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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.
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tinent issue. Letters can be submitted in per
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