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Some of the things that matter to Lane
County, in no particular order, are bad taxes,
good beer, good food, good conversation and
trees. In a state that’s covered in forestland,
you can’t talk politics or even sports (Portland
Timbers anyone?) without talking about the
trees.
Lane County Commissioner Rob Handy,
public interest forester Roy Keene, and
ArchitectureWeek editor-in-chief Kevin
Matthews have been having a conversation
about the forest, or rather a series of them,
and if you’ve missed the first three, there are
two more to go. The next fireside chat-style
conversation will be 6 pm Monday, May 7,
at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th, is called: “Small
Towns, Timber and Economic Trauma,” and
will focus on rural communities.
The conversations, which all take place at
Cozmic, started with background on Lane
County’s forests — 58 percent of the county
is public land, the speakers say. More than
half a million of Lane’s acres are privately
owned timber lands — that’s more than
twice the amount of controversial O&C
lands (see cover story 4/12) that are at the
center of a battle about using public lands
logging to generate income for the county.
County funding is a big topic for Handy,
who is up for re-election in his north Eugene
seat this year, and “forest economics” was
the topic of the March 5 chat. Handy says
that “industrial forestlands are the source of
80 percent of the logging and most of the log
exporting in Lane.” He argues along with
Keene that Lane County is losing more than
$20 million a year in revenues through forest
tax exemptions.
Of the little tax money that is generated
by private timberlands logging through the
state timber harvest tax, Steve Pedery of
Oregon Wild says some of it goes to the
sponsorship of the Portland Timbers soccer
team rather than to cash-strapped counties.
Lane County is looking at cutting funding for
everything from law enforcement to animal
control.
The April 2 talk at Cozmic covered
“public goods and ecology” and included a
look at water quality — some of those
private forests being logged, as well as
public forests, are the source of Eugene’s
drinking water. Handy says inventory records
document the overcutting of industrial
timberlands and “science documents the
degrading effects of massive clearcutting and
chemical poisoning on publicly owned
water, wildlife, fisheries, and human property
and health.” Yet he says the same corporations
“who degrade our forests resources and life
quality” get tens of millions annually in tax
subsidies.
The final session on June 4 will look at
forest futures and “Are win-win-win
solutions possible?”
For more on Conversations on the Forest,
including recordings and handouts from past
sessions, go to: wkly.ws/196 or email
rob@robhandy.com
— Camilla Mortensen
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10 MAY 3, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM