AUDUBON SOCIETY OF CORVALLIS
P.O. Box 148
CorvallisOR97339
Tobias Read, Oregon State TreasurerMarch 11, 2017
900 Court Street NE
Salem, OR 97301
Dear Treasurer Read,
I write to you concerning the upcoming sale of the Elliott State Forest, to express our opposition to the loss of public educational resource to our children and their future. I write on behalf of the several hundred members of Audubon Society of Corvallis, a Chapter of National Audubon Society. Audubon members regularly travel widely throughout the state for recreation, for monitoring and recording birds and other wildlife, and also to promote outdoor education through regular field trips. Oregon Chapters regularly supply outdoor educational opportunities for children, and Corvallis Audubon reaches more than 800 children each year in collaboration with Oregon State University, W.L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, and in conjunction with other local non-profit organizations.
Oregonians, importantly children, continue to learn about natural systems, and particularly about forests, forest products and all the other things we depend on from our forests. We are learning better ways to work in and care for our forests. One of the hardest lessons we face is acknowledging our mistakes. Can Oregon handle having additional protections, or will it walk away and allow land conditions to only worsen under private land regulations we know are inadequate? Our children are now witnessing how adults in Oregon respond when faced with protecting these other public values--values that federal and state courts and agencies, including the Oregon Department of Forestry, acknowledge have been inadequately addressed.
The overriding responsibility of State Land Board lands management is to obtain the greatest permanent value for citizens of Oregon. Common School Fund lands can sustain a purpose of maximizing revenue generation within this greatest permanent value if, and only if, the values of clean air and water, abundant fish and wildlife, ecological, recreational, educational, and spiritual functions of the land are also sustained. Without such constraints, current market sale disregards all other values, now and forever.
We ask that you maintain the Elliott State Forest as a public classroom in perpetuity for us all. Please join Governor Brown in taking the harder road, to acknowledge that we Oregonians can maintain those greatest permanent values as an Oregon heritage.
Respectfully yours,
Jim Fairchild, Conservation Director
Cc: Lorna Stafford, State Land Board Secretary
Governor Kate Brown
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson
Audubon Society of Corvallis is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, Tax ID# 237-34-5969
Membership dues and donation amounts are fully tax-deductible.