Was there any connection with William Sullivan’s book [Exploring Oregon’s Wild Areas] since he does mention ONRC?
Yes. Interestingly enough, he began doing his book about the same time [that] I began researching mine. We had an arrangement with him where we made our files on different roadless areas available [for his use]. We initially got some small percentage of his profits. We worked with him closely because he know that we were a major source of information about where different areas were [located].
Part of the arrangement was that when he got more information bout some of these roadless areas, he added to the files–which I think are still in Eugene. I remember I did a slide presentation with him in Eugene, where he talked about his book and I talked about mine. I remember laughing because this was what I expected–I don’t blame him at all– he didn’t want to discuss the timber management part of it and, of course, I did.
Have these areas ever suffered by [conservationists] calling attention to them?
We would run into this attitude within the conservation community from people you talk to, but I don’t think it was ever really a controversy. You do hear “Oh, I don’t want to tell the public about that because that’s a place I go.” We basically reject that kind of argument out of hand because it [the publicity] and the increased recreational use which goes with it is a small price to pay for saving the area. If nobody knew about it [the area], then it could be more easily logged. Where we’ve called attention to the issue of timber theft has been more where it was in a wilderness or something. More often than not, the Forest Service has acknowledged [the problem] when they’ve found it. For the most part, conservationists have not been motivated to monitor timber sales because once it’s cut down nobody’s interested. The Forest Service from time to time tries to interest various groups in going out to see how they do it [log], but why would anyone want to see a beautiful portrait with little squares cut out of it? They tell me that I won’t notice it … Where timber theft has been acknowledged, there were a few cases where conservationists have discovered it. Paul Dewey found some on the Sisters Ranger District, I remember, but I think in most cases the Forest Service has admitted [that it happened]. I think they recognize that not to admit it and have it discovered later would be embarrassing … that it was better for them to say it was happening.
You hear this comment made that if we talk about an area too much people will come there. That has not been anything we’ve really heeded, nor have we really had any significant criticism for featuring an area [in Wild Oregon or other publications]. As forest issues in Oregon began [to heat up] , everything that was protected [stemmed from] a constituency who drew a line on a map and identified a particular area. [It was] what Brock Evans, formerly with [the] national [organization of] Audubon called “name it and save it.” When we started arguing the old growth issue, his fear was that … history had shown we named something and that created a public identity. So now we have all these ancient forests and don’t have names for them and there’s no public identity. It also became a matter of there’s more to be saved than what could be named. You couldn’t create an identity for each of these [groves]. I remember working in Eugene constantly doing media and realizing that I’d done the three worst timber sales of the week, so to speak. Not that we ever identified three, but it was sort of like the media, even if they were moderately sympathetic and interested in the issue, could only absorb so much in a certain amount of time. There was more being cut down than what we could even begin to martyr, if you will.
