Andrew interviews Andrew Bogrand, volunteer Communications Director for the Divest Oregon Campaign. Andrew is a human rights campaigner and policy advocate who supports nonprofits, coalitions, and communities fighting injustice.

They discuss why a diverse coalition of Oregonians have come together to demand the Oregon Treasury, managing $120 Billion in investments, divest from the climate warming fossil fuel industry. Andrew provides great economic and environmental justice arguments for why the state should divest from fossil fuels. He then provides details on opportunities for individuals and organizations to get involved in the campaign.

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Sam and Andrew interview Rita Frost, Campaigns Director at the Dogwood Alliance. The Dogwood Alliance advances environmental justice and climate action by mobilizing diverse voices to protect southern forests and communities from industrial logging. 

Rita outlines the threats of biomass as a false climate solution that threatens southern forests and the importance of bringing communities most impacted by industrial logging to the decision making table. The conversation then turns to the importance of ensuring environmental justice and forest protection as key components to a holistic response to the climate crisis.

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Andrew interviews award winning and prolific author, essayist, and commentator Robert Leo Heilman from Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Bob is the author of several books including Overstory Zero: Real Life in Timber Country, Children of Death, and The World Pool: A Literary Variety. He has also been a prolific contributor to guest columns in the News Review in Roseburg. 

Bob has recently been the target of violence for his recent writings in his local paper that call out rightwing extremism. We discuss the duty Bob feels as a writer to speak openly about the dangers of the extremism and fear he sees in his community. Bob describes the changes he's seen living in Myrtle Creek for over four decades and the impacts of declining material living conditions on rural people and communities.

Find his book Overstory Zero: Real Life in Timber Country to read his direct experience living in timber country.

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In part two, we continue our conversation with Levi Van Sant (@LeviVanSant), an Assistant Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County Virginia whose work focuses on environmental (in)justice, particularly issues surrounding food, agriculture, and land use. 

Levi wrote a formative piece in Dissent on Land Reform and the Green New Deal that influenced the Coast Range Association’s recent Climate & Oregon’s Industrial Forests: A Green New Proposal. In this episode, Andrew and Levi discuss alternative land ownership models such as Frannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative and the history of colonization in the U.S. and indigenous calls for land back and how it relates to this conversation on land reform.

Resource Links:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/land-reform-and-the-green-new-deal

http://therednation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Red-Deal_Part-I_End-The-Occupation-1.pdf

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fannie-lou-hamer-freedom-farm-cooperative

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In part one, Andrew interviews Levi Van Sant (@LeviVanSant), an Assistant Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County Virginia whose work focuses on environmental (in)justice, particularly issues surrounding food, agriculture, and land use. 

Levi wrote a formative piece in Dissent on Land Reform and the Green New Deal that influenced the Coast Range Association’s recent Climate & Oregon’s Industrial Forests: A Green New Proposal. Andrew and Levi discuss agricultural land transitions, the history of the First National Conference for Land Reform and the unifying opportunities that could come from including rural justice and land ownership solutions in the just transition mandate of the Green New Deal.

Resource Links:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/land-reform-and-the-green-new-deal

https://agriculture.auburn.edu/research/aers/alabama-timberland/

https://coastrange.org/challenging-wall-street-forestry/ownership/

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Sam Krop interviews Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director at Cascadia Wildlands, on the connections between rivers, salmon and communities with a look at the proposal to remove the four lower dams on the Snake River.

Sam and Bethany discuss the history and cultural significance of the Columbia and Snake Rivers salmon runs, the current impacts of the dams on salmon and communities, the flaws in Representative Simpson’s concept for removal of these dams, and a vision of the future for our rivers and communities.

Resource Links:

Environmental Implications for Simpson Concept for Snake River Dams Removal

Snake River Dams Principles Statements

NW Energy dam replacement study summary flyer

Full NW Energy dam replacement report

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Chuck Willer, Executive Director of the Coast Range Association, and Andrew discuss the release of the Coast Range Association's recent report, Climate & Oregon's Industrial Forests - A Green New Deal Proposal.
They highlight the need for Western Oregon's private industrial forests to store large amounts of carbon. The need for this important natural climate solution is put into context by analyzing industrial forest ownership by Wall Street investment firms and the economic hardships faced by rural Oregonians. Issues like Wall Street ownership and the economic disparities in rural Oregon are central to the call for a Just Transition in the Green New Deal.
They then discuss voluntary land reform with a transition of industrial forests to democratically managed cooperative, municipal and tribal forest ownership models. They end with discussing how a land ownership and justice analysis of forest issues has the potential to bridge the rural/urban divide, offering solutions that build carbon in forests while improving rural wellbeing.
https://coastrange.org/gnd-proposal/

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In part two, Andrew and Abel discuss the ecoforestry practices used at Aprovecho to manage the forest there towards an old growth character forest. They discuss how this type of intentional land management connects to indigenous and climate justice. They also go into the history of indigenous genocide in Oregon and its connection to the landscape change from oak savanna to primarily Douglas fir forest at the site.

Article Abel references on Kalapuyan enthnohistory:
QUARTUX | Journal of Critical Indigenous Anthropology | David G. Lewis, PhD https://ndnhistoryresearch.com/tribal-regions/kalapuyan-ethnohistory/

Through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC, Abel specializes in Forest Stewardship Planning as a consulting forester for ODF and a Technical Service Provider for the NRCS.

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Andrew interviews Abel Kloster. Through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC, Abel specializes in Forest Stewardship Planning as a consulting forester for ODF and a Technical Service Provider for the NRCS. We talk on site about the ecoforestry work he stewards at Aprovecho outside of Cottage Grove, OR. We discuss the lessons he has learned in this work and the opportunities he has found in cooperative ownership and management of forests.

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Andrew interviews Bob Bailey, President of the Elakha Alliance. The Elakha Alliance is an Oregon nonprofit working towards a vision for an Oregon Coast 50 years from now where our children and grandchildren enjoy and benefit from a healthy sea otter population, a robust marine ecosystem, and a thriving coastal economy.

Bob and Andrew discuss sea otter ecology, why sea otters are absent from the Oregon Coast, the process for reintroduction and how individuals can get involved.

To support the Elakha Alliance and learn more, visit https://www.elakhaalliance.org.

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