
Burning Up: It Doesn’t Have to be this way
As I look over news feeds and social media pages fire is raging out of control all over the West.
Near my home in Montana a fire, in an area that was scheduled for management that never happened is burning hundreds of acres.
Why was the maintenance never done?
Those who hate the timber industry took the sales to court, blocked the work, and now look how their “concern” saves the forest?
It’s BS.
The same thing is happing in Oregon, Washington and California.
The experts, you know, scientists and forestry experts, design plans to thin and maintain our forests and anti-timber groups, take the plans to court and stop the work from being done.
We have judges, who understand law, but not how to manage a forest, managing forests.
It’s crazy.
And then we wonder why ,every summer, our forests burn up.
What does a judge know about forest management?
These groups are small and don’t represent many of us.
They say they care about the forests but if they truly cared why would they allow them to burn up?
Don’t blame or credit Mother Nature, she needs our help.
These forests belong to us.
Yep, you and me are the title holders to the public lands and yet we ALLOW these fringe groups to speak for us when what they are saying is wrong.
The public has been sold a bill of goods.
We also do not understand how the forests work and have bought into a “feel good narrative” that is actually doing the opposite of saving our wonderful forests, we are loving them to death.
A tide is turning.
The wise and educated are starting to question the motives of these groups.
Yesterday I was out all day with the gentlemen in the picture walking through recently burned forests to better understand how the system works and why you and me need to be asking more questions and stop going along with the narrative.
The more time I spend around folks like this the more I fall in love with the Oregon that was and the Oregon that I believe can come back.
You are that Oregon.
Oregonians ask questions.
Oregonians don’t allow fringe groups to speak for them.
We care about sustainability, viability and livability and all three are in danger, thanks to a system that is listening to the wrong voices.
Today I’m heading to White City to talk with a couple who see’s great hope in Oregon’s Timber Industry, so much so that they just purchased a milling operations.
They have a vision of Oregon that is modern, sustainable and productive.
The industry did a survey of people like you and me and found something like 80% of us care about forest management during the summer months when the threat of fire is real.
But when those same surveys are done in the Winter, few give a damn.
We can’t be seasonal warriors for the woods.
Reversing the damage these courts and Timber Industry haters have done to OUR forests will take a change of heart and policy.
We can’t just fight when it’s smokey, we have to fight year round to support real forest maintenance in Oregon.
Stay tuned for more in our season two of the Truth About Timber.
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