Fighting Back Against Trump's Clearcut Agenda

On March first, the president issued two executive orders designed to dramatically increase commercial logging on our public lands.  These executive orders are bad news on their own, but the situation is actually even more dire.

These orders are part of a decades-long effort by industry, the ultra wealthy, and radical right wing anti-government legislators to privatize our public lands and extract maximum profit for the wealthy few. 

And look, I know that there are a million attacks and assaults that are demanding your attention.  I’m not here to tell you that forest policy is more or less important than anything else.

But we in the Pacific Northwest have way more agency and influence over our public lands than most of the other battles being waged.  And in the age of spiraling climate chaos, any intact or recovering forest that is logged is a forest that may never come back.

Last week, Oregon Wild put on a fantastic webinar where they went into detail on the executive orders, federal legislation, agency sabotage, and other ways that this Republican government is working to destroy our public lands.

But they didn’t stop at the doom and gloom.  They talked extensively about a wide variety of actions that we can take to fight back. They were kind enough to let me air clips of that webinar for today’s show.  

It was too long to play in its entirety for our format, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to include the sections where they talked about strategies for contacting legislators, using social media, and other tactics.  But you can watch the entire webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO35KTq3CK8

You can also find a really useful activism toolkit they put together at oregonwild.org/activist-toolkit/

What you’re going to hear today is a breakdown of what is happening at the federal level, including with these recent executive orders, and I hope you’ll feel angry and inspired to take action.

Show Notes:

• Webinar on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO35KTq3CK8
• Oregon Wild Activist Toolkit: https://oregonwild.org/activist-toolkit/
• The public lands privatization game plan: https://www.andykerr.net/kerr-public-lands-blog/2025/2/28/the-monetization-of-public-lands

Trump Timber EOs:

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/immediate-expansion-of-american-timber-production/
• https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/addressing-the-threat-to-national-security-from-imports-of-timber-lumber/

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