Stand Together for the Future

By: Tyler Bradt - Photos: Skip Armstrong - Films: Rush Sturges

By KAVU

December 29^th, 2020

In the community of White Salmon we have access to incredible wilderness, old growth forests, clean rivers that tumble through ancient pathways overlooked by clean air scrubbed by rain and wind.

Recently however, we've been reminded how important our community's relationship to this land is when the surrounding area suddenly ended up on the auction table. Now, much more than just a way of life now hangs in the balance.

Balance and awareness are so important....

Until the march of development comes knocking at the front door, it's very easy to look the other way, spending time enjoying nature.... rather than pondering why it should still exist.

Sometimes it's easy to soak in vast expanses of nature and recreate in wild places yet, forget how these places got set aside from the march of development..... or, Why many of our most treasured places continue to remain wild and accessible for us all to enjoy.

As an example, I think sometimes modern society, in all it's speed, fails to realize that the wilderness we love and the places that bring us closer together are also of deep cultural importance for Native Americans throughout the country. The necessary balance between humans and nature is a lesson we need to remember. It's quite easy to take these things for granted, not remembering or realizing the struggle that it took to establish national monuments, wilderness areas, access to rivers, and public lands in all their various forms with the intent to protect these wild places from economic development.

In the Fall of 2020, a local paper reported the sale of 101,000 acres, all within 30 miles of White Salmon. The local timber company who purchased the land, SDS, decided to cashout...... selling their lumbar mill and well over a hundred thousand acres of land surrounding our community. This land includes seeps, springs, cold water tributaries, spawning grounds for salmon, migration corridors for wildlife, ancestral lands of the Yakama Nation, river access to some of the west coasts most incredible rivers, hiking trails, biking trails, the water source for a community of tens of thousands of people, and land that keep our communities economy intact. These lands are also incredibly important to our climate resilience both micro and macro.

Balance is Necessary

The likely scenario is that a large timber company with no connection to the local community will purchase the land and quickly begin liquidating assets (timber and land). Cutting is expected to increase dramatically, old growth forests and mature second growth forests leveled and hauled to the mill, the clearcuts sold to development in locations most suited for new homes and more people. These large timber companies primary concern is the bottom line and making money at all costs. It's not that we shouldn't access and enjoy what the land and environment has to offer but, there needs to be balance and responsible thought that stands above human profit and economics.

The local economic trickle down will consist of 150 wage-labor jobs which pay just well enough to keep employees on the edge of poverty while a large timber company and its executives get rich beyond our imagination. It's a classic and historically accurate scenario. The disparity of wealth increases along side the gentrification of our community, pushing out low income members of our community, while the devastation of land shows up in giant sums lining few select bank accounts far away from the town of White Salmon.

As a community it's easy to feel the despair of an event like this, but it's also an opportunity to try to do something, to come together united in a goal of preserving the wild places we love and our access to them.

We are continuing to organize, to fight for our community, to hold accountable the people involved in this vast transaction of money for land. Like all fights for the sanctity of land, it's steeply uphill, and hard fought, but we, like those who came before us, will not be dissuaded by the size of this challenge. There is vast strength in our communities, we do have the power to influence our future should we come together united in the cause of common love and appreciation for the both each other and the lands we hold dear.

It’s often simply a spark that lights the fire. In our first community paddle, we witnessed the passion and dedication of our community to fight for the lands and rivers we hold dear. While we continue with this fight, I encourage anyone reading this to look toward your own community, to see where it is that you have the opportunity to act. To strengthen our communities and.... also protect our lands is the heart of who we are.