The front page photo from the Astorian’s coverage of the annual forest tour tells the naked truth about how we are managing our forests: We see a tight cluster of skinny fir trees on a hillside surrounded by a clearcut. They are huddled together like frightened children in the presence of an abusive father.

In this case, the abusive parents are the corporate timber industry, the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), and the local and state politicians who continue to allow the rape of the Coast Range forests for money. 

They fail to understand that good parenting of our precious northwest forests requires management that supplies enough wood products for our culture’s needs, and the restraint to allow the already compromised forests to regenerate. 

Instead, they perpetuate practices that are increasing global warming, degrading wildlife habitat and drinking water, while causing the amount of public recreational land to dwindle.

The other photos in the coverage of the tour tell a similar story; a wildfire site started by clearcut slash not having been cleaned up, stumps, a tree farm and an ODF official imagining how much more public land his agency can sell off for harvest (money) and get away with without public outrage.

Rather than forging new ways to fund wildfire fighting, the ODF’s budget and a new fiscal policy to provide services for the counties, the state legislature continues to “peep about between the great legs (of the corporate timber industry) to find themselves dishonorable graves.”

ROGER DORBAND 

Astoria