In the Coquille Forest
| July 18, 2002 Federal Government To Pay For |
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In late December 2001 and early January 2002, the BIA allowed Lone Rock Timber, contractors for the Coquille Tribe, to log a timber sale that had previously been stopped by court order due to risks to protected coho salmon and other rare species.
A federal district court judge granted an emergency motion to Umpqua Watersheds that halted further illegal logging. Unfortunately, the emergency motion was too late for several acres of native forests that were already clear-cut. "The restoration fund agreement settles a motion for sanctions against the government for this illegal conduct," said Kristen Boyles an attorney with Earthjustice. "The government allowed harmful logging to go forward, and now they are required to do the right thing by funding restoration," said Penny Lind, Executive Director of Umpqua Watersheds. "We also hope that these sanctions serve as a deterrent to future illegal logging."
The environmental groups, represented by Earthjustice, include Umpqua Watersheds, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, and Institute for Fisheries Resources.
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01/03/02
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The Coquille Tribe sold Lone Rock Timber the Chu-aw Clau-she timber sale in the Coquille Forest and is willing to prosecute anyone to the "full extent" of the law for taking a look at their logging operations. What is their position on cutting logs illegally after a court rules to stop logging?
Case in point: The Tribe allowed Lone Rock Timber to illegally clearcut many acres in unit 5 after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' order on December 14 reinstated Coastal Coho Salmon protections. This order stopped all work on 170 sales covered by Judge Rothstein's ruling in December of 2000, including the Coquille Forest timber sale.
The Tribe blatantly ignored the United States court and allowed continued logging after 12/14/01 until they were caught on December 20. In the worst case of logging terrorism ever seen, The Tribe and Lone Rock Timber made a conscious and deliberate choice to ignore our judicial system and our environmental laws.
After we discovered the illegal logging on 12/20/01, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Superintendent gave The Tribe a written order to stop cutting. But they simply allowed Lone Rock Timber to continued to cut trees, and were caught again on December 31. Because of the holidays, U.S. District court could not issue a restraining order until 11:45 a.m. January 3, ordering that logging stop immediately. Even then, Lone Rock Timber continued logging for the rest of the day, defying the court order.
Now let's look at the irreparable damage . . .
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The Before Photo - This is a photo taken on 12/25/01 in unit 5. The tree stump seen in the middle of the photo (behind the small tree), was logged illegally after 12/14/01. We thought the large trees left were safe because on 12/20/01 the Superintendent of the BIA wrote to The Tribe: "you are ordered to halt cutting... since failure to do so would put you in violation of Judge Rothstein's decision... No further timber cutting should occur under the Chu-aw Clau-she timber contract until the Court decides we can proceed." |
| The After Shot - But in clear defiance of the order to stop, Lone Rock Timber continued cutting. On December 31 we went to the same spot. The two large trees in the photo above are now the two large stumps in the photo to the right. We estimate many acres were logged after the stop cutting order. |
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After the BIA was given BLM lands in 2000 for the Coquille Tribe. The Tribe's first logging proposal was to clearcut 333 acres of their biggest and oldest forests. When they couldn't do it legally, they did it illegally. These forests were a part of the Northwest Forest Plan, an region-wide strategy to protect old-growth dependent wildlife. The Tribe promised to follow this plan (or whatever regional plan the BLM was using), but when it came time to actually protect wildlife, the clearcut alternative was chosen instead.
In spite of the Tribe's promise to log carefully, they now claim: "The Coquille Tribe is the only United States tribe forced to manage their lands subject to the management policies of a separate government". (Tribal brochure 2007). Even when the BLM proposed to reduce buffers on salmon streams by 2/3rds, the Tribe wanted to cut buffers by an additional 50% (See Tribal Cooperative Management Areas and the Western Oregon Plan Revisions).
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Unit 5 (northern part). The stump on the right is from the tree in the foreground on left. |  |
The Tribe and Lone Rock Timber had no right to put up 'no trespassing signs anyplace in the Coquille Forest. In 1997 this Coos-Bay BLM forest was changed to the Coquille forest to be managed by the BIA for the Tribe's benefit. The land remains public and subject to federal environmental laws and BLM forest plans. The congressional act says in section 8: "Public Access.--The Coquille Forest shall remain open to public access for purposes of hunting, fishing, recreation and transportation, except when closure is required by state or federal law, or when the Coquille Indian Tribe and the state of Oregon agree in writing that restrictions on access are necessary or appropriate to prevent harm to natural resources..." The Tribe didn't need to limit public access to prevent harm to natural resources. Just the opposite.
