Posted Mon November 21, 2005
All is not well these days in Oregon's forests, and their future remains uncertain. While lawyers wrangle over forest policy in federal courtrooms, many forests face catastrophic fire and disease. Lawsuits and countersuits over species protections have stalled harvests of public timber, but the habitats in question are getting no better. Dozens of sawmills have closed. Small timber-based communities are in trouble. No one involved in these conflicts seems to trust anyone who has a differing viewpoint, and no side appears to be "winning."
Eric Cain, producer of this new OPB documentary, says that everyone wants our vast areas of forest land to be healthy and productive, "but we disagree about how to use it and how to manage it. We share no vision of what we expect it to look like or even what a healthy forest is."
"Rethinking the Forests" airing Monday, November 21 at 9pm on Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) television ventures outside the usual arguments about "the timber crisis" to find new voices with fresh perspectives. Visually stunning, loaded with colorful characters and a unique music score, “Rethinking” offers new ways of looking at what’s become the same old gridlock in our forests.
Howard Johnson, a 91-year-old tree farmer in Wallowa shares some of the quiet wisdom that has made his operation successful, sustainable and a model for other growers.
John Bliss, an OSU Forestry professor, laments the loss of old growth forest in the Coast Range. But he also questions the public's distaste for clear-cuts: "There is this notion that somehow we can consume these vast and growing quantities of wood products without having a visible dent on the landscape."
And as we aspire to maintain "pristine forests," University of Minnesota professor Jim Bowyer challenges the ethics of shifting our timber production and its environmental impacts to other countries.
Leslie Weldon, forest supervisor on the Deschutes National Forest, talks about fire and fire suppression, saying: "We need a little bit of a reality check on the values we have as a country. As citizens, we may think that we value the environment and are conservationists and want these lands to stay healthy, but at times our behavior says differently."
"Rethinking the Forests" doesn't provide many answers, but it does contend that we may have been asking some wrong questions -- barking up the wrong trees, so to speak. Most of the colorful characters in this program agree that we need to talk about forest issues in new and different ways; and that if we can't arrive at some sort of shared vision for managing our forests, we may be sentencing them to a most unfortunate future.
THE OREGON STORY series explores Oregon's ever-changing social, cultural and economic relationships with the land. Each story is supplemented by an online site that provides additional facts, educational tools and a starting point for further discovery. Visit opb.org/programs/oregonstory/ for more information.
Funding for THE OREGON STORY is provided through the Education Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Rural Development.
Oregon Public Broadcasting is a statewide network of community-supported learning resources including OPB Television, an affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and OPB Radio, presenting local news coverage and the programs of National Public Radio (NPR), American Public Media (APM) and Public Radio International (PRI). The OPB Web site is opb.org.
The following people are featured in this film:
STEVE MEALEY
U.S. Forest Service, retired
JOHN BLISS Prof of Forestry
Oregon State Univ.
JOHN KITZHABER:
Governor of Oregon, 1995-2003
BUTCH TANZEY:
Logger, Wallowa County
DIANE SNYDER:
Director, Wallowa Resources
LEO GOEBEL
Tree Farmer, Wallowa County
BOB JACKSON
Tree Farmer, Wallowa County
DAN DUNCAN:
Rancher & Tree Farmer, Wallowa Co.
DOUG MCDANIEL
Logger and Rancher, Wallowa Co
HOWARD JOHNSON:
Tree Farmer, Wallowa County
NILS CHRISTOFFERSON,
Deputy Dir, Wallowa Resources
BRUCE DUNN:
Forester, R-Y Timber Co., Wallowa County
LESLIE WELDON:
Forest Supervisor, Deschutes NF
CLINTZ BENTZ:
Tree Farmer, Scio, Oregon
JIM BOWYER - Prof of Forestry and Forest Products
Univ. of Minnesota
DONALD CARR
Tree Farmer, Alsea
DARRYL KELLY - Energy Superintendent
Warm Springs Forest Products, Warm Springs
Last Modified Wed July 19 2006 08:46AM
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