A4
Saturday, August 6, 2022
OUR VIEW
Working to
help those
less fortunate
A
rea food banks and pantries need your
help now more than ever.
We’ve made it known many times on
this page and in this space how critical we believe
it is that area food pantries receive support. That’s
because we know that the struggle of hunger lin-
gers all through the year.
During the holidays donations to food banks to
help those who are less fortunate usually climbs.
The season seems to deliver the right kind of
sentiments for many of us and we want to help.
That’s the good news. The bad news is the need
doesn’t end after Christmas.
Rising prices and infl ation are not making
what is already a serious situation any better. As
the cost of food rises, more people have discov-
ered they need the kind of help they probably
never imagined they would.
Many, many people across the state and in
Eastern Oregon live on the fringe, between the
working poor and the middle class. Those indi-
viduals are people you know — they are your
neighbors and friends. Most likely not one of
them ever believed they would be in a position
where they look into the pantry and then glance
at the checkbook and see they are going to have a
real challenge making ends meet.
Is it unfair? Surely. Yet it is the situation many
face across our great region.
Sometimes life intervenes to force people to
face some unpleasant realities. Maybe a spouse
loses a job or suff ers a serious injury and is
unable to work. Perhaps both parents are working
full time but they still don’t make enough to feed
their families.
We live in one of the richest nations on earth.
We have a bounty of agricultural products avail-
able. Every harvest season we can all drive
around the valley and view farmers hard at work
bringing in wheat, and yet we still deal with a
problem of too many people in a food crisis.
The best way to help is to contact your local
food bank or pantry and to fi nd out what you as a
resident can do. Maybe it is a donation. Maybe it
is to deliver some extra food to the pantry.
The struggle against hunger doesn’t end with
the holiday season. It continues through spring
and into summer and the fall. So, if you can
help out, contact your local food bank or pantry.
Working together we can help those who are less
fortunate.
EDITORIALS
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Collaboration is a lousy way
to manage our public lands
RICK
MEIS
OTHER VIEWS
I
was intrigued by the OpEd Mark
Webb wrote recently about col-
laboration. He makes common
mistakes in his less-than-accurate
description of what a collaborative
should be if they are going to be
done inclusively and eff ectively.
If Mr. Webb believes what he stated
in his opinion piece, he would under-
stand that when it comes to public
lands management, a collaborative
would be unnecessary.
In practice, collaboration has
become a process of playing two sides
off against each other in order to create
enough guilt in one or more parties
that compromise is reached. The pri-
mary problem is that it is not based on
sound science or best available data,
thus eliminating the concept of best
management practices and the long-
term needs of the resource to maintain
the natural values of the landscape into
the future.
The use of collaboration has
become a cop-out on the part of public
land managers to not have to do the
work required of them in order to
achieve good management decisions.
Agency budgets have been slashed
repeatedly, making it diffi cult to do a
good job, thus making collaboration a
fall-back tool.
Collaboration has become a pro-
cess that gives validity to those whose
activities are either illegal, incompat-
ible, or damaging to public resources.
Those types of activity, using sound
management principles, should be
restricted. The goal of the normal
data- and science-driven decision
making process of land manage-
ment agencies is to fi lter out input
that lacks substance and thus should
not be incorporated into management
decisions.
Public land management decisions
should be made using well-estab-
lished legal and regulatory processes.
So-called public interest groups on all
sides use it as a way to raise money
and their profi le. The politically moti-
vated use it to reach another suc-
cessful failure by achieving the lowest
common denominator.
Our public lands are integral to
maintaining viable natural ecosys-
tems. The most guilty players in col-
laborations are the so-called environ-
mental groups who have chosen to
defy everything they claim to stand
for in order to curry political favor,
new donations or something equally
shallow. It is unconscionable. These
groups should not be selling the future
of our natural heritage down the river.
High-impact activities, whether
industrial or recreational, have inten-
sifi ed to the point where they’re no
longer compatible with long-range
U.S. PRESIDENT
Rick Meis, of Halfway, is a retired business owner
who has been actively involved in wildland and
wildlife issues in the Northern Rockies since the
1970s.
Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
U.S. SENATORS
Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
La Grande offi ce: 541-962-7691
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Offi ce Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753
Pendleton offi ce: 541-278-1129
Cliff Bentz
2185 Rayburn House Offi ce Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6730
Medford offi ce: 541-776-4646
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goals of agencies to meet their obli-
gations of conserving the resource. A
collaboration justifi es misuse of the
landscape. Best management prac-
tices, using science and best available
data, should not allow high-impact
users the unlimited access they desire,
which squanders public land values.
Collaboration can only work if
everyone agrees that it is about what
is best for the long-term values of the
resource. There are infi nite examples
of those entering into collaborative
processes for all the wrong reasons,
thus collaborations give bad results.
A retired educator and political sci-
ence professor wrote that if the future
is to be determined by citizen collab-
orations, then a parallel track should
be implemented based on science that
would evaluate natural characteris-
tics of the landscape. This track should
consider the long-term future of the
natural resources and recommend
management actions to protect and
maintain these values so future gener-
ations will experience a natural land-
scape as we did because of the eff orts
of those who have gone before. Wait!
Isn’t that what current laws and reg-
ulations already require of land man-
agers? Isn’t that what groups involved
in collaborations say they believe in?
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