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[edit] Help Stop the WOPR and Protect Oregon's Forests

The Bush Administration's and Bureau of Land Management's Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR) is the Largest Old Growth Clearcutting Plan of the Century, increasing logging by 436% over 1 million acres of public forest land.

Instead of more of the failed boom-bust clearcutting that would benefit the few at the expense of the many, we need sustainable, long-term solutions for Oregon's forests on which all of us depend, on which the world depends now more than ever.

[edit] Why we need your help now!

In the wake of the Salem tree sit and rally of 300 people on the Capitol Steps, we need your help to keep the WOPR before the eyes and ears of the Governor and media in the days leading up to the Monday, December 8 Deadline for the Governor and public to weigh in. It's important to keep the pressure on until the Governor soundly rejects the WOPR and have a broad swath of the public contacting him.

We must hold our relevant elected leaders accountable for the treatment of our public forests. So far the Governor is stonewalling the public on the WOPR. He is shrugging off his authority to oppose WOPR as our elected protector of Oregon and letting Bush have his way. What kind of legacy does he want to leave?! We demand that elected leaders be more responsive to the public and reject policies and plans that are not in the public's interest.

[edit] IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED!

Please give the Governor a call each day, urging him to reject the WOPR, until his review period and public protest period end on Dec. 8. You should call his Citizens' Message Line at 503-378-4582

Visit the GTFF Office by 4pm Tue, Dec. 2. to fill out a postcard or MadLibs letter to the Governor - place in envelope provided, these will be mailed for you courtesy of Josh Schlossberg and Native Forest Council (none of your personal information will be harvested or saved for outreach)

To send a regular or MadLibs letter on your own (mail by Dec. 4) --

Governor Kulongoski
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, OR 97301-4047

Fax 503-378-6827
E-mail at http://www.oregon.gov/Gov/contact_us.html

[edit] OTHER IMPORTANT ACTION

  1. Contact Congressman DeFazio and Senators Wyden and Merkley. Tell them that we expect a Democratic team effort to stop the WOPR! The Governor needs their encouragement at this crucial time.
    • Congressman Peter DeFazio
      • Washington, DC Office
        Phone: (202) 225-6416
      • Eugene Office
        405 East 8th Ave. Ste. #2030
        Eugene, OR 97401
        Phone: (541) 465-6732
    • Senator Ron Wyden
      • Washington, DC Office
        Phone: (202) 224-5244
      • Eugene Office
        405 East 8th Ave., Ste. #2020
        Eugene, OR 97401
        Phone: (541) 431-0229
    • Senator Jeff Merkley
      • P.O. Box 29136
        Portland, OR 97296
        Phone: 503-274-4439
  2. Write a letter to the editor (send it in right away). If you have friends or family in S. Oregon, they really need letters down there where timber industry reps are claiming that we are suppressing the will of the people by trying to stop the WOPR, which generated 30,000 comments of concern to the BLM, 95% of which favored old growth protection and an end to clearcutting!
  3. Check out new Google Earth views of WOPR-threatened forests in the Eugene BLM District and read a public protest template (a lawsuit was filed before the BLM followed the NEPA law and created a public protest period, Deadline is Dec. 8, same as Governor's deadline. Go to http://coastrange.org/state.htm
  4. Ask Obama to suspend the WOPR when he takes office on www.change.gov, his website for gathering public input. Go to Share Your Vision. The more strong the Governor's stance against the WOPR, the more likely Obama will be to make stopping WOPR a priority. Also ask Obama to encourage DeFazio and Wyden to revise their early-stage legislation to protect native, biodiverse forests (future old growth) and abandon commercial logging on public lands in favor of worker-run, community-based forestry (e.g. Hoedads). The solutions we need are socioeconomic, as well as ecological.
  5. Still need more information to understand the linkage between forests and climate, check out the following


[edit] Compelling Reasons to Stop the WOPR

  • With a small fraction of our old growth still standing, the WOPR would cut 100,000 acres of old growth forest and many more tens of thousands of acres of native, biodiverse forest (future old growth). If Oregon doesn't want to become a fiber farm, it needs to keep its old and second growth.
  • WOPR would result in 180 million metric tons more carbon in the atmosphere compared to a plan that would conserve our forests as carbon storage systems, based on the BLM's own estimates. This is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 1 million cars driven for 132 years.
  • 70% of the overall harvest would come from clearcut logging. The BLM describes this practice as a "regeneration harvest" with "zero green tree retention." That means clearcutting and leaving no trees standing! The BLM would replace these biodiverse forests that have survived for millennia with monoculture Doug firs. The result of this swap is a permanent loss of genes that have allowed forests to survive disturbances, like bark beetles, increased fire risk, and increased landslide risk. Because 40,000 Oregonians live within one half-mile of BLM land, the WOPR is a major threat for rural citizens. Moreover, rare and potentially very valuable species will be decimated. We don't know all that we stand to lose in terms of the potentially valuable chemicals in the native plants and fungi; these are irreplaceable. Remember the yew tree which gave us the anti-cancer drug Taxol.
  • Protection for rivers and streams would be slashed in half compared to the current Northwest Forest Plan, with no plan in place for someone else to pick up this slack that the BLM would leave.
  • The Northwest Forest Plan, a landmark agreement made in 1994, combined management of both BLM and Forest Service under one plan and was a compromise between industry and environmental interests. We should be taking steps forward from the currnet plan, not backward with the WOPR.
  • The WOPR would most likely eliminate more non-timber jobs (in fishing, recreation, and ecotourism) than the timber jobs that it would create. It would make it impossible for small-scale, sustainable foresters to sell their logs, as WOPR would glut the market with high-value old growth.
  • The WOPR would provide only a third as much money to the counties as the federal payments in total that were just approved under the bailout package.
  • The WOPR violates more than a dozen current laws and plans designed to provide just minimal protections and to help salmon recover.
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