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Collaboration can do phenomenal things if people are willing to give it a chance.
For years, it seems, lines have been drawn in the dirt regarding how to best manage our forests. Timber industry interests and environmentalists have butted heads and rarely have found common ground. But things might be changing.
Last fall, officials with the Forest Service and the Hells Canyon Preservation Council came to terms on an agreement that resulted in HCPC withdrawing its appeal of the Green McCoy Fuels Reduction Project. The agreement will result in a project moving forward that could yield 1.3 million board feet of merchantable timber this summer.
Recently, mill owners, environmentalists and government officials gathered in John Day to try to work out an agreement regarding the proposed Thorn salvage sale from the Shake Table fire that burned 14,000 acres in 2006.
Four conservation groups and a timber industry group had appealed the sale. Finding a resolution to the differences seemed distant, at best.
But in May the groups held a summit to see if they might be able to find common ground. Lo and behold, within two weeks they hammered out an agreement — one that amounted to each side agreeing to give a little to get something. The end result was an agreement that allows some logging while protecting areas that the conservation groups see as important.
All parties in the discussion — the Forest Service, the timber industry and the conservation groups — are to be commended for recognizing the need for collaboration, for agreeing to sit down and talk about their issues, and for their willingness to hammer out an agreement. Finding a middle ground in the battle over logging and forest protection can work wonders in advancing both sides’ views.
The stalemates of the past have done nothing but alienate people on both sides of the issue, while forest health continues to decline and fire danger rises. Forest-dependent regions like our own, which have seen timber jobs decline substantially and disappear altogether in many communities since the 1990s, have been angry over what has seemed like an unwillingness on the part of environmentalists to compromise. This time, though, both sides were willing to seriously negotiate. That’s progress.
Working together to find compromise might not result in the perfect solution for either side on hotly contested issues like forests. But it’s a whole lot better than not even trying.
We need our timber industry and we need healthy forests. Finding a middle ground makes sense.
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Opinion 
