WHEREAS, the Bureau of Land Management has published a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and Record of Decision (ROD) for revising a management plan for approximately 2.5 million acres of forest land in western Oregon, and
WHEREAS, these lands fall under the legal jurisdiction of the O&C Act, a law consistently interpreted by the courts to place the sustainable production of timber to support the financial interests of communities surrounded by federal lands as the “dominate use” of these forest lands, and
WHEREAS, for decades counties in western Oregon relied on revenue produced from these lands through the sustainable harvest of timber to fund important local government functions up until the imposition of the Northwest Forest Plan which largely ignored the O&C Act and reduced timber harvest levels dramatically, and
WHEREAS, while the preferred alternative described in the FEIS is a significant improvement over the current management direction prescribed by the Northwest Forest Plan in fulfilling the O&C Act’s commitment to timber dependent communities, it still would propose a timber management emphasis on less than half of the suitable forest land, a harvest level that is less than half of the annual growth, and defer harvest of stands over 160 years of age for 15 years while impacts on numerous threatened species are assessed, and
WHEREAS, the Western Oregon Plan Revision presents a historic opportunity to restore the financial pipeline from the forests to the communities that were once told they could rely on this source of funding.
NOW, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Oregon Logging Conference (OLC) go on record in support of the Bureau of Land Management’s intent to fulfill the O&C Act’s commitment to communities by managing forest lands to produce a sustainable volume of timber and revenue to counties where the bureau’s lands are located.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the OLC urge Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski to support, not oppose, the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to comply with the O&C Act and to restore a balanced management program for the lands under its jurisdiction to provide for the social, economic and environmental values coveted byOregonians from the state’s forest lands.