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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1998)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL: P.O.BOX 3159 ode@oregon. uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www.uoregon edu/~ode EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Laura Cadiz F—~~~4> -CHRIS HUTCHINSON/EMERALD Land swaps are a bad deal for all Swapping federal land for privately owned or contracted land is a phenomenon that has begun to hit Oregon Before electronic transfers of funds, before credit cards and stocks and bonds, even before currency, there was barter. Now, a new sort of swapping is the latest way resource consumption-based companies are taking the government and the taxpayers for a ride. In several recent “environmental” deals, the government has decided to offer land of supposedly equal value in exchange for newly protected property. For example, when it created the Escalante National Monument in Utah, the White House may have offered valuable mining land to sever al of the companies that had claims in the area, according to The Nation. If that wasn’t enough, some of the com panies with Escalante claims have been given permission to conduct exploratory drilling, such as the Conoco company. By giving up known resources for vague ld-fashioned capitalism seems to be finding a new industry in which to operate. AN EMERALD EDITORIAL claims and then abdicating effective pro tection of the region, the U.S. government isn’t doing much to protect the environ ment. Similarly, when efforts were underway to protect the Headwaters redwood stand in northern California, some plans includ ed swapping the sensitive and unlogged watershed for vast swaths of timber else where. The eventual plan, at least as re ported by CNN, relied upon a more tradi tional swap — $380 million for minimal protection of a small area. More recently, the technique of swap ping federal land for valuable, privately owned or contracted land has hit Oregon. On Feb. 5, Eugene Weekly noted that Warner Creek was once again in danger of being logged. The watershed had been slated for log ging when sold in 1995, but the original sale was eventually canceled after exten sive protests. Now the site, which consists of spotted owl habitat, has been given to a company for logging in exchange for a can celed sale in marbled murrelet territory along the coast. In addition to the pure insult this sale represents, eliminating as it does months of hard work and protesting by Cascadia Forest Defenders and others, it’s also trou blesome because of some fundamental flaws with the concept of such land swaps. Some of these problems are illustrated by a Register-Guard story from Feb. 11 about another set of proposed swaps. One plan, in particular, has raised concerns. The plan in question would exchange roughly equal-sized patches of pine forest in central Oregon. Unfortunately, while the company will get prime forest, includ ing old growth, the federal government will get many areas that have already been logged. Such a deal is hardly an equal ex change. This inequality is one of the big prob lems with such swaps. Because the govern ment is often desperate to save face by pro tecting some small slice of the forest, the companies usually get great deals by taking other valuable but less well-known patch es of land. In the end, of course, it is nature who gets the worst deal. There is another, more fundamental problem as well. While exchanges of pub lic for private land aren’t as troublesome, there is something wrong with the concept that government cannot restrict the use of public lands, even if it costs industry mon ey. After all, timber companies have for decades profited from road building, low fees and basement pricing. So too have mining companies, which, like logging firms, never have to pay for the environ mental cost of resource extraction. In exchange for all these great deals, it seems fair to impose reasonable environ mental restrictions on land. Such limits are necessary to protect society and the planet. A timber company should not be able to re coup the price of not cutting trees that pro vide species habitat any more than a drug dealer can regain the cost of lost merchan dise. Monetary compensation for land restric tions was troublesome enough, but at least such deals maintained some piece of na ture. By exchanging land for land, the gov ernment ends up circumventing its envi ronmental goals. Of course, government-supported re source extraction is probably even older than capitalism. Why should things change just because we know better? This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial hoard. Responses may he sent to ode@oregon .uoregon .edu. “What is the region’s biggest environmental problem?” “The pollution of the Willamette River and the clearcutting." Michelle Fisher French Senior "El Nino is an example of the problems that are a result of how we’ve lived our lives.” Lori Schmall Business Graduate student “The lack of re porting for our right to know about pesticides and other toxic chemicals.” W. Douglas Serrill Environmental Studies Junior —t£ j I “The issue surrounding pes ticide use and our right to know about pesticides and their usage.” Michael Olson Political Science Senior “Pesticides, specifically Atrazine, which is linked to breast cancer." 0 Geneva Wortman Sociology Junior CORRECTION In the story, “Professorto head feminist jour nal” (ODE, Feb. 12), it should have said, “It will be funded by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for the Study of Women and Soci ety, The Oregon Humanities Center and the philosophy and English departments. The Emerald regrets the error. LETTERS POLICY The Emerald accepts letters from members of the University and Eugene community, preferably under 400 words. Shorter letters will receive higher priority. Op-ed pieces will only be printed, at the discretion of the editor, if they are written by an authority about a per tinent issue. Letters can be submitted in per son at EMU, Suite 300, mailed to P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR, 97403, or e-mailed to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. Please include your full name and telephone number for confirmation. The Emerald reserves the right to edit for length or style.
