Doug Robertson Last week all three Douglas County Commissioners attended the annual meeting of the American Forest Resource Council in Skamania, Washington.
There were several presentations by a wide spectrum of speakers including, Jim Caswell, the National Director of the BLM, Doug Sutherland, Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources in Washington, Ron Neilson, a Research Bioclimatologist and several others. It was felt by many, however, that the most compelling presentation was a speech given by Washington Governor Christine Gregoire. The state of Washington has one of the most dynamic economies in the entire nation. In this environment of gloom and doom it was refreshing to hear someone else who shares a vision of optimism for the future. A major component of Washington’s surging economy is agriculture and timber. The state is taking advantage of a weak dollar to cash in on a global demand for their natural resource based products. It was encouraging to listen to the Governor describe the importance of a well-managed state forest program. Washington has slightly less than 3 million acres of state timberland that is managed in trust for the benefit of education, county services, and state programs. It is impossible to avoid the
comparison of what Washington is doing to create family wage jobs, (77,000 last year), valuable commodities, and community stability and what we could be doing with similar management on the O&C lands. It is important to note that much of the forest modeling and environmental protections that apply to the Washington Department of Natural Resources timberlands, were incorporated in the BLM Western Oregon plan revision for the O&C lands. Even the timber output on an annual basis proposed by the BLM is very close to that being produced in Washington.
So why can’t Oregon’s timberlands contribute more in the way of stable jobs with health care benefits, more in the way of supporting county services, more in the way of strengthening our state economy? It can, and I believe we are very close to a point in time when it will. The meeting two weeks ago between the Association of O&C Counties and the Governor’s Chief of Staff was a major step for the state to gain a clearer understanding of the enormous potential that reasonable well-balanced management of the O& C lands offers. That is an effort we must keep up, with both our state and Federal legislators.

Commissioner Doug Robertson is President of the Association of O& C Counties, and a Vice-President of the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition.