes in Easter bunnies." activists, who were locked down and were Mining Law of 1872 allows miners to privatize e-mail them, if at all possible. Chenoweth's and Hill's supporters, on refused water by the authorities for the entire billions of dollars of minerals and land - pub• the other hand, were welcomed unquestion• day. On a separate occasion, loggers assaulted lic assets - for dollars an acre. Add to this the to [email protected]. ingly, even when they made claims that protesters and destroyed their video camera. millions we lose annually on below cost timber Or send them to us at 25-6 demanded either investigation or challenge. When law enforcement showed up, nonvio• sales and the huge subsidies we bestow on Mark Pollot, for example, attorney-guru to the lent protesters were arrested and the loggers ranchers and farmers, and suggestions that we Northwest 23rd Place. No. 406. so-called private property rights movement, were allowed to go free. Another activist was can t afford to let people walk in the woods said in Wallace that Forest Service employees hit by an Oregon Seate Police cruiser, and without paying seems almost ludicrous. Portland, OR 97210. Try to learned from the successful prosecution of summarily arrested and charged with criminal Access co nature should be something limit them to 400 words. All Nazis at the Nuremburg trials not to keep self• mischief. that is publicly supported and a public right, incriminating evidence of their crimes, and The Iarional Marine Fishery not a luxury available only to those who can letters are subject to editing now purge evidence of wrongs against citizens Service(NMFS) listing of the Coho Salmon as afford it. for space. from their files. Pollot has served on the advi• a threatened species in southern Oregon sory board of the ational Federal Lands became official June 5, 1997. As a result of this George 1Vuerth11er Conference, a Utah organization that, in 1994, listing, the Forest Service has ordered a tern- E11ge11e OR e Arts & [@Hi!li4 B O O K 11 E U E W Can't Take the Heat
By Patrick Mazza go up in the next 100 years as much as tists concluded that a large in the last 10,000, a roiling climate part of this heating is definite acing the starkly apocalyptic marked by extreme and unpredictable ly due to our emissions of prospect of nuclear war, citi• swings and disturbances is what can be greenhouse gases, primarily zens across the planet in the expected. carbon dioxide from oil and 1980s rallied against nuclear Last year the Clinton coal. They also indicated an weapons, a movement which Administration officially acknowledged early stage of global warm• Fhugely contr ibuted to the end of the climate change is in progress, and ing is a much more unstable cold war. A similar yet in many ways far embraced a pro- more difficult challenge is upon us now. posed global treaty Unlike nuclear war, this apocalypse requiring rapid The Heat Is On: The High Stakes is already in progress, but moving in reductions in Battle Over Earths Threatened Climate slow motion so it is difficult to see. And greenhouse gases. (1997, Addison-Wesley) unlike nuclear weapons, a horrendous After the election, and exotic technology easily divorced however, the from everyday life, the source is this administration apocalypse is mundane and pervasive. backpedaled and now endorses more climate. The scientific term of Those with any doubt should read limited reductions to begin only after choice is climate change. It has already oceans Ross Gelbspan's new book, "The Heat 2013 -All this despite having an "assis• begun. That involves altered rainfall pat• around Antarctica. One was Is On: The High Stakes Battle Over tant president," Al Gore, who wrote a terns, much more severe precipitation something like 50 by 28 miles (about the Earth's Threatened Climate" (1997, book on the issue. events, more floods, more droughts, ris• size of Rhode Island). This is very, very Addison-Wesley). Not only does this Gelbspan has a far more drastic ing sea levels and so forth. disturbing. Scientists have long said that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist detail solution, but perhaps the only one equal "Another body of evidence comes, would be an absolute bellwether bench• the overwhelming weight of new scien• to the crisis - Phase out fossil fuel of all places, from the insurance industry. mark of atmospheric warming. tific evidence for climate change, already burning in 10 years, and replace it with The world's property insurers are getting "In the northern forests in Canada apparent in weird weather, disease out• climate-friendly renewable energy. That clobbered by this succession of extreme the growth of the trees is beginning to breaks and ecosystem changes - He step is well within our means, the author weather events that's taking place all flatten. The trees are becoming less also uncovers why the biggest story on says. And not only could renewable over the globe. During the 1980s aver• robust because of more carbon dioxide the planet is not the top story on the energy provide all the services we gain age losses to property insurers for weath• and more insect attacks. In parts of evening news, a relentless and uncon• today from fossil fuels, Gelbspan says - er-related disasters were $2 billion a southern Europe a desert is spreading scionable disinformation campaign It would "create a huge economic boom. year. In the 1990s they're $12 billion a through portions of Portugal, Spain, Italy waged by the world's fossil fuel indus• In very short order you would see the year. The president of the Reinsurance and Greece. Scientists a couple of tries. Their purposive obfuscation of the renewable energy industry eclipse high Association of America said recently that months ago declared that prolonged facts resembles nothing so much as the tech as the central driving engine of unless something is done to stabilize the drought punctuated by intense soil-erod• tobacco industry's long deception, growth of the global economy." climate, it could very well bankrupt the ing rains has become the norm rather except it is not just the health of cus• I asked Gelbspan recently to briefly industry. than the exception (there). tomers at stake, but that of the entire detail the emerging information about "A third body of evidence involves "The tundra in northern Canada planet. climate change. Here s his reply: the spread of infectious diseases. This is and Alaska which has for thousands of And those who imagine we simply "There are five bodies of evidence. primarily due to the fact that insects years absorbed methane and carbon face a slow but bearable increase in heat, When put together, they create a pretty such as mosquitoes are now able to sur• dioxide is now thawing and releasing resembling a room warming after the irrefutable case. vive at altitudes and latitudes which those (greenhouse) gases back into the thermostat is turned uncomfortably "First, a panel of the world's 2,000 were only a short time ago too cold to atmosphere. To me the most startling of high, might instead visualize a pan of leading climate scientists who report to support their survival. As a result they these discoveries is that we have actually water coming to a boil. One moment, the United Nations concluded at the end are spreading yellow fever, dengue and altered the timing of the seasons. the water shows only small bubbles . of 1995 that the planet is heating very malaria to populations that have never Because of the build-up of atmospheric Next it is in a rolling boil. Gelbspan rapidly, that statistics are rather stagger• previously experienced them. A team of C02, spring is now arriving a week earli• notes recent discoveries based on the ing. The 10 hottest years in history have scientists from The Netherlands recent• er in the Northern Hemisphere than it record in ancient polar ice cores reveal occurred since 1980. The five hottest ly reported that at current rates of warm• did 20 years ago. the climate moves much the same way, consecutive years were '91-95. '95 is the ing mosquito-borne diseases will "Put those bodies of evidence by sudden jerks and leaps. Dramatic, hottest year on record. And the planet is increase tenfold in the tropics in the together with all these extreme weather global shifts can take place in under a heating at a faster rate than anytime in next century and a hundredfold in the events that have happened all over the decade. With temperatures projected to the last 10,000 years. This panel of scien- temperate regions where we live, with world - I have tracked about 120 in the about 80 million new cases of malaria last two years, more than one a week, all alone each year. record-setters. You folks in the Northwest had these tremendous floods In April 1992, a twenty-four-year-old from the "Another body of evidence which I find very compelling has to do not with and ice storms. Bolivia had the worst Washington, D.C., suburbs named Chris McCandless computer modeling and atmospheric floods in 30 years that destroyed half its walked into the Alaskan wilderness below Mount studies or data analysis, but with actual crops. You had record flooding along the McKinley with a small-caliber rifle and a ten-pound changes to the planet itself. Let me tick Ohio River, hell freezing over and thaw• bag of rice. Four months later, his emaciated corpse off about seven or eight. ing in North Dakota and Manitoba. In was found at his campsite by a moose hunter. How "Most of the world's glaciers are my own Boston we had a 60-degree McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of retreating at accelerating rates. The Easter Sunday followed two days later Into The Wild (Anchor Books). Now available in biggest glacier in the Peruvian Andes by a 30-inch snowfall, the third biggest paperback, author Jon Krakauer brings Mcf.andless's was shrinking at a rate of 14 feet a year in Boston's history. Those are anecdotal. uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and 20 years ago. It is now retreating at a rate But when you put them together with the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this of 99 feet a year. Plants are migrating up all these bodies of evidence, the case is enigmatic youngman are illuminatedwith a rare the Alps to keep pace with the changing absolutely conclusive." understanding. climate. Whole populations of fish, To find out what you can do, con• insects and birds are migrating north to tact the Atmosphere Alliance at atmos• seek stable temperatures. In the last [email protected], 360-352-1763, or 2103 three years three ice shelves have bro• Harrison Ave NW #2615, Olympia, WA ken off of Antarctica as warming has 98502. been detected in the deep waters of the