Currently under debate in Salem, House Bill 3103 would open state lands to increased logging and pose an unsustainable burden to our state forests. Given the already compromised condition of our forestland and the ongoing climate crisis, it is no longer sustainable to privilege board feet over the other ecosystem services provided by healthy, established woodlands. These services include biodiversity, erosion abatement, water purification, flood control, carbon sequestration and air quality protection. The people of Oregon need these ecosystem services more than they need expanded logging on public lands.

Proponents of unrestricted logging – who have shaped Oregon politics for more than a century – have become accustomed to painting wildland conservation as a luxury. They see it as something to worry about after logging profits are securely in the bank, an obsession of effete urbanites and intellectuals who would sacrifice rural communities and livelihoods to their hobbies of hiking, camping, and philosophical contemplation. Whatever limited accuracy those stereotypes may have had in John Muir’s day, they mean nothing now. Romantic ideas of nature have been replaced by pragmatic concerns over the very survival of civilization.

Oregon needs healthy old forests to make sure that posterity inherits sustainable communities, potable water and a livable climate. More public lands logging will make those goals ever more remote. The expansion of public lands logging in HB 3103 is not to any degree sustainable. Please urge your representatives to vote no on this potentially disastrous bill.

Will Watson, Eugene

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