It Could Happen Here - Cascadia Forest Defense: Good News Update!

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

Sam comes on the show again to discuss a recent legal victory in the fight for preserving the Breitenbush watershed. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast.

Yep, I can say it. A podcast, that's what we're doing. And it's about how things are kind of falling apart sometimes, or at least it feels like it. A podcast, that's what we're doing. And it's about how things are kind of falling apart sometimes, or at least it feels like it. And, I don't know, maybe we can do some things to help make it better. Like what happened recently

in terms of forests. So, hey, a good news episode! Whoa! Rare! Rare episode dropped for us! We got some good news. So, I'm going to be talking with Sam, who was on a previous episode discussing a forest defense, about an update on all of the things that we were talking about a few weeks ago. So yeah, I think we can pretty much get into it.

And then we'll talk about some other stuff around forests in general. So hello, Sam. Thank you for joining me again to talk about trees other stuff around kind of forests in general. So hello, Sam. Thank you for joining me again to talk about trees, one of our favorite topics. Hello. My pleasure. Always. So I think it was like a day or two after we dropped the episode or something, or I think it was actually it was maybe maybe even maybe even like right, like right before, um, we got some extra, extra news about, uh, all about the post, about the post fire logging, um, near the Bright

Bush, uh, watershed. Um, yeah. What happened there? Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty wild actually. It was really serendipitous timing too. Um, we, as I think we mentioned in the last podcast, we were awaiting the first hearing for the court case. Essentially, you know, we believed that the plan to log in that area for myriad reasons was not only unethical, but also illegal. And so it was going to court and we were awaiting a hearing that happened on December 3rd of Friday. And typically the judge does not rule from the bench in these sorts of hearings. And so we did not expect a decision on that day. But sure enough, the judge felt strongly enough about this case and sure enough about her decision that she did rule from the bench

and ruled in our favor. And so, yay, victories. Now we have a preliminary injunction in place, meaning that no logging can happen there, at least until this timber sale has its real day in court or until the Forest Service just drops this shenanigan entirely, which hopefully they will do. But we'll see. So they blocked the post-fire logging and basically starting to clear-cut these areas without actual public input and without actually going through the process. As flawed as the process may be, they were just skipping it entirely. So that was blocked by this uh by this legal case um what was i guess yeah what was what was the uh what was what what was the reaction like in in in the room and in the various signal chats when this when this happened yeah in the ether spheres um the reaction was super awesome i mean so many

people love this place and that was kind of the whole point of what we were trying to do when we did the direct action out there a number of weeks ago was just demonstrate how many people love this place and how the Forest Service wasn't going to get away with what they were planning to do. if they tried to log it and move forward with that logging, which, as you pointed out, and as we said last time, was super sketchy, not only because it was a terrible plan that they were planning to do in this beloved forest, but also because it was behind locked gates that the public wasn't allowed into. And so it was just this, you know, travesty that was about to happen. And when we found out and when we heard the judges incredibly strong ruling, we, you know, were absolutely overjoyed. The news spread, you know, like wildfire, excuse the pun, had to do it, had to do it. And just, you know, all the signal threads were popping. People were putting it on Twitter. People were reposting the sexy photos of the blockade with the giant slash pile and the

fire truck and the band on top of the fire truck and i just wish that we all could have hung out again and had another dance party because it was the best that does sound incredibly incredibly rad um was was like your i this is this is something i don't i don't don't actually know but i was like was like the documentation that was taking place by by going to these places and showing, hey, this is where they're cutting. Was that brought up in the court case in terms of like, hey, this is we actually went and saw what's actually happening. So it was was that type of evidence used and did it in your mind like kind of be a small part of like the result of the ruling? Yeah, it definitely was. And that is such an

important point. And I really hope that everyone who's listening can just like put that in their minds for later how important it is for people to be field surveying, or sometimes we call it ground truthing these places and actually collecting documentation, photographic evidence. A lot of folks do kind of like what we call community surveying and collect some site-specific kind of like community science sort of stuff. But all of that was used in court and it was super awesome. I actually was one of the standing declarants. So I got to submit a lot of evidence from my many years of traveling that place. And that all of that was referenced in court. So, so, so important. Even, you know, when the Forest Service is essentially trying to kick everyone out and keep everyone out

of these places, really important to go and see them anyways. Obviously, you know, everyone needs to consider how they do that and their own security and safety. And it's becoming difficult. But certainly, putting eyes on threatened places is one of the best tools we have to save them. Yeah, I just think that's really important to really focus on that as like, a thing because like, yeah, stuff that people did actually had an impact on this not happening right now. And yeah, yeah like by going out there and documenting and then talking about it um it has like an actual like causal relation which is very hard to it's hard to get direct causal uh stuff to happen in like the general umbrella of activism um and it's i think

it's it's just really exciting that this happened. Yeah, that's so true. It does feel in the general umbrella of activism really hard to point to things that we do that are actually making an effect. And this is totally one of them. I mean, if and when this case does have its day in court, you know, outside of the preliminary injunction itself. I am sure that so much of that evidence from all the folks who've been traveling there and documenting it will be used. We documented, you know, so many green living trees and places the Forest Service said were dead. You know, so many like unused roads and places the Forest Service said they needed to log alongside these roads because they're so trafficked and they're posing a safety hazard. And so it's basically like, you know,

the best way to expose their gaslighting and lies is to just go document what's there. Yeah, because a big part of their ability to do this is utilizing deception in terms of like, and utilizing like non-informationinformation like they're just not talking about the stuff that's actually happening or they're doing like white lies to make it sound better so they're just they're they're lying about the type of like um uh the type of sales that they're doing with these with these trees and like how they're classifying the trees that they're logging to like get it past all of the loopholes, but they're not actually, like, that's not actually reality. They're just changing the terms to make it fit what they want.

So, like, as soon as you start looking into this stuff, it gets very sketchy because it is, they're just lying about a lot of this stuff. So, like, if you're, like, listening and be like, oh, you know, these people just love trees. I'm like, yes, we do love trees. But, like, the actual thing that's going on is, like is they're lying about the types of damage that's being done. They're lying about what areas this is happening in, all to just rack up more timber sales. That is what's actually happening.

And that's so, so important to say loudly and clearly because the Forest Service and other management agencies are experts in making the public feel dumb and wrong and misinformed. And right now, even we sound a little wing nutty being like, yeah, absolutely. You know, like, let us be clear. A federal judge agrees with us. Yeah. You know, like we're not the ones who are wrong here. And I think you're totally right.

You know, they're using a mixture of blatant lies, but also euphemisms. Like we, no one's, they don't, they don't use the word clear cut anymore. They're using all of these euphemisms, you know, regeneration harvest. I shit you not. It's a real term. A lot of, and a lot of the stuff that they're deciding to do is like not open to the public. You need to do like FOIA requests to to actually learn what they're doing because they don't talk about it like it is all it is all extremely sketchy and

yeah like the fact that like a federal a federal judge agreed with like green activists is not a sentence you hear often so like it's like yeah like this is actually a thing and it's important to remember like you are not immune to propaganda. A lot of this stuff is – people who want a lot of money are invested in making people believe things about force management and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, I know. It may sound crazy when we're talking about the secret Illuminati of the Forest Service. But no, it is a governmental organization. All governmental organizations are kind of sketchy,

especially when their sole purpose is to, well, one of their purposes is to make money or assist in sales of something. Yeah, it's going to have some sketchy stuff. Absolutely. And also, in the realm of just the propaganda machine, just the other day, a hilarious response piece came out from the timber industry, an organization called Federal Forest Resource Coalition, which is just a coalition of loggers, put out this hilarious little mini video responding directly to the line that we've been using in forest events, which is worth more standing. Our forests are worth more standing. And they put out a hilarious response that is essentially, you know, pushing this timber sale, this logging propaganda saying, well, actually our forests

aren't worth anything standing after they've been burned and they're contributing to the climate crisis and they're destructive and, you know, and all these things. And so totally, I mean, even people who see it with their eyes can be convinced by these voices that they're wrong because they're so good so good at making us feel just like we're the wrong ones but we're not we got this yeah in terms of like this the secret of kind of decision making and stuff behind the scenes in terms of like uh the types of like terms they're using to to you know do like restoration thinning um and all this stuff around around trying to like basically just take as many trees from the bright brush watershed as they can i know the the judge said that uh she was

quote disappointed in the agency uh for for all of their silly behind-the-scenes trench coat meet-in-the-dark-alleyway-to-pass-off-information type of thing. Which is, yeah. So what is some of the other kind of stuff that the Forest Service and the related organizations were trying to hide? What was the stuff that came out via this legal process that was like, yeah, what's a few of the actual things that they were trying to do that eventually, like, came to light?

Mm-hmm. The major thing is that they were trying to get away with changing the logging contracts without doing any additional environmental analysis or public engagement process. And so there were before the 2020 fires, there were, there was a plan to do what they, what we had fought them so hard to get them to agree to do, which was not log a bunch of these, this older stands protect tree. They had a diameter limit on trees that they were going to log. So we basically like slapped their hands off of all of these trees.

And finally we're like, okay, we won't sue you if you move forward with the plan as stated. And it had very strong sideboards and, you know, even local folks were like, okay, go do this. And then the fires came through. And so what they were trying to do was just change the plans. They turned it all into clear cuts in the forest that we slapped their hands off of. And they were trying to argue that they didn't need to do any additional analysis and they didn't need to engage the public. some stupid magic math and, you know, somersaults to try and explain how they had already done an analysis that accounted somehow for the fires that no one could have ever predicted. That was before it actually happened. Yeah. No, yeah. So the judge was like, just, you know, she was just roundly like, y'all couldn't have predicted. I like to give her, you know, Southern accent. Y'all couldn't have predicted. Judge Aiken, South. No, you couldn't have predicted, you know, that the fires were going to burn through. And so there's no way you could have done analysis for fire that you didn't know was going to happen here. You silly little beasts. But she did talk to them, you know, as if they were just naughty little children, which I loved to hear. You know, the disappointed in the Forest Service was a major move. And I think the other one that came up is just, you know, the Forest Service was arguing that they needed, quote, need to do this logging for restoration, for economic recovery, and to

prevent future wildfires from severely burning in the area. All of that to BS, like one thing that the judge said that was super strong was that she sees, and obviously I'm paraphrasing here, but she, she sees that the community loves this place. It's obvious that this is like a beloved place. And she, you know, essentially understands that the forest is worth more standing. She said that she wanted, she thinks that the forest needs an opportunity to recover from the fires. And so basically just called the BS on the forest service for their hilarious, you know, justifications for logging all the, we're going to save the forest by logging. It is just not, it's not right. It's not accurate. And the judge agrees.

Yeah. I mean, I, I'm very, very excited about, about this ruling and what it means for the future and at least postponing this until if the lawsuit is going to go through or if they're just going to drop this, which they also very well may be. They might decide to focus on another part that they just don't tell anybody about and start doing it there. And then, you know, well, we'll start we'll start this again. But for this particular area, that is it is very exciting and yeah it is it is rare for a federal judge to agree with people on this topic um now i want to talk about a few other kind of stuff around like forests um and how and how these kind of types of things work i i did get an interesting comment which i totally agree with, in terms of, like, how propaganda works in this department, um, and how, like, uh, how, like, logging towns

operate, or how, like, towns became logging towns, how, like, they're basically able to convince local populations that logging is, is, like, good, because, like, yeah, like, they're gonna, they're gonna move into this town, they're going to restore the town because they're going to bring in new money through, like, a logging industry. And, yeah, this is a very, like, very, like, a typical move, whether it be for, like, you know, coal mining, whether that be for pipelines in terms of, like, big companies going into small towns to be like, hey, we can promise you economic growth if you can, like, assist in this, you know, extractive process. And they'll be able to convince them with misleading statistics and all that kind of stuff. In terms of logging industry is getting really good

at radicalizing rural populations to have them believe that it's not economically destructive to take down trees. They might even say it's good. And all that kind of stuff. Has there been any outreach to take down trees. They might even say it's like good. And all that kind of stuff. Has there been like any outreach

in terms of kind of addressing people in small towns who like maybe used to like, you know, rely on logging or something? And how does that work? Because I know like they'll be like, oh, but you people come from the city and now you're coming out here into like the woods where I live.

And I think this is good that they're chopping down these trees right there's there's there's like that kind of that kind of disconnection because again no one no one's immune to propaganda you can you just you just just have to find the specific one um so yeah i'm just curious about like in terms of in terms of like forced defense how often this comes up and how and how you kind of kind of i don't know what's what steps to make to be like to tell people hey maybe you're believe these things because timber industries told you them like how how do you start that conversation with people yeah this is like actually the heart of the forest defense work ahead what you're talking about right now the heart of our work ahead um and

i would also say you know there is a there's certainly um a dichotomy that the media especially likes to present between the rural uh logging communities and you know portland or city-based environmentalists and the hippie environmentalists who like come in and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And everyone's familiar with that. And there's, of course, some truth to that. But I want to say like super clearly, there are so many rural folks who do not support the logging industry.

And so that's like a false dichotomy that gets presented to us right off the bat. And a lot of those, you know, for in the work that I've been doing on forest defense, essentially we're always connecting with folks on the ground in literally the backyards of these logging proposals. And many of them are super uninterested in having their backyards clear cut. And so we, you know,

we push directly against that mythology that, you know, it's just environmentalists coming in from Portland because we work directly with people, including for Brighton Bush, but with every single thing that we work on directly with people who are literally on the front lines of that logging. That said, there is absolutely a huge poll, you know, Oregon specifically as, you know, famous for logging. Like we talked about last time, there's a logger on top of the Capitol. The mayor of Portland is from logging money. It's in Oregonians' blood. It is baked in heavily. Yeah.

And for rural Oregonians, there are economic realities where in some cases, some counties benefit from logging in their, from the logging industry, you know, schools are tied to logging money. And there's, you know, in a lot of ways, a narrative that is not really accurate anymore, but has like an element of nostalgia to it, like, you know, logging towns and this old story about how things used to work with small, small family logging, that's not how it is anymore. But that narrative, that like nostalgic narrative carries on into a lot of communities. And so the way that I like to cut through that for people is by making it really clear that there is a difference between small, you know, family loggers of lore and, you know, of, you know, people's, what people are attached to. And the kinds of what we're seeing today is we're looking at Wall Street logging. We're looking at Wall Street invested, huge, you know, corporate industries who owned, who still own like, you know, huge percentages of our drinking watersheds, of our communities.

Some of the communities on the coast are owned primarily by private industrial Wall Street funded logging corporations. And that's, you know, those aren't mom and pop. They're not living in the community. They're living often not even on the Pacific Northwest. These are rich ass assholes who are destroying our bio region. And, you know, I think that making it clear that those aren't, those folks are not like us, you know, those are not like rural Oregonians. You're, those are not your friends.

Those are not, you know, your pals or your neighbors. And just cutting through that narrative that like, oh, you know, logging communities, you know, loggers are your friendly neighbor. Actually, no, loggers are Wall Street, you know, investment corporations, rich money people who are doing this destruction. And just kind of like breaking that, I guess, like that, that attachment that people have to this idea that's just not a reality anymore welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal tales from the shadows presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who are for logging in rural communities are, they have a lot more common with those of us who are fighting logging than the actual people doing the logging, if that makes sense. Like there's a lack of understanding of what the logging industry actually is. It's like back to that nostalgia, like people who are against logging in rural communities, you know, often genuinely do not realize that this is wall street and like, who's doing this logging. They're still thinking it's their, you know, neighbor or their friend. And it's, you know, these stories, but you know, the reality is that, you know, this is corporate

timber owners who are maximizing their financial gain by buying out small landowners all over the place, um, ensuring that they aren't taxed by lobbying heavily in the government. So they don't, you know, have any sort of taxation that then goes back to benefit our communities. Don't even get me started about how many taxes the timber industry skips out on that could actually benefit our communities and our schools and our libraries and our fire departments, but aren't. And then they're adopting exploitative labor practices. Basically, you know, the contracted workers who are in the logging industry right now who are doing the logging and hauling and reforestation, so-called reforestation,

planting of monocrop plantations, they are experiencing flat wages and declining work quality conditions. Meanwhile, while the corporate timber forums are expanding their profits and, you know, getting more wealthy investors. So that is the reality of the timber industry. These are not your friendly neighborhood loggers anymore. So a few other points I wanted to bring up kind of on forest itself. Someone said something about how we talked about old growth. And I guess they think that we said that all forests in this area is old growth, and that's not something we actually said. Old growth is a specific term that means a specific thing. And yeah, regardless of it being old growth or not, they still shouldn't be cut down.

So I'm not sure why this point was really raised, because I don't uh say that every that every tree in there is is old growth um a lot of them were planted in the past few hundred years um but that that doesn't mean like they're like much less important it's like just because they're not old growth doesn't mean we shouldn't be preserving this particular watershed in this particular environment and not be clear cutting all of it yeah old growth is like a fetish. Like the term old growth is just like become fetishized to mean this, like this thing that, you know, this also let's be clear. There's not an agreement on what old growth actually means across the board, even between agencies. Like there is an arbitrary date cutoff that the federal government uses to define old growth. But obviously if you walk into a forest stand as a healthy,

you know, a healthy old growth stand is complex in terms of age diversity. There's going to be old growth individual trees. There's going to be a lot of younger trees. There's going to be horizontal and vertical diversification. Like old growth is complicated. It's messy. But the whole point is like you're right. Like it doesn't actually matter if it's like, quote, in the small, narrow category of what the Forest Service would define as old growth. If it's a forest that's been around for, you know, 100 years, or even, you know, I would argue if it's a forest that's over like 70 or 80 years old, what are we doing cutting that down? Especially now. Yeah. Especially now, you know, that's storing so much carbon safely in the ground. And also by that age, it's had the opportunity, you know, to

become more diverse than these like monocrop plantations that we're seeing younger forests. So I would argue any forest that's not a monocrop plantation, a young monocrop plantation should absolutely not be clear cut. It's just an inappropriate activity to do in native forests. Speaking of a clear cut, there another another comment was about how clear cutting can sometimes be good because it creates new environments for other animals and living things to exist in and i find this to be a really weird comment to make um i don't i don't quite understand this this kind of idea because yes of, if you cut down a forest, you are creating a new environment,

but that's not where that environment should be, nor is it where it is. It's like if you erect a whole bunch of concrete skyscrapers where a forest used to be, yeah, you're also making a new environment, but I would say we probably shouldn't do that, though. That's not a good thing. Same thing with the people obsessed with putting solar panels in the desert.

The desert's an actual environment. There is reasons for why deserts need to exist and that have a whole environment and a whole... I forget the word. But it has an entire system of living things that exist there that should um we we don't need to terraform everything i don't think that's like i don't we shouldn't i think preserving the environment in general preserving the environments that are existing and who are creating like ecosystems is a good thing i think generally the less

terraforming probably probably the better at least right now when we're dealing with a massive like looming climate crisis that's caused by us terraforming the earth um maybe we should not do that as much yeah we could call that a general rule like no more terraforming y'all just leave it let's just let's just pause let for a bit. We used to address some other things. But for real, though, whoever wrote that comment, I mean, that is a timber industry talking point that I hear all the time. That is literally, and whether they meant it or not,

this is how the timber industry gets us. They're real good at this. This is their nice sounding talking points that we rebut all the time, not just in media, but also in court. And the talking point is clear cuts mimic natural disasters like severe fires by replacing, you know, and it's part of the process. They totally don't. They don't. So go look at a clear cut, go look at a fire.

It's a completely different experience. And I could go down that rabbit hole all day on fire ecology another time maybe. But suffice it to say, you know, what they're arguing is that they're creating young forest or quote early seral habitat by clear cutting an old forest. But what they're actually doing is deforestation. They're replacing an old forest with something that's not a forest. A young monocrop plantation is a crop. It is not a forest. And so

they are deforesting and it is ecosystem, it is ecocide. Yeah, it is ecocide. And I think the insistence that it's good because it will allow some species to exist in this new environment.

Yeah, but there's other environments where they can't exist. And we don't need to be destroying the ones that are already kind of important and doing good stuff to make room for other ones that aren't already there. They argue that the deer and the butterflies love the clear cuts. And so just call that out as bullshit next time you all hear that. It's, you know, spread the word. That is some timber industry BS. They're tricksy, but don't let them get you. And the last thing I wanted to mention is why blocking off access to these areas is bad.

Because I got someone said something like, you know, because 95% of fires are human caused, closing off public lands can be good because then fires won't get started in those areas. And this really misunderstands why fires get started and also is just a bad thing to do anyway because, like, fire... If you look at, like, the map of where wildfires start, almost all of them are on

the path of highways. Specifically in California, when the fires were really bad in 2020, there was this firefighter who made a great video about why the fire line was all next to the highway. And there was conspiracy theories of Antifa's driving down

highways and setting the forest on fire, which was an actual popular talking point because we live in the hell world. But no, he's explaining the reason why they are human-caused but a lot of them aren't intentionally caused, it's because that's where power lines run. And this is where a lot

of sparks can ignite stuff on the edges of highways that will then take out a part of the forest. Now, every once in a while, there's a gender reveal party that goes horribly wrong and does ignite it. That is true. And I think the solution to that is not closing down the forest,

it's not having gender reveal parties. Yeah, how about we don't do that either? We stop selling on Amazon. I mean, I'm all for Tannerite as an idea, but how about let's stop selling blue and pink Tannerite packets to people who don't know how to use explosives. To rich assholes

who genuinely don't know about fire. Because yeah, they're not actually using Tannerite for what it's meant for, and they're notite packets to people who don't know how to use explosives. To rich assholes who genuinely don't know about fire. Because yeah, they're not actually using tannerite for what it's meant for and they're not using it to do training. They're using it to say that they're having a baby and this has caused a lot of wildfire death. So how about we just stop selling

the gender reveal party bombs and I think that'd be a better solution than closing down massive swaths of public land and how about our power line companies get their shit together and stop yeah do actually have a plan for planned power shutoffs and actually you know we know now actually pacific corp is in court right now because they started the Santiam fires. Their power line started the Santiam fires and the Archie Creek fires and probably more. And so, yeah, how about the power line companies get their shit together?

But I feel like the other huge thing here is that, you know, the suggestion that we should close off these forests to the public to me is just like more, you know, it's, you know, blatantly, it's racist. And it's, you know, I think it's wrong, because these lands, these belong to indigenous people, we should be giving these lands back to indigenous people. And, you know, when we're talking about like rural communities, too, and a just transition, like rural community members should actually have more say in what happens in their backyard forests should be able to be more engaged in, you know, the forests that literally provide them with their drinking water and, you know, all of the things that they need to survive. So we should not be, you know, locking off these lands and keeping humans out. Humans have a place in these lands, have always had a place and a role in these lands. And if we take leadership from the right folks, then we could totally live in a much more reasonable way than the gender reveal

party path. Yeah. And like, I don't know if you know this, but like being in the forest is great. It's like, it is great to be surrounded by giant trees. It makes you feel awesome. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Last thing I want to talk about is you mentioned before, like getting people who live in these rural areas who used to rely on logging, getting them more involved and doing a just transition? Because this is a topic that comes up on climate change everywhere in terms of countries that are still developing not being able to have access to the same amount of fossil fuels that countries like the states had when they were developing. And how is that fair, right? This is a very common thing

in terms of countries that are better off will have kind of like a duty to assist countries that are better off will, you know, have kind of like a duty to assist countries that are trying to develop and trying to get better standards of living because we profited off of fossil fuels and now they won't have the same opportunity if we're trying to, you know, get to a carbon

neutral world. So in terms of like a just transition, this is something like, you know, COP26, there was supposed to be funding for adaptation efforts in developing countries. Now that failed because, of course, it's COP26. But in terms of this idea of a just transition, how do you see this locally in the rural environment within the States for these types of areas?

Because it's similar to coal mining, the towns towns similar to, you know, logging towns. How do you see this working? Yeah, this is something I think about so much. And we actually put out a platform called a Green New Deal for our forests in the Pacific Northwest that talks like all about what a just transition could look like for communities.

But I mean, this is a dream. And I think it's like a really inspiring, inspiring path forward, because what it means is that, you know, we're not saying to end logging, and we're not saying that rural communities basically need to like stop existing and getting funding from logging. What we're saying is that rural community members, what we that nostalgic dream that are that people are clinging to, we actually want to have something in that regard, we would like people to, you know, engage with and interact with their local forests. Now that shouldn't look like clear cutting them because that's irresponsible and that doesn't benefit local communities or, you know, benefit a future. But that could look like restoring these young

monocrop plantations into complex, healthy forests. It could be look like bringing fire back onto the landscape with prescribed fire and cultural burning, taking lessons from indigenous folks who are doing that work. It could look like education and recreation and so many things of like, you know, hands-on engagement with backyard forests that surround us. And, you know, that could look like basically firing the Freddys and taking this land and giving it to local communities with, you know, with conservation goals, but also goals to economically support all of those ways. You know, jobs, but also jobs and recreation, economically support local communities. economically support local communities.

So basically giving the land back to the local communities who rely on them and giving them power and control to care for them in ways that make sense. Because right now, Wall Street's caring for our forests and really it should be us. And I think one other thing on this topic for like how well propaganda works, when I was at the Stop Line 3 three purchase camps last summer in terms of like

how do corporations get towns to start supporting these ideas and how do they like foster this hatred of environmentalism um despite you know these areas often being the worst impact one of the worst impacted ones by these like effort efforts right uh you know you're chopping down forests near where this town is pipeline is going next to the town if it leaks it's gonna cause all this problem to like their water supply and stuff but like how they do it's like the day of the direct action to block off the pipeline enbridge was sponsoring like a town fair in like the little downtown area and it's like this super surreal moment of being like oh this is like

i've read this happen in like comics before like this this is like this is like one of lex luther's favorite things to do is he'll like he'll like go into this like small town who's gonna start like this evil you know evil like uh like lab at and he'll like fund like this small town event thing and like i've like seen this before in so many superhero comics like i've seen this trope and now i'm just like living it you're just like watching it happen you're like driving past the town to go uh block a pipeline and then you see like enbridge with like a little stage and like a little like fair and like everyone in the town's like dancing and they're giving out like free drinks and like, oh no.

Like this is- Hearts and minds, baby. Yeah, like you're like living the thing. So like, you know, a lot of it's about like this idea of like reinvigorating like the spirit of the town and injecting new life into it. So like, you know, this is like a new one for like they're putting a pipeline down,

but like, you know, it's the same thing for like, you know, old coal towns, old logging towns. So these corporations will come in, you know, make the town more active again, start putting on events, make it feel like more of a place. And then that gets – so the company gets associated with positive changes, right? So then people who live in the town is like, oh, yeah, Enbridge is doing all these good things for my town. That must mean they actually, you know, are going to care about us here and help us out. Meanwhile, these people from all around the country

are driving through and trying to block the pipeline and the police are driving everywhere now. It's all this chaos, right? These stupid environmentalists, they don't understand how this is going to, you know, we're creating so many jobs here, which they actually didn't. Enbridge outsourced most of the jobs out of state. But they lied about the type of job creation,

you know, all this type of stuff. And this is a very common thing. Totally. And like, Timber Unity is like delivering wood to people when the snowstorm happened and everyone was cold and didn't have power and they were, you know, going door to door

with mutual aid support. But that is why, you know, A, remember how everyone should remember how tricksy and how dishonest these folks are. But also B, why those of us who want to see a different way need to be doing mutual aid, too. Like we actually need to be out there in our communities and making friends and building trust and not just showing up to fuck shit up when it's time to fuck shit up. and making friends and building trust and not just showing up to fuck shit up when it's time to fuck shit up. And I think that kind of like circles back to the point we talked about earlier, which is like building relationships with people on the front lines looks like so much more than just like the defense of a bad thing in their backyards. It looks like, you know, mutual aid because the industry is doing it and they're good at it and we need to be better.

I think that wraps it up for us today. I guess one thing I want to mention is like, what, what is going to happen going forward now after this, after this legal victory, what's kind of just, just, just,

just, just, just so people know, like what is like the next steps that are going to be taken on the legal process that will kind of determine what, what happens with like, you know, direct actions and going to see the forest in the future? Yeah. Well, basically,

we're waiting for a date for this court case. And so that will hopefully be scheduled if it ends up having to go through, which it might not. Obviously, there's going to be an effort made on behalf of lawyers to try and get the Forest Service to just stop, to just drop this shenanigan and walk away while they're, you know, where they're at. Because we do think we have a really strong case that will win in court if it goes to court. So that's kind of like the legal avenue. Same story as what I said the last time we talked. You know, if if logging is going to move forward in that area, whether that be because it happens in the future or because somehow this legal case is lost. Direct action will happen. People will be out there in the way of logging. There's no way people are going to let that go down in the Brighton Bush community.

So right now we're kind of in a waiting game. We're watching and waiting. But, you know, I hope the Forest Service knows now that they can't just get away with stuff like this. People are watching, people are going to file public records requests. We're documenting this and hopefully, you know, we won't be seeing more of this, but because we live in the real world, the real sad world, we will be seeing more of this. And so, you know, we'll be out there again when the next forest is on the chopping block, which is probably going to be, you know, today, tomorrow. Yeah, it's kind of always the thing. Well, thank you so much for coming on to talk about this and the rare, rare good news episode of Hey, something good happened. Thank you.

In any other sources, people can kind of follow along on the fight that people can find online? Yeah, make sure to follow Cascadia Forest Defenders and Portland Rising Tide, who will be definitely tracking and posting. You can also follow Cascadia Wildlands, who was the lead nonprofit on the lawsuit, and they've been posting about it, too. Great. All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Go see a tree. Touch tree. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com

slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Brothel. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.