Time to go Full Hayduke on these fuckers.

these lands above are State Forest, managed by the ODF for Greatest Permanent Value for Oregonians. ODF maintains clearcuts outside of buffer zones pose no threat to streams, so it’s allowed to go on despite hard and fast evidence that these cuts away from the stream often lead to slides that rip through buffers and dump mud and silt into the river and destroy spawning habitat. again, it’s all about value. as such, clearcutting offers the greatest potential immediate $$.

this, of course, is assuming there’s more longterm value in a dead tree than one left standing, on which fish and clean water advocates tend to disagree with the ODF. through the ODF model, trees managed for max value = money, albeit unsustainable because there’s only so many trees and trees only grow so fast. that’s where it ends and where the boom/bust coastal economy goes into turmoil. through a more progressive model that still allows for cutting, but in a smarter manner that defines value as recreational opportunity as well as $$, trees managed for a balanced forest = forest stability = clean water = fish = sustainable dollars. this has it’s tradeoff, naturally, because the cut trees fund revenue the state needs so there needs to be some sort of mitigation like a sales tax (which damn near every other state has. oregon does not) and then things really start to get interesting because people seem to love a dollar more than they love clean water, taking that dollar and spending it wisely. like, on bottled water.

there’s a ton more politics inside that whole scenario than can be explained in a little comment box, but you prolly see where this is going. there’s money in the woods, and money makes some people make some pretty ugly short term decisions.

more on the process from the camosled:

ODF estimates the value of the timber. Companies bid for the sale. Highest bidder wins, sometimes. The cost to
extract the lumber against the projected value gives the timber company a sense of how much profit the sale will generate. From the sale price, ODF gets a percentage, the county gets a percentage,which they determine usage,
and the State gets a percentage.

more on revenues can be found here:
http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/STATE_FORESTS/Timber_Harvest_and_Revenues.shtml