Fishing on borrowed time, example 1.
The orange blocks illustrate the 48-year clear-cut plan for the Wilson River, just one of the seven major drainages on Oregon’s North Coast that will be devastated by clear-cut logging in our State Forests, an antiquated resource extraction model that puts wild salmonids and an entire region’s identity at the expense of the almighty, temporary dollar. The black lines illustrate the absolutely essential salmon anchor habitat at risk.
All the unproductive banter that’s gotten us relatively nowhere in the last 50 years aside, consider what it’s like to fish with a monkey this orange and ugly on your back; No matter how much time, effort, hard-earned cash and sweat we’ve all tried to put towards giving back something to the watersheds that have saved and defined our lives, it seems you’re always, eventually left standing there. Shaking in anger and disbelief at how far outta perspective things have truly gotten as the numbers of returning fish get worse, year in, year out.
Below hillsides scraped of vegetation, spawning gravel buried by slides and siltation, and the endless parade of log trucks driving precious carbon off to be milled overseas, you keep at it. You’re still out there, waded knee deep in that perfect river with your fly swinging through the fast seam that meets the slow, soft inside. But these days, you’re only half-fishing that gorgeous bluegreen water. Instead, you’re preoccupied with a final emotion far more real.
You can’t get that picture of your friend Jeff’s beautiful boy, age 2, out of your head. Or Darin’s son, age 4. Carter’s girl, age 6. Or maybe your unborn kid, scared to death of the very real possibility that you might be among the last generation of fishermen to really know the true stoke of wild, native Northwest fish.
I’ve seen the latest fish porn videos, and I’ve read all the fool-ass magazines and still, I can’t be any more honest when I type the following:
This is how it feels be a steelheader in 2009.
That money can’t buy you love, but it can help our native fish:
www.nativefishsociety.org
www.wildsalmoncenter.org
www.wildsteelheadcoalition.org
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
amen.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
thank you.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:34 am
What’s the deal with Oregon’s logging policies? Why are they so hell bent on clear cutting vs selective cutting?
March 4th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
complicated explanation, but i’ll try and cliff’s note it as best i can…
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
March 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
If the ballots won’t do it, the bullets will.
Time to go Full Hayduke on these fuckers.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Coupled with the news about BCs hydropower rush I thinks I need a drink…better make it a double.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
[…] to Fry (one of Buster’s gang) writes about a bad forest plan and elegantly captures the frustration of fighting tooth and nail to preserve a watershed against stupidity and greed. Don’t miss […]
March 9th, 2009 at 10:20 am
[…] Oregon inching towards a logging plan that will further deplete its steelhead runs, many of California’s steelhead and salmon facing extinction, and Washington’s […]