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--> --> Forest activists focus on Southern Oregon By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings Hundreds of participants at this year's Forest Activist Conference - one of the largest such conferences in the nation - will focus their attention closer to home on the Siskiyou Mountains and the southern Cascades. The conference begins with registration at noon on Friday at the Southern Oregon University Stevenson Union Building, followed by speakers from 2:30 to 3 p.m. The first full panel discussion begins at 3:15 p.m. with an overview on the state of the forest protection movement. Rather than focusing on the entire Northwest, as has been done in previous years, the 2001 Forest Activist Conference features information on Southern Oregon. "We'll be concentrating a lot on the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains and the Cascades, but people will be coming from all over," said Mudra Bergan, co-director of the campus Ecology Center of the Siskiyous, and one of the organizers of the conference. In the past year, the area has been the focus of nationwide attention, with former President Bill Clinton designating the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument last summer and debates continuing about management of the monument. Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, will be keynote speaker at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Willis worked to gain the national monument designation and continues to oppose any reduction of the boundaries while promoting wilderness designation for the Soda Mountain area at the heart of the monument. Other topics of the conference, which runs through Sunday, include environmental education, market-based incentives for conservation, salmon issues, ecosystem restoration, targeting corporations, ending commercial logging on public lands, sustainable forestry on private lands, jobs and the environment, motorized recreation, understanding and using environmental laws, global warming, wolf reintroduction proposals and nonviolent protest tactics. Participants also can take part in hikes, field trips and a work party to pull non-native scotch broom from Ashland's hills. For agenda and registration information, call ECOS at 552-8512 or access the information via the Internet at www.sou.edu/su/ecos Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing