Oregon

- President Obama now has chance to protect America's forest legacy, and allow Oregon and the nation's overworked forest biodiversity and carbon stores to recover ecologically.

December 10, 2008
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk

(Seattle, WA) -- Ecological Internet (EI) welcomes Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski's decision to block Bush administration plans to sharply increase logging on 2.2 million acres of BLM forests in Western Oregon. Kulongoski concluded that President Bush's hastily arrived at logging plan did not conform to federal environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act, and failed to protect and restore mature forests to sequester carbon. It would have locked in Bush's anti-environment, industrial forestry model for decades.

By waiting until the deadline and calling for revisions and a 30-day extension for public comment, Kulongoski put off final approval until the administration of Democratic President- elect Barack Obama. This decision will ultimately be made by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Congress. This forbearance was not a foregone conclusion, as Oregon has a long history of forest patronage and destroying terrestrial ecosystems for short term economic gain causing long term environmental pain.

This is a major victory for Ecological Internet and others that campaigned for this outcome, and portends greater ecological restoration of America's biodiversity and carbon stores once the "Toxic Texan" has left town, and the much anticipated era of ecological hope commences. EI's Earth Action Network's got just what we asked for, and this most recent victory once again demonstrates our global leadership in using the Internet to facilitate environmental conservation.

"It is just amazing what can be done when global citizens speak loudly with one voice, demanding accountability from environmental policy-making," explains Dr. Glen Barry, EI's President. "The Earth has surpassed its carrying capacity, yet ecosystems continue to be wantonly destroyed. Oregon's decision represents further success of a growing global protest movement demanding dramatic transformation to ecological sustainability."

EI's brand of Internet protest -- where citizen activists personally contact decision-makers -- is hard to ignore, as environmental ill-doers are bombarded with specific, scientifically credible protest emails from around the globe. This approach ensures accountability from frequently anonymous bureaucrats who are determining the Earth's fate.

"We are well past the time where petitions, banner drops and light-bulbs will save us. Ecological Internet's Earth Action Network intends to continue rapidly intensifying protests both on and off the Internet, working for a global mass mobilization, which amongst other things ends ancient forest logging and the use of coal. There are many working on these matters around the world, the movement is growing, and we must ensure we act with all haste before global ecosystem collapse becomes unavoidable."

Dr. Glen Barry is a spokesperson on behalf of global ecological sustainability. Ecological Internet provides the world's leading forests, climate and environment portals at forests.org www.climateark.org and www.ecoearth.info. Contact Dr. Barry for interviews on the latest global environmental policy developments and sufficient ecological solutions at: glenbarry [AT] ecologicalinternet.org.

What you can do: Give generously to forests.org and other Ecological Internet projects to help them achieve more such wins for the environment.

Discuss release:
forests.org/blog/2008/12/oregons-governor-stymies-bushs.asp

Current alerts:
www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts

See original article: "Oregon's Governor Stymies Bush's 'Midnight' Forest Raid" on forests.org.
See also: Oregon governor objects to Bureau of Land Management logging plan in Capital Press of 11 Dec 08, "Editorial: Kulongoski takes WOPR, tries to have it his way" in News Review Today of 11 Dec 08 (This editorial is somewhat critical of Governor Ted Kulongoski, but makes little sense to me - JS).