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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 8, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, September 8, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JANNA HEIMGARTNER TIM TRAINOR Business Ofice Manager Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Free low of information missing from wolf policy Managing wildlife — especially full-on crisis on its hands. hot button predators such as Amaroq Weiss, a representative of wolves — requires total openness the Center for Biological Diversity, on the part of all parties. Ranchers, told others at a recent rally that conservationists, members of the nobody should be threatened. public and even critics need to “That has no place in this have access to timely and accurate discussion at all,” she told a Capital information. Press reporter By trying to afterward. It could be manage information, The tragedy of oficials in recent events is expected that magniied Washington state by the fact are creating a some opponents that the state spent void that has been $800,000 to reboot of removal illed by rumors its wolf advisory and misinformed would not like group in an effort opinions. to open a civilized the removal The folks at the discussion of wolf Washington State management. decision. The Department of The members fact that the Fish and Wildlife of the group have found that representing agency choked — out the hard way. ranchers, off information conservationists They established a policy of releasing others — were about the efforts and information once ultimately able to a week about their only inlamed forge a working efforts to remove They those passions. relationship. the Profanity Peak even developed wolfpack after it a new policy for repeatedly killed removing wolves cattle in the area. that repeatedly kill livestock. It could be expected that some All of that hard work is now at opponents of removal would not like risk. the removal decision. The fact that The free low of timely and the agency choked off information accurate information is the only about the management efforts only way to restore any level of trust in inlamed those passions. the department, its policies and its Others, including a Washington managers. The WDFW must provide State University carnivore information on wolf removal and researcher, jumped into the fray, other developments when they providing “facts” that weren’t happen and let everyone know accurate and further fanning the what’s happening and why. lames. We hope the Oregon Department As a result, the ranchers and the of Fish and Wildlife is taking notice, wildlife managers even received and doesn’t fall into the same trap of death threats and WDFW had a keeping information locked up. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. YOUR VIEWS Owyhee protection won’t happen by itself I’m not a special interest lobbyist or rancher. I live in Harney County and am part of a growing “everyone” in Oregon who favors permanent protection for the Owyhee Canyonlands — free from mining, oil and gas development; free from looters of ancient Native American sites; free for animals to roam; free for 23 species of unusual plants that only grow there to lourish untrammeled. My husband and I have rafted the Owyhee from Rome downwards; visited spectacular campsites in Leslie Gulch, Three Forks and Succor Creek; followed many of the rough dirt tracks into remote areas between Burns Junction and McDermitt. Sat high above the Owyhee River on basalt ledges, peered into emptiness and listened to the silence — absolute, vast silence, sometimes broken by a bird on the wing or shufles of breeze through grasses. Few places offer silence. Those who understand what it is to match that silence with a deep quiet within understand and care about its value. Much of the area proposed for protection is accessible only a few months a year — too hot, too cold, too arid, and, in storm seasons, dangerous to venture out into starkly remote areas. Fires are common. In wet seasons, roads become thick puree. In some areas, the roads become slivers of hard lava that slices tires like a scythe. I’ve seen evidence of overgrazing near fragile water resources, and a lot of cheat grass and other invasives. It’s been years since the BLM has made a resource assessment. There’s no money. “Ranchers are taking care of these lands” is an oft-quoted phrase. To claim all ranchers are responsible land stewards is the same as claiming all who ish, hike and camp are environmentalists. Two Congressional proposals would have led to greater protection for the Owyhee Canyonlands and enabled local ranchers and farmers to control their future. One would have designated them as wilderness study or conservation areas — making possible collaboration with local farmers and ranchers for their management. The other would prevent mineral, oil and gas extraction, at the same time expanding programs to develop eficient water storage systems for livestock, improve roads, train veterans and young people for farming and ranching jobs, and expand local agricultural research. I was happy with either proposal. They got tied up in a dysfunctional Congress and thick barrage of misinformation. What’s left? Making the area into a national monument. I’m all for it. Diane Rapaport Hines, Ore. Tone down violent football rhetoric I was very much appalled at the language used by the Stanield football coach whose article on the game that was in Saturday’s East Oregonian. “Killer instinct?” “Punish teams?” This is small school high school football, not the NFL, and Stanield had won the game by 32 points. Go ahead, have a good season, we all like to win. Just remember the teams are playing against their area fellow students, not the enemy. Katie Weinke Pilot Rock LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS We are all Noah now R faster than before the global spread obert Macfarlane, in his of humanity,” explained the great book “Landmarks,” about biodiversity expert E.O. Wilson, the connection between another speaker here. “Half of the words and landscapes, tells a species described today will be gone revealing but stunning story about by the end of the century, unless we how recent editions of the Oxford take drastic action.” Junior Dictionary (aimed at These species, he noted, evolved 7-year-olds) dropped certain “nature words” that its editors deemed less Thomas over 3.5 billion years “to create relevant to the lives of modern Friedman an exquisite and careful balance of interconnected resilience.” children. These included “acorn,” Comment These plants and animals and their “dandelion,” “fern,” “nectar,” “otter,” “pasture” and “willow.” The terms ecosystems sustain the foundations of introduced in their place, he noted, included life on which we depend. When we lose the “broadband,” “blog,” “cut-and-paste,” “MP3 trees that maintain watersheds, the coastal player” and “voice-mail.” mangroves that protect against storm surges, While this news was irst disclosed in the glaciers that store fresh water and the 2015, reading it in Macfarlane’s book still coral reefs that feed ish, we humans become shocks me for what it signiies. But who less resilient. Indeed, strip them all away, can blame the Oxford editors for dumping said Wilson, “and the world as we know it Amazon words for Amazon.com ones? will unravel.” Our natural world is rapidly disappearing. The magazine Discover just noted that Just how fast was the major topic here last we’ve been tracking average temperature week at the global conference held every over global land and ocean surfaces since four years by the International Union for 1880 — or for 1,639 months. Due to Conservation of Nature, which I participated global warming, the National Oceanic and in along with some 8,000 scientists, nature Atmospheric Administration reported that reserve specialists and environmentalists. July 2016 was the hottest “of all 1,639 The dominant theme running through the months on record.” IUCN’s seminars was the fact that we are That is why actress Alison Sudol, an bumping up against and piercing planetary IUCN goodwill ambassador, opened the boundaries — on forests, oceans, ice melt, plenary by observing that our planet is now species extinctions and temperature — from “under attack” — by us. which Mother Nature will not be able to “Our vast oceans, full of mysteries and recover. When the coral and elephants are all wonders, are thick with plastic and mercury,” gone, no 3-D printer will be able to recreate she noted. “Rain forests — abundant sources them. of oxygen and medicine; land of ancient In short, we and our kids are rapidly lore and tradition; home to thousands of becoming the Noah generation, charged with species of wildlife, many as yet unknown to saving the last pairs. (This is no time to be us — are being plowed down before we have electing a climate-change denier like Donald a chance to properly discover what it is we Trump for president.) are losing. Sylvia Earle, the renowned “These are lungs of the Earth, the oceans oceanographer, put it well to a sustainability and the forests, and we are destroying them. conference hosted here by the East-West Deeply, desperately, we are hoping someone Center alongside the IUCN meetings. In her will do something before it is too late. That lifetime, said Earle, she has felt as if she’s someone we are hoping for is you.” been “witness to the greatest era of discovery So do we have a plan? Wilson has one and the greatest era of loss” in our planet’s — a big, audacious plan. It’s the title of his history. latest book, “Half-Earth,” a call to action to So now, she said, “we are at a crossroads. commit half of the planet’s surface — land What we do right now or fail to do will and oceans — to protected zones. determine the future — not just for us, but Right now, the IUCN says, close to 15 for all life on Earth.” percent of the Earth’s land and 10 percent of Those really are the stakes — there is its territorial waters are covered by national a reason nature words are being removed parks and protected areas. If we protect from children’s dictionaries. Last week, for half the global surface, Wilson argues, the instance, The Times reported on a study fraction of species protected will be about that revealed how “the African elephant 85 percent, which would keep life on Earth, population is in drastic decline, having including the human species, in a safe zone. shrunk about 30 percent from 2007 to 2014. Naive, you say? Not so. Naive is thinking ... The deterioration is accelerating: Largely we humans will survive without the healthy because of poaching, the population is natural systems that got us here. Naiveté is dropping 8 percent a year, according to the the new realism — or else we, the human Great Elephant Census. ... Patricia Awori, an species, will become just another bad oficial with the African Elephant Coalition, biological experiment. said, ‘These numbers are shocking.’” ■ OK, so you don’t care that your kids Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer may never see an elephant in the wild, Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for only in a zoo. That’s not all. The species The New York Times. He became the paper’s extinction rate is now about “1,000 times foreign-affairs columnist in 1995. OTHER VIEWS Beware punitive rules for work schedules The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times, Aug. 31 K eep an eye on a proposal in Seattle that would require retail and food-service businesses with hourly employees to schedule their shifts at least two weeks in advance. The so-called “secure scheduling” proposal also would require businesses to compensate workers in the event of last-minute schedule changes. Here’s why this is worth watching: How the proposal fares in Seattle could play a role in determining whether Oregon’s 2017 Legislature attempts to pass a similar measure. There is precedent here to keep in mind: Seattle was among the irst U.S. cities to phase in an increase in the minimum wage and to mandate sick leave for many companies — two ideas that were later adopted by Oregon legis- lators. (In the case of the scheduling proposal, however, San Francisco has been the national leader, passing similar legislation in 2014.) And we know there is interest in this idea among Oregon legislators. In fact, the 2015 regular legislative session spent some time working on a predictive scheduling proposal, House Bill 3377, which eventually died in committee. Among other provisions, that bill penalized businesses that made changes in work schedules less than three weeks in advance. For example: If an employer had to change a work schedule with less than three weeks’ notice, the employer would have been obligated to pay an employee for one additional hour in addition to the time actually worked. If an employer had to change a shift with less than 24 hours’ notice, the business would have to pay an additional four hours in addition to the time actually worked. In addition to its punitive nature, the bill certainly would have created a paperwork nightmare and added untold layers of dificulty to the already challenging work of scheduling employees. It also would have made it more dificult for workers who needed a last-minute shift to their schedules, as employers tried to work through the various sets of rules governing those schedule changes. The bill died in committee, but not because of its merits: Rather, as part of a compromise to push the sick-leave bill through the session, legislators put the scheduling idea on hold until the 2017 session. In the meantime, legislators convened a work group on “schedules that work” and invited a number of business organizations to join. But the business organizations, dismayed at the anti-business attitude they saw in the work group, dropped out after the irst meeting. And that’s where matters stood, at least until news of the Seattle proposal broke this week. Considering Seattle’s history, though, it seems more likely to assume that the proposal will be approved there. And that could help pave the way for an Oregon proposal in 2017 — and could give businesspeople yet another reason to wonder why the state’s leaders are so intent on making it so tough to run a business here.
