Selling-out Public Lands in Western Oregon

Forest Web of Cottage Grove, along with Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, invites you to a special presentation on the fate of western Oregon forests and emerging threats.

Western Oregon’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands have a long and sordid history. For years, some county governments received a share of the revenue generated by intensive logging, including old-growth logging, on these lands.  Special “County Payments” legislation, passed in 2000, ended this practice, but now that money is set to expire in 2012.

The Bush administration tried to use concern over county funding to gut environmental safeguards on these lands, and return them to clear-cut logging – including old-growth logging – under a plan called the “WOPR”.  That plan was found illegal by a federal judge.  Now Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is crafting legislation with Republicans in the US House of Representatives that could dedicate as much as 1 million acres of Oregon’s public forest lands to industrial timber production, and exempt them from federal environmental safeguards, in order to provide money to some county governments.

Come learn more about what’s at stake, Rep. DeFazio’s dangerous concept, and alternatives for generating county revenues being advanced by conservation groups and their allies.

This event is free and open to the public.