EDITORIAL PAGE — Turning the tables

Canada’s Maurice Strong may not think of himself as an environmental extremist, but the $1-a-year chairman of Ontario Hydro sure has the folks at People for the West! worried.

The Denver-based grassroots organization, which advocates continued multiple use on public lands, has taken Strong to task for remarks he made as secretary-general of the United Nation’s Conference on Environment and Development.

According to the group’s newsletter, Strong posed the questions: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilization collapse cents and] isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?

The remarks may have been taken out of context, but even so, the People for the West! newsletter provides plenty of other examples of this type of anti-development sentiment.

Bruce Babbitt was recently taken to task for publicly aspiring to be “the first Secretary of the Interior in history to tear down a really large dam. No one really cared that Babbitt wanted to live in the dark, but they sure did mind that he expected millions of Americans to do the same. The newsletter cites plenty of other examples of extremism — in Oregon, for example, where self-appointed owl experts have shut down much of the state’s forestry industry. Not satisfied with that victory, these green vigilantes were again roused to action upon hearing of plans to prune the lower limbs from ponderosa and sugar pines on 6,000 acres of Forest Service Lands.

A People for the West! member was astounded to hear that the pruning was being opposed because of “concerns about the loss of perching limbs for birds. But he wasn’t about to tell these bird-brains that birds can . . . well, fly. Instead, he suggested that “maybe they should get busy and build little ladders for the birds, or maybe these nuts should go out and boost the birds up onto limbs.

But if there were an award for gumption in the face of environmental extremism, it would go to the Clackamas County Farm Bureau, which recently recommended that the city of Portland adopt its “Urban Management Practice policy.

“Urban Oregon has increasingly been involved in solving’ rural Oregon’s problems, read the proposal. ” cents We’ve] been told that rural Oregon needs to change. In the spirit of co-operation, rural Oregon wants to help solve urban Oregon’s problems.

The proposal calls for skunks, cougars, beavers and wolves to be “re-introduced to Portland, as they are “native to the area. It also suggests that all home-owners be required to file management plans to water their yards and gardens, and to keep records of pesticide use for 100 years. A ban on urban renewal was also suggested, so that “urban decay could be preserved for future generations to appreciate.

People for the West! is a coalition of ranchers, farmers, forestry workers, miners and prospectors who support responsible environmental management. Its members fight what they see as extremism, in an effort to keep public lands open. We could use more of that feisty spirit here in Canada. If some of our environmental extremists want to establish a natural Utopia free from all vestiges of human encroachment, fine. Those Oregon farmers would probably suggest we call their bluff. Give them a bearskin and a couple of arrowheads, ship them off to the Tatshenshini Park and see what kinds of lessons Mother Nature has in store.