Parks Are Not Commodities

Lane County Park’s latest plan for the 2,200-acre Mount Pisgah Park is to commercially log more than 1,000 acres in the name of “restoration.” In 2013 Willamalane Parks, with $6 million in taxpayer dollars, bulldozed and degraded nearly four miles of riparian and wetland habitat for a 10-foot-wide, $1-million-per mile asphalt “path” along the banks of the Willamette east of Dorris Ranch.

Yes, humans need public spaces, but ever-diminishing and threatened wildlife must take precedence. The 2016 World Wildlife Fund “Living Planet Report” revealed wild animal populations have plummeted 58 percent since 1970.

This oppression and abuse of wildlife on public lands and rivers by city, county, Oregon and federal agencies needs to stop. Our parks and riverbanks should not be used as a commodity to assure logging industry profits and paving as well as a few bureaucrat’s salaries at the expense of threatened and disappearing wildlife. 

Shannon Wilson

Eugene