| Interested in joining the Umpqua Watersheds Wilderness Committee? Wilderness Committee meets every last Wednesday at Chi's Garden 7pm. For more information Contact Susan susapple@centurytel.net |
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A look at the 2010 Youth Wilderness Campout The near surreal azure of Twin Lakes competed with the perfect blue of the Cascade sky all weekend, night's blazing stars captured by those clear, calm waters for our delight. Yes, the 11th annual Umpqua Watersheds' Youth Camp Out, held July 30 to August first, could not have been sited in a more picturesque location, nor could the weather have been more delightful: warm, not hot days, cool, but not cold nights.
Including adult chaperones, 18 of us spent most of Friday, all of Saturday and half a day Sunday in mostly roadless native forest, surrounded by alpine giants, many of which must have been seedlings when the nation was founded. Read More > |
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| Wilderness credit where credit is due I'm pleased to have this opportunity to give credit to timber industry leaders for dropping their opposition of wilderness designation for rivers and forests in Southwest Oregon. Thanks to the American Forest Resource Council-negotiated compromise with Oregon Wild and other wilderness interest groups, the Wild Rogue Wilderness proposal for the internationally renowned Rogue River region can move forward. Unfortunately for the Umpqua, all three Douglas County commissioners don't deserve any wilderness credit today. Their recent anti-wilderness letter to legislators which was read to the public at the Board of Commissioner's meeting on May 19, 2010, makes it clear they are not wilderness supporters or community collaborators. Link: The News-Review | Penny Lind |
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| Profiting from wilderness means protecting natural treasures We live in a changing, dynamic world, where in Douglas County lumber production is no longer the largest employer for our workers. With increasing job diversity, local employment includes many who work on computers from home. My grandparents would be shocked to see people instantly accessing one another, as well as global information, in mere seconds. Equally shocking would be the replacement of many family farms with housing developments. While farms and resource-extraction industries, like mining and logging, are expected to continue to decline in overall employment, hunting, fishing, wildlife watching, photography and other wildlife-related recreation is expected to continue to grow, adding substantially to the county's income. In 2006, Oregon took in $1.9 billion in wildlife related recreation, and that number continues to rise. Link: The News-Review | Susan Applegate |
