1000 Friends of Portland needs a "fix"

"we ran a terrible campaign" on Measure 37
-- Tom Bowerman, then 1000 Friends board member, Land Watch Lane County 2007 Annual Meeting

related pages:

 

from 2007 re: Measures 37 and 49

Measure 49 is a brilliant psychological campaign to ensure that most of Measure 37 gets enacted while splitting the environmental movement. It is a great example of the difference between Republican politicians and Democratic politicians -- the R's don't care about the environment, while the D's pretend to care but craft initiatives that undermine ecological efforts while pretending to help. It is dichotomous thinking -- either you're with the Measure 49 campaign or you support Measure 37, when in reality the world is not split into yes/no fake debates.

Giving away the crucial issue of TRANSFERABILITY throws away the strongest argument from the environmental side. No timber company wants to be a landlord for homes built in their clearcuts -- if transferability was blocked in court then few large M37 claims would happen. Without transferability, a claimant could build an extra house for a relative -- but a claim that sought future subdivision of the land (multiple houses) would not likely happen. This is the key point and it's outrageous that we are supposed to endorse the principle ideas behind Measure 37 under the guise of mitigating it. Some of the worst excesses will be blocked in the unlikely event that M49 is enacted, but far more success would happen for environmentalism if groups like 1000 Friends had backbones and were competent.

If 1000 Friends and other big green groups had bothered to notice the corporate deforestation on so-called "private" lands over the past few decades, perhaps they could have pushed for selective forestry to be made mandatory on corporate timberlands.

If this shift had happened, the forests where much of the M37 claims (by acreage) are proposed would still have value as forests, and the pressure for M37 would have been much less. You reap as you sow.

 

What deal did 1000 Friends make to promote OSU deForestry Department Dean Salwasser and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, a timber industry propaganda organization?

www.envisionoregon.org/
guest-columns/forests-for-a-richer-future

A Vision for Oregon’s Forests
by Hal & Janine Salwasser
Hal and Janine Salwasser are residents of Corvallis
Find more data on Oregon's forests at www.oregonforests.org

 

1000 Friends of Portland -- Activist Malpractice