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June 28, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels May 4, 2004 Forestry conference to draw protesters By Paul Fattig For the Tidings The Siskiyou Chapter of the Society of American Foresters begins its three-day 2004 conference Wednesday at Southern Oregon University, and environmentalists plan to be on hand, even if they aren't in the same room. Members of the National Forest Protection Alliance, Greenpeace and local environmental groups plan to protest Friday morning's conference speech by Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment. A public debate is planned Thursday morning between conference presenter John Sessions, an Oregon State University professor who supports a Biscuit fire timber salvage proposal in the Siskiyou National Forest, and Dominick DellaSala, a World Wildlife Fund forest ecologist opposed to salvage on a large scale. But the debate, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in Room 118 of SOU's Science Building, is not a part of the conference. It is being organized by the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and SOU's Ecology Center of the Siskiyous. The format includes allowing Sessions and DellaSala each to make a 20-minute presentation and then ask each other one question, followed by questions being taken from the floor. Conference organizers aren't surprised that protesters have staked out the event, but hope any interaction with participants remains civil. "I would pretty much expect someone would take advantage of this opportunity to protest," said Don Ferguson, a spokesman for the conference. "They could disrupt the flow of information. "But they are welcome to their space out there," he added. According to a flier distributed by protest organizers, the demonstrators plan to rally outside SOU's Stevenson Union, the building where the conference will be held. The theme of this year's conference is "Strong Roots - Strong Future." The Siskiyou Chapter membership includes foresters from throughout Southwestern Oregon. About 135 foresters from government agencies and the private sector are expected to attend. The conference will feature presentations on past, present and future forestry perspectives from leading scientists, land managers and forest product experts. Rey's address, scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, is titled "Looking Back, Moving Forward." He has bachelor's degrees in forestry and wildlife management and a master's degree in natural resource policy and administration, all from the University of Michigan. Other speakers who have drawn the ire of the environmental community include Hal Salwasser, dean of OSU's College of Forestry and a former regional forester for the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region; and Sessions, the OSU forest engineering professor whose salvage report on the Biscuit Fire indicated that some 500 million board feet of fire-killed timber could be harvested from the fire that burned a half-million acres in 2002. All three speakers - Rey, Salwasser and Session - have used their government or academic positions to push for salvage logging the national forestland burned by the Biscuit fire, said Missoula, Mont., resident Jake Kreilick, endangered forests project coordinator for the National Forest Protection Alliance. Although Kreilick, who has a master's degree in environmental studies, is helping organize the protests, he stressed he hopes there will be dialogue between environmental activists and conference participants. "We definitely are going to try to voice our displeasure over the Biscuit salvage project," he said in a telephone interview. "We intend to take this opportunity to get our message out before the Forest Service makes its record of decision." The agency is expected to make a final decision on Biscuit fire salvage this spring. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams