timberland watercolors

A Quarry Inquiry: How scenic forest roads led me into the hills of timberland histories and the fight for our forests

By Hosanna White,

Originally published on Dec. 3rd 2022, in the Pied Midden: Issue no. 37 Wild Pigment Project

Intro

When I first moved to Oregon, I saw the wet, forested mountains through an enchanted lens. It took time for me to see that most of the forests, with the exception of the places set aside for solace in nature were heavily managed for profit.

The territory currently known as Oregon, with its grandiose colonial reputation for westward expansion has an short, but devastating history entangled in tree cutting and cultivation. The timber industry, through private stakeholders, governmental agencies, and the willingness of laborers has totally transformed the wonderland of the Pacific Northwest into a “green” commodified nowhereness that burns in one’s heart if they are really willing to look at it all long enough.

One day, I drove into the Cascade Mountains to connect with a gravel quarry near Mount June. Excavators had reached into the mountain side and pulled out rock to make the roads the foresters were then using to reach into the forests and remove the trees. They make these quarries all over the network of forest roads, pulling out gravel as they go. This quarry did not appear remarkable from the road, just an eroding bank of brown soil and stones, surrounded my thousands of acres of US Forest Service managed timber land that has been systematically logged in rotation by private corporations since the beginning of the 1900’s.

Climbing up into the quarry, there are many nooks and shelves of decorated colorful basalt erosions. It was sitting here in this abandoned place with the beauty of the rocks and fog setting in on the horizon that I felt totally struck by my own ignorance of how the practices of timber management had come to be this way and why we just assume we are all powerless to change it. Connecting with this place, I felt a deep need to understand, and so what follows tells an abbreviated history of what I have found.

Early Forestry and Land Distribution

The colonial project of the United States of America began to take hold on the Eastern coast of the continent under a premise of protecting individual’s property rights. Among other founding philosophical priorities, this was a transplanted concern of European settlers coming from the feudal reach of aristocratic rule. A central bureau organized land distribution, which played a crucial part in westward expansion. From the very beginning, claims to land in the West were sought after by large corporate interests; namely railroads and timber.

Weyerhaeuser, the largest timberland owner in the country today, began its Northwest operations with 900,000 acres in 1905. Today this company alone owns 12+ million acres in the United States and leases 14 million in Canada. Many more private timber companies sprang up across the Northwest in the 1900’s, bringing jobs and wealth into small town economies. This established a powerful link between the timber industry, regional identity, and politics.

American history, since its inception, has been a tale of various monopolies exploiting the resources of the land and capitalizing on cheap or enslaved laborers. Timber is just one story of the commodification of the land, which like oil or cotton, has greatly shaped the country, built its infrastructure, and been an unquestioned and praised pursuit of the nation. Early logging history on the West Coast is a dynamic story, told thoroughly by Emily K. Brock in “Money Trees”. In her research of the period between 1900-1940, she highlights the tensions between protecting private ownership and federal regulations. The US Forest Service was founded in 1905, because “the power of these giant corporations in a poor and lightly settled part of the country seemed unimpeded. Federal land managers wished to keep the vast resources of the far west under federal control, even when they stood on private land. They believed regulation and tax structures should control who could access the lumber wealth, as well as when and how.”

Today, the USFS manages 15.6 million acres and the Bureau of Land Management manages 15.7 million acres of public land in Oregon. Most of these public forests are cut in rotation on contract with private logging companies, which is why when you travel into the surrounding foothills throughout the Pacific Northwest, it appears as though there is so little land untouched by the management scheme of “renewable” forestry.

By 1920, the legendary proposition that we could never cut all the trees in the Pacific Northwest, began to be questioned by academics, federal foresters, and industry leaders looking out for their future prospects. The cutting of virgin forests was going to max out eventually and the forestry sector had to seriously consider “timber growing” and “sustainable-yield management”. There was significant resistance, but it began to gain some traction when tax cuts and regulation changes encouraged lumber companies to keep ownership of lands while the cut over plots were growing back.

The Toll of Modern Forestry

In the time since, billions of dollars and hours have been put towards refining the most efficient systems and technologies for replanting, maintaining, and harvesting. However, there has always been a tension between the economic perspective and the ecological perspective. Modern logging regulations have steadily incorporated important ecological protections because of scientific pressure and public concern, but not without a fight. Over the decades, countless people have fought for each of these protections, including stream buffers and erosion controls in the 1980’s, habitat protection for certain species in the 1990’s, and arial spray buffers around homes and schools in the 2000’s. While, the Oregon Forest Practice Act, which governs state regulations for private logging claims that these laws are “adaptable and informed by sound science”, I think its fair to question after seeing the lifelessness and lack of biodiversity across these tree plantations, if we really know what this scale of logging could have on the health of our forests in generations to come. These environmental protections are important, but because of emerging awareness of climate change, species extinction, water scarcity, and wildfires, public concern is rising and questioning if this is enough.

Industrial forestry has had not choice but to adopt these public sentiments, but mostly just in appearances. I saw this best illustrated when leaving the Eugene airport once. A corporate mill that sat across the intersection with a big billboard read, “more trees planted today than 100 years ago.” While this is true and meant to be relieving to my ecological dread, it isn’t. I have spent enough time in the back hills, on forest roads, walking through clear cuts and bush waking through tree farms to know that what has been taken is not what is replaced.

This is especially true for old growth, which received some attention last year at the Fairy Creek blockade on unceded Ditidaht territory, Vancouver Island BC. After having logged most of it, only about 10% of Oregon’s old growth forests remain and an estimated 4-7% remain nationally. According to Oregon Forest Resources Institute, a PR company for the industry says, “logging of old-growth forests virtually never occurs in Oregon.” However, the Climate Forests Campaign has read the fine print and has documented several current old growth inclusive logging projects across the country, with at least 9 in Oregon.

But this isn’t just about old growth, which is certainly important, especially as a climate mitigation strategy. For me, this is about all the forests, the quarries, the extraction, the capitalism, the planet killing mentality that is constantly choosing human luxury and globalized aesthetics over ecological integrity, belonging and reciprocity, as well as.. our future as a species. The impact is adding up. I so badly want to be with these places in a healing way in community doing repair, taking an honest assessment of damage done and the debts to repay. I want to grieve with these landscapes and sit in working groups with fellow citizens to find other solutions to the need for local jobs and revenue for the state. With everything that we know now, how can this still be the unquestioned course?

Redefining our Priorities

What inspires me at the vista of this wide winding landscape of history, legal jargon and politics, are three things, and no its not voting but it does start with elections.

First, Oregon needs to have transparent campaign financing. It is one of only 5 states in the country that does not have honest, capped funding, which means at the end of the day, timber money is putting a lot of pressure on our local representatives. Honest Elections is a grass roots organization that tried to get an initiative on the ballot this year but was blocked from even beginning the signature gathering period. This initiative would go a very long way for more issues then one and deserve our attention.

Secondly, a seemingly small, but foundational case in Washington state gives me reason to hope. A coalition of conservation organizations has successfully put forth a case to overturn the historic assumption that generating revenue from the forests is the only priority when managing the land “in the best interest of all the people”. Managing public lands for economic returns has been a cemented assumption of the 20 th century. The defendants of this case want the “values derived from our forests, such as clean water, tribal treaty rights, outdoor recreation, fire resiliency, carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, habitat for threatened and endangered species” to be considered equally as important when managing for the best interests of all people.

Thirdly, I am inspired to see more land conservation and restoration projects beginning to approach the work of decolonization in their organizational culture and priorities, including leveraging assets for funding indigenous consultations for land restoration and restorative fire projects.

Activity: Bearing Witness to Wounded Places

Most of us travel to spend time in landscapes intentionally preserved for recreation. However, most of the surrounding land that we travel through on our way to a hiking trail has been damaged by our short-sighted, profit driven land use priorities. Often these “wounded” places do not occur to us as destinations themselves.

Consider visiting, even more then once, a place near your home that has been damaged by human activity. Take your time to get to know it, notice the little details of the place, welcome the feelings or lack of feelings that arise. And if you are inspired make a gesture of care or beauty towards this place, remembering that this ground is sacred too.

This activity is inspired by the Radical Joy for Hard Times community, which beautifully describes this practice as a willingness “to face the sorrow we feel when the places we care about have been hurt and to respond not by turning our backs but by boldly stepping forth to spend time with these places and offer them gifts of love and gratitude for all they have given to us. We believe that in these troubling times, taking care of the places where we live in the present, even as we work for a better future is an essential tool for survival.”