I
have come to know Dr. Robert Lee through his advisory
capacity on the board of The Temperate Forest Foundation
in Beaverton, Oregon and I have the utmost respect for
his research and insight. Dr. Lee is a Professor of Sociology
of Natural Resources, in the College of Forest Resources
at the University of Washington and has been quietly involved
in the tremendous controversy surrounding the Spotted
Owl debate and President Clinton's Forest Summit. In particular,
Lee's interest as a sociologist has centered around his
research in a couple of areas. The review of existing
studies involving resource dependent communities as well
as in-depth interviews with displaced wood products workers.
Much of what follows is quoted from an interview Jim Petersen
of Evergreen had with Bob and was printed in Jim's article,
"Tearing America Up By The Roots" printed in
Evergreen.
"The news is not good."
In testimony given... before the Washington House of
Representatives, Committee on Commerce and Labor, Lee
warned "that policy makers have seriously over-estimated
the capacities of timber communities to recover from the
kind of economic chaos that is expected to erupt in the
months ahead."
...his testimony shocked a lot of people who have been
going around saying, "Gee, all timber workers need
is just some retraining; then they'll be able to get on
with life."
"Not so" says Lee.
"The capacity and willingness of people to adjust
has been seriously overestimated", Lee told committee
members. "There is a far more complex problem for
which conventional dislocation adjustment assistance is
only a partial remedy. While job losses are an important
cause for disruption in people's lives, the unique character
of timber-dependent communities, loss of trust in assured
wood supplies, life-style conflicts and vilification of
the logger combine to complicate the adjustment process."
Lee believes the emotional upheaval will be especially
hard on families who have invested their life savings
in businesses that serve small, out of the way timber
communities.
This will involve everyone from Realtor to druggist,
as well as the logger. "Loss of a personal business
is experienced as a life-threatening event, and can be
expected to result in substantial stress."
"The federal government deliberately encouraged
the development of local wood products industries throughout
the west, and stimulated the formation of timber-dependent
communities to provide a permanent home for these industries",
Lee told committee members.
"People bought homes, invested capital and formed
attachments to town communities on the basis of the government's
promise of sustained yield wood production. People in
timber-dependent communities trusted the government to
maintain it's commitment to providing continuous wood
supplies. A sudden departure from anticipated harvest
schedules will force the government to break this trust.
Investments in jobs, homes, and attachments to places
will all be disrupted. Since people have been dependent
on the parental good will of their government, they will
experience a sense of abandonment, violation and helplessness
that will contribute to the already heavy burden of stress.
In Dr. Lee's opinion, the emotional and economic collapse
of timber communities also threatens traditional American
values which are deeply rooted in the nation's cultural
heritage. "Loggers, sawmill owners, local business
people and the independent contractors embody traditional
American values of independence, hard work, risk-taking
and inventiveness," he told committee members.
In a later interview with Evergreen, Dr. Lee stated,
"Preserving and maintaining this nation's cultural
diversity is as important to the survival of America as
is maintaining biological diversity. What we are preserving
in rural farming and timber communities is people, not
abstractions or symbols, but real people who embody basic
values which are fundamental to our nation's history and
it's traditions. It is very difficult to preserve these
values in an urban environment."
Of these values, Lee believes the most important is
the rural conviction that hard work is still honorable
work. "Hard work is an increasingly rare value in
our society." Lee explains. "That's not surprising
given the fact that only about two percent of the nation's
population is still involved in work that centers on the
harvest or extraction of natural resources from the earth.
The rest of the nation's working population has little
or no connection to the fact that lumber comes from forests
or milk comes from cows. People simply don't realize where
the conveniences of everyday life come from, and they
have no appreciation for the hard work that goes into
delivering products to the marketplace. Moreover, they
do not realize that loggers put their lives on the line
every day, and that this act is the embodiment of an entrepreneurial
spirit which has played a major role in the formation
and development of our nation."
Furthermore Lee states, "Personal and family problems,
ranging from substance abuse and divorce to suicide will
be widespread. Those in remote locations will also experience
extreme difficulty in selling their homes, and many will
be forced to declare bankruptcy and will lose their life's
savings.
"Increasing social services needs of dislocated
people, will stress the budgets of rural counties at a
time when county revenues will decline as a result of
reduced payments from federal timber sales.
Lee does not believe urbanites in Oregon and Washington
understand how the collapse of rural timber communities
will impact their lives or future growth prospects for
their states.
"Furthermore," Lee continued, "the collapse
of rural financial structures is going to make it very
difficult for communities to maintain roads, schools and
other social and cultural services which make communities
attractive to new business and industry. People are not
going to want to go to these communities, even on their
vacations."
In reference to the Spotted Owl listing, Dr. Lee said,
"The threat is not that we will lose a species or
two," he concludes. "The threat is that we will
lose the human spirit."
Dr. Lee was an invited presenter at the Timber Summit
held in Portland, Oregon in April 1993. He served temporarily
as an advisor to the panel which was to draft the options
available from which President Clinton made his decision
on what outcome would be the result of this discussion.
I asked Dr. Lee how President's Clinton plan would benefit
the timber industry and the timber-dependent communities.
"First of all", Dr. Lee corrected, "the
so-called timber-dependent communities are really the
'timber-producing communities. The real timber dependent
communities are the urban centers of our nation, the New
York's, the Portland's the LA's.
"The plan favored by the administration emphasis
forest preservation and fails to consider economic needs
as well as social and cultural impacts."
The plan selected by President Clinton neglected Dr.
Lee's recommendations.
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"Preserving and maintaining this nation's
cultural diversity is as important to the survival
of America as is maintaining biological diversity."