This is our first episode of 2025, and while we brace for the tidal wave of insanity coming our way on the federal level, we are also preparing for Oregon’s biennial legislative session.

If you don’t know, Oregon only has full legislative sessions in odd years, meaning that 2025 will be a big year for Oregon politics and policy.  Oregon’s session runs from late January through late June, but most of the important opportunities for public input happen early, in February and March.

I’ve been tracking a lot of bills as the session approaches, and I’ll do my best to highlight as many as possible as the session goes on.  For instance, we’ll have an episode coming up with my partners in the Oregon Ocean Alliance focusing on ocean and estuary protections, and I will be highlighting forest and climate bills as well.

Today, I’m speaking with Linda Perrine of Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment, or OCERA.  OCERA is a coalition of over 30 groups pushing for a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to a healthy environment into Oregon law.

As always, my email is [email protected].  I’d love to know what you think of the show, and what you want us to cover this year.

Show Notes:

https://www.oceraunited.org/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CNYOofPtUe48ZB7qzXKk02KzJD4PTfwk/view

Montana youth lawsuit: https://grist.org/regulation/held-v-montana-youth-climate-lawsuit-supreme-court-decision/

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Today’s show is the second part of a recent talk by conservationist and author, George Wuerthner, on the failures and fallacies of some of the ingrained beliefs around wildfires and wildfire suppression.

George Wuerthner is a well-known ecologist and author who has dedicated his career to studying and advocating for wilderness and wildlife conservation. He is the author of nearly 40 books on environmental issues and natural history, including co-authoring and editing “Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy”.

If you didn’t hear part one, I would really encourage you to go back and listen to that episode first if possible.  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fallacy-of-chainsaw-medicine-for-wildfire/id1510457358?i=1000680034797

You can listen for free by searching for Coast Range Radio on any podcast app, or at the Coast Range Radio page of our website, coastrange.org. I love to hear your thoughts on the show, email me at [email protected] anytime! 

Research Links/Show Notes:

George’s Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbWfIM5JA58

Stop Clearcutting CA: https://www.sierraclub.org/grassroots-network/stop-clearcutting-ca/resources#fpf

George’s book, Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

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Our last episode was a great discussion with a Forest Service scientist and a forest ecologist with the Nature Conservancy about the effects of various fire treatments on subsequent fire behavior.  While I appreciated their perspective and research, I wanted to bring in a different viewpoint on fire and forest ecology.

It’s important to remember that western forests have existed and thrived long before humans arrived in North America.  The impulse to “manage” the world around us is an ingrained human trait, and not even particularly unique to humans.

However, while indigenous people throughout the Americas sustainably and vibrantly stewarded their lands for millennia, Western notions of forest management and stewardship have proven disastrous everywhere they have been forced upon landscapes and communities.

So we as a society should be very cautious and humble about the idea that we can improve on nature, especially as we enter a deepening phase of the climate crisis.

I promise that coast range radio is not becoming a wildfire policy podcast, but wildfire policy is the number one factor (after profits for the 1% of course) driving massive landscape management decisions across all ownership types.

And it’s especially relevant as the Forest service seems to be going all-in on aggressive ramped up logging in the name of wildfire management in its recently released draft environmental impact statement on its plan to amend the landmark Northwest Forest Plan.

(In case you don’t know, an environmental impact statement, or EIS, is a document produced by an agency as part of a mandatory process assessing environmental impacts for a given project or policy, and a draft EIS is the public’s opportunity to weigh in on the agency’s assessment.). Some call it genuine public engagement, and some call it a farce with a predetermined outcome. 

We’ll have a lot more to say about how you can engage meaningfully in the process and fight back regardless, as we’ll begin a whole series on the northwest forest plan DEIS in January.

So with all that in mind, I’m sharing a great talk that the Sierra Club’s Stop Clearcutting California Team put on with conservationist George Wuerthner, as part of their Forest Protection Forum series.

George Wuerthner is a well-known ecologist and author who has dedicated his career to studying and advocating for wilderness and wildlife conservation. He is the author of nearly 40 books on environmental issues and natural history, including co-authoring and editing “Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy”

His talk was too good to edit into one episode, so I’m breaking it in two.  This is part one, and I will put out a full version in the podcast feed of coast range radio.

I love to hear your thoughts on the show, email me at [email protected] anytime!

Research Links/Show Notes:

George’s Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbWfIM5JA58

Stop Clearcutting CA: https://www.sierraclub.org/grassroots-network/stop-clearcutting-ca/resources#fpf

George’s book, Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

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Like it or not, fire politics affects every aspect of public forest policy and the rural landscape, and that is not changing anytime soon.

But is science or politics guiding the policy?  Are management decisions being made with forest ecology and community resilience as the top priorities, or are certain actors using fire as a smoke screen to score political wins, enrich wealthy mill owners, and prop up an outdated ideology that wants to turn public forests into tree plantations?  

More relevant to today’s conversation, what is the best available science actually telling us about fire and forest health?  About how, if, when, and why to take an active role in shaping forest landscapes with fire, healthy forest ecology, and fire resilient communities in mind?

I’m joined today by Dr Kimberley Davis from the Forest Service’s Missoula Fire Sciences Lab, and Dr Kerry Metlen, Senior Forest Scientist for The Nature Conservancy in Oregon.  

They are two of the lead co-authors of a meta-analysis published this year examining the effects of thinning, prescribed fire, and wildfire on subsequent wildfire severity in dry type conifer forests of the Western US.

They are an absolute wealth of knowledge and I was so appreciative of their ability to get into the complexities of their research in a way that was engaging and understandable.

Research Links/Show Notes:

• Tamm Review: https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/67659
• Summarized version with graphics: https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs_journals/rmrs/sycu/2024/sycu_photos_2024_10_treatments.pdf
• Alternative Take on the Paper from Andy Kerr: https://www.andykerr.net/kerr-public-lands-blog/2024/8/30/rethinking-commercial-thinning-as-a-tool-to-ecologically-restore-frequent-fire-forest-types-part-2-burn-baby-burn
• Storymap mentioned by Kerry: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/64f55848f690452da6c58e5a888ff283

Coast Range Radio fire episodes:

• Is the Forest Serviec Falsifying the Scientific Record, w Chad Hanson: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1046044/episodes/13024030
• Taxing Big Timber to Protect Communities from Wildfire: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1046044/episodes/14354418

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As we all collectively live through the unfolding trauma of the 2024 election results, I am going to share a conversation I had yesterday with two of my colleagues in the climate justice world that I found really helpful in starting to process what this election could mean for climate justice and our movement, and how to engage in these early stages.

I’m joined today by Brenna Bell from 350pdx and Forest Climate Alliance Organizer Alex Budd.  

And quick disclaimer, this conversation does not necessarily represent the views of our respective organizations.

If you find this show helpful, or unhelpful, or if you just want to let me know what’s  on your mind, please email me anytime at [email protected].

And please consider sharing or recommending this show to other folks in your circles.  Coast Range Radio is on all podcasts, on community radio stations throughout Oregon, and at coastrange.org.  

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“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled.  We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”.

Those are the opening sentences of the 2024 State of the Climate Report, led in part by scientists at Oregon State University.  I’m willing to bet that not a single person listening to this needs to be convinced that fossil fuel caused climate change is a global emergency.

I think the questions that we’re all asking are, how bad is it?  Are we too late to act?  And if not, what can we do to force real action?  

My guest today is Dr Jillian Gregg, one of the co-authors of the State of the Climate report.  Dr Gregg is also the CEO Terrestrial ecosystems research associates. 

This was a great conservation, and I hope you come away angry and inspired like I did.  Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]!

2024 State of the Climate: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595?login=false#485024408

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Oregon Rural Action and Food and Water Watch recently conducted a rare flyover of Threemile Canyon Farms, one of Oregon’s most notorious factory cattle farms, also known by the simultaneously anodyne and horrifying technical name: confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, in Morrow County.

In conjunction with that, both organizations have released detailed, interactive maps highlighting the extent of factory farms and associated pollution in Oregon.  These maps, and the accompanying reports, show that factory farms are expanding in Oregon, even as the public awareness of the devastating impacts grow.

I’m joined today by Kaleb Ley from Oregon Rural and Aimee Travis-Stone with Food and Water Watch to learn about their efforts to confront and expose factory farms.

We covered a lot more than we could fit into 30 minutes, so if you want to listen to the entire interview, or any of our episodes, you can find Coast Range Radio on any podcast app or at coastrange.org.

Research Links/Show Notes:

Oregon Rural Action Network: https://www.oregonrural.org/

ORA Pollution Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1ukX5PtNPEJOnN6UwiM6mUmilxRV95Sc&ll=45.839986808522895%2C-119.6917593922625&z=9

FWW Oregon Mega-dairy fact sheet (2022): https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FSW_2205_ORMega-Dairies.pdf

FWW Oregon Factory Farm Fact Sheet: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/FSW_0924_FFMap_OR.pdf

FWW Ineractive FF National Map: https://foodandwater.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/filtergallery/index.html?appid=571800658574445b9295f1aa8817e8aa

Event page for Food and Water Watch webinar, Oct 24th, 6:30-7:30: Mobilize Event Page

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Freshwater, i.e. non-salinated water, is arguably the most precious resource on earth, and in Oregon, by law, all water belongs to the public.  However, if you examine who actually controls water usage in Oregon, you might come away with a very different impression.

Water rights, and the laws that govern them, are incredibly consequential for both humans and ecosystems, and will only become more so in the coming years and decades.

A few months ago, I attended a talk by Christopher Hall, executive director of The Water League, focused on Oregon’s push to modernize our water code in the 2025 legislative session.

I came away from that talk fired up about water rights, and I’m excited to be joined by him today to talk about The Water League’s efforts to reform Oregon’s water codes

https://www.waterleague.org/

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Today’s episode is part two of my interview with Rand Schenk, author of a great new book on history of the Forest Service, its founder, Gifford Pinchot, and over 100 years of forest management and mismanagement in the Pacific Northwest.

The book, “Forest Under Siege: The Story of Old Growth After Gifford Pinchot”,  chronicles the Forest Service’s progressive populist origins, how it abandoned its founding mission of conservation and drove our old growth forests to the brink of extinction, and how, or if, the agency is entering a new restoration ecology era.

In part one of our interview, which you can find on the podcast feed of Coast Range Radio or at coastrange.org, we covered the story of the forest service from its humble beginnings through the era of hubris and destruction, and ended that episode with the creation of the Northwest Forest Plan. 

On today’s episode, we really get into the big questions around how the Forest Service wants to manage National Forests for the next generation, whether they can be trusted, and how we can protect our public lands right now.   

On that note, I’ll be joined by Coast Range Association’s Executive Director, Chuck Willer, for an update on our campaign to protect Mature and Old Growth in the Siuslaw National Forest, so stick around for that!  Learn more at https://coastrange.org/actnow/

Forest Under Siege is available at local bookstores throughout the northwest, and you can order a copy online by searching for Forest Under Siege.

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Today’s episode is part one of a two part interview with Rand Schenk, author of a fascinating and timely new history of the Forest Service, its founder, Gifford Pinchot, and over 100 years of forest management and mismanagement in the Pacific Northwest.

The book, “Forest Under Siege: The Story of Old Growth After Gifford Pinchot”,  explores the Forest Service’s progressive populist origins, how it abandoned its founding mission of conservation and drove our old growth forests to the brink of extinction, and how, or if, the agency is entering a new restoration ecology era.

Forest Under Siege is available at local bookstores throughout the northwest, and you can order a copy online by searching for Forest Under Siege.

Rand will be giving a book reading at Powell’s Books in Downtown Portland at 7pm on Wednesday, July 31st.

Research Links/Show Notes:

Powell's Link:
https://www.powells.com/book/forest-under-siege-9781638640257/1-1

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