Coast Range Radio

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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Whether you live in a city, a small town, or even if you get your water from a well like I do, one of the biggest threats to drinking water in the Pacific Northwest is industrial logging.

(A hugely notable exception is portland, which as my guest will touch on in the interview, does not allow logging in its drinking water source, the Bull Run watershed.  Portland’s water also happens to be famous for its purity and taste, probably a coincidence though…)

However, by law, Oregon’s drinking watersheds have no special protections to safeguard them from being polluted or destroyed by industrial logging, and many watersheds are in the hands of large timber corporations whose executives could not care less about our drinking water.

One of the worst examples of this dynamic is Jetty Creek, which is the sole source of drinking water for Rockaway Beach on Oregon’s North Coast.

We at the Coast Range Association have long supported and assisted the work of North Coast Communities for Watershed Protection, and I’m excited to be able to highlight their work fighting to safeguard drinking water for their communities.

They are a great example of a grassroots organizing campaign based around a local issue that also connects their struggle to the broader justice movement.

Before we get to that, I wanted to give a very quick update on our campaign to protect the Siuslaw National Forest, or as some folks have called it, the Siuslaw Strategic National Carbon Reserve.

Many of our listeners already know that the Coast Range is the most productive temperate rainforest in the world in terms of its carbon sequestration potential.  Basically, the trees grow really big, really fast, and can live for a very long time if we don’t cut them down.

As the only National Forest in the Coast Range, the Siuslaw not only provides critical habitat for endangered species, it can either serve as a carbon sink or a carbon bomb, based on the management practices of the Forest Service.

And as we’ve discussed in depth on previous episodes, the Forest Service is in the middle of dual processes amending its management practices.  So what could possibly go wrong, right?

The Coast Range Association is engaged in a summer of action to protect the Siuslaw, and we need your help.  Whether you can come out into the woods with us, help organize events, table at farmers markets, or don’t know what to do, we can use your help!

We’ll have more updates as our campaign progresses, but for now, go to coastrange.org and click the Siuslaw National Forest Action Page to learn more and sign up, and you can email me at [email protected] anytime.

Show Notes:

Siuslaw National Forest Action Page: https://coastrange.org/coast-range-association/siuslaw-action/

North Coast Communities For Watershed Protection: https://healthywatershed.org/

Save Mothball Hill campaign: https://www.change.org/Save-MothballHill-DavisRidge-SloughHill-from-Clearcutting

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The Coast Range Association is a founding member of the brand new Oregon Ocean Alliance, which has formed to more effectively advocate for Oregon’s ocean and coast ecosystems.  In a future episode, I’ll be talking with some of the other founding members about our mission and goals and all of that good stuff.

The reason I bring it up today is that one of our top ocean priorities is protecting and restoring Kelp forests.  And no one in Oregon is doing more to help kelp than the Oregon Kelp Alliance. 

The Oregon Kelp Alliance, also known as ORKA, recently launched a major new project called The Oregon Kelp Forest Protection and Restoration Initiative, aimed at protecting and restoring critical kelp forests off of Oregon’s Coast.

I’ve invited the director of ORKA, Tom Calvanese, to talk about the new initiative, the global Kelp Forest Challenge and all things kelp.  Tom is a scientist, urchin diver, manager of the OSU field station in port orford, and an inspiring and passionate advocate for Oregon’s Marine ecosystems, and I am so excited to talk with him today. 

If you’re inspired by our show today, you can learn more about everything we’ll discuss today, including how to help save our kelp forests, by going to the show notes of the podcast, at our show page on the coastrange.org website, or go straight to the source: Oregonkelp.com.

Research Links/Show Notes:

Oregon Kelp Alliance: https://www.oregonkelp.com/

Kelp Forest Alliance Roadmap: https://kelpforestalliance.com/roadmap

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About a year and half ago, we did an episode on a Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, timber sale in Southern Oregon called Poor Windy, as part of our Worth More Standing series highlighting some of the biggest threats to mature and old growth forests on public lands.

Recently, community activists set up a tree sit in an old growth grove that was targeted for logging within the Poor Windy sale, and within weeks, they were able to get the BLM to withdraw part of that sale!  To talk about the tree sit and the victory, I’m joined by Grace Warner of Siskiyou Rising tide.

But first we’ll hear a short excerpt of my interview with George Sexton from Klamath-Siskiyou Wild from that previous episode, which helps set the scene and context of the issues I’ll be discussing with Grace. 

You can find the earlier Poor Windy episode, and our entire catalogue, for free on any podcast app or at our website, coastrange.org. 

Links and Further Exploration:

• Worth More Standing Report
• https://www.instagram.com/siskiyou_risingtide/
• https://www.instagram.com/treesittersunion
• https://itsgoingdown.org/in-win-for-community-forest-defenders-stop-old-growth-logging-after-three-week-blockade-in-oregon/

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Today, we’re going to go deep on an incredibly important subject, albeit one with a somewhat less than stirring name if you aren’t already familiar: The northwest forest plan

The northwest forest plan sets the overall management strategy for 17 National Forests across a staggering 24 million acres of federal lands in Washington, Oregon and northwestern California, and the forest service is in the process of changing that plan in a significant way for the first time in its 30 year history!

Those changes could have absolutely massive consequences for the future of some of our most iconic forests, the human and non-human communities that rely on them, and even for the planet.

So it is vitally important that we make sure that the Forest Service amends the northwest forest plan in a way that strengthens forest protections, prioritizing ecosystem health and carbon sequestration.

Sadly, the higher ups in forest service may very well try to use this process as a way to weaken environmental protections and increase logging, even on mature and old growth!

We can’t let that happen.  This is a once in a generation opportunity and threat, and it is going to take massive public pressure and engagement to prevail over the Timber industry machinations that would seek to re-open these forests for wholesale liquidation. 

To talk about all this I’m joined by the Coast Range Association’s Director, Chuck Willer.  We’re going to go through our campaign to educate, activate, and empower local grassroots groups to protect these forests, and why we are focusing our efforts on the Siuslaw National Forest here in the Coast Range.

You can learn more about everything we’ll be talking about today on the home page of our website, coastrange.org.

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