Lafayette, Colorado City Council Member, Merrily Mazza joins us in three locations around Oregon.
Tuesday, May 22nd – Medford Public Library @6pm
Wednesday, May 23rd – North Bend Public Library @6pm
Thurs, May 24th – Eugene First United Methodist Church @7pm
February 28, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Mary Geddry
[email protected]
541-551-1492
www.orcrn.org
EUGENE – This year’s recipient of the international David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award is Lincoln County resident Carol Van Strum. Carol is being recognized for her decades worth of outstanding environmental and social justice work including in the area of rights of nature. An award ceremony is being held on Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 6pm, in the ballroom of the ERB Memorial Union building on the UO campus in Eugene, Oregon.
The international David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, honors David Brower, one of the founders of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Earth Island Institute. The award is presented to activists, community members, and attorneys who exemplify David Brower’s spirit and the spirit of environmental awareness he sought to awaken in people.
Carol Van Strum’s achievements include leading the fight to stop the spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides on federal forest land in the Five Rivers Valley of Lincoln County, Oregon in the 1970-80’s. Her tireless efforts put Lincoln County and Oregon on the national map after a successful lawsuit against the U.S. government which banned aerial pesticide spraying on federal forests.
Carol documented the events of that campaign against herbicides in the book “A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights” which tells the tragic stories of families affected by aerial pesticide spraying in the Five Rivers area, including Carol’s own children, and exposes the fraudulent studies and corruption that allow continued use of poisons in state and private lands nationwide.
In 2017, Carol joined the efforts of Lincoln County Community Rights, a chapter of the Oregon Community Rights Network, to defend the first-in-the-nation voter-approved, county-wide ban on aerial pesticide spraying to protect people and our natural world from aerially sprayed poisons.
A lawsuit brought by representatives of the timber industry to overturn the people’s vote sprung Carol into action yet again, this time to speak on behalf of the rights of nature. The new law banning aerial spray of pesticides did so in part on the grounds that it violated the rights of ecosystems and natural communities in Lincoln County from being toxically trespassed.
“I have lived in Lincoln County for 43 years in a home surrounded by river and forest. I am part of the ecosystems of Lincoln County. The Declaration of Independence itself asserts that the laws of nature preempt human law. Like the Lorax, I speak for the rights of waters and forests and wildlife to challenge human violations of natural law”, said Carol when she filed in 2017 to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the Siletz River watershed. A court decision whether the ban on aerial spray will be upheld or overturned is expected soon.
Carol has also been fighting the U.S. Navy’s continuing attempts to weaponize our coastal waters and take over our national forests and other public lands for weapons testing and war games. And in 2017 a publication called the “The Poison Papers” was released that largely came from Carol who had 40 years of documented evidence (100,000 pages) of fraudulent studies and false data used by the chemical industry and government regulators to approve poison products for industries such as industrial logging.
ABOUT THE ORCRN – OREGON COMMUNITY RIGHTS NETWORK
The ORCRN is a 501(c)(3) made up of local chapters and community rights activists from various communities in Oregon. The mission of the ORCRN is to support and empower communities to secure local self-determination and self-governance rights, superior to corporate power, in order to protect fundamental rights, quality of life, the natural environment, public health, and safety.
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We’re excited to have two different community rights panels at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference this year!
Mari will focus on Rights of Nature (RoN) from a global/international level. She will explain why RoN is needed, and what efforts have been taking place globally to make it a reality. This will include laws and legal challenges.
Craig will also discuss Rights of Nature (RoN) from an international/global perspective. He will describe the patterns that can be observed from looking at what has been successful and what has not. This can be used as a guide to enable Rights of Nature locally and globally.
John will discuss Rights of Nature (RoN) from a local perspective. He will describe what is being done in Lane Co, throughout the state of Oregon, and elsewhere. And how this relates to the global efforts.
Friday, March 2 – 3:50 p.m.-5:05 p.m.
Law room 142.
Sponsored by Community Rights Lane County
The aerial spraying of toxic pesticides is part of Oregon’s logging legacy. This panel will discuss the challenges communities have faced in their efforts to protect people and ecosystems from aerial spraying, as well as the state’s role in providing legal protection.
From Carol Van Strum’s efforts against the federal government in the 80s and the widespread corruption in the EPA, to the community rights movement of the last five years, the panel will discuss the ups and downs of the battle to abolish aerial spraying. Panelists will highlight the lengths that corporations and government have taken to stop local democracy.
Panelists:
October 26, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Mary Geddry – 541-551-1492
Coos Bay
BANDON, OR – Yesterday evening the Coos Bay Estuary filed a motion to intervene in the FERC proceedings to permit Jordan Cove Energy Partners an export terminal at Jordan Cove along with the accompanying Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline.
In the intervention filing, submitted by Coos Commons Protection Council on behalf of the estuary, the estuary describes itself as, “an ecosystem made up of a deeply diverse and interdependent community of birds, aquatic plants, fish, shellfish, oysters, insects, and humans. For millions of years I have served as what your EPA considers a nursery of the sea where salmon and waterfowl breed and oysters filter out sediments and pollutants from the watersheds that feed me. Waters made clean and healthy from the work of natural communities connected to me, help to feed marine life in the ocean.” The estuary finishes its comments to FERC by saying, “The authorization of this project would be unlawful, unethical, poisonous and destructive.”
The full text of the Coos Bay Estuary intervention can be found here:
The main point made by the estuary is to remind the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) that nature has rights and that human activity, especially corporate fossil fuel activity, has been in violation of the rights of nature. The claim is not merely a statement of right but one of which has been increasingly recognized as legally to be protected:
that human populations are those that are interdependent on the natural world – not the other way around- and that they must assume the consequences of their actions and omissions in relation to nature. It’s about understanding this new socio-political reality with the aim of achieving a respectful transformation with the natural world and its environment, just as has happened before with civil and political rights…economic, social and cultural rights…and environmental rights…Const. Ct. of Colombia
More countries and municipalities are working towards securing nature’s right to exist, persist, flourish, and naturally evolve, which not only brings with it the right of legal standing, but also the full effect of the law to defend rights before the courts when violations occur.
“For millions of years the Coos Bay Estuary has provided habitat, food and shelter to the Southern Oregon coast,” said Mary Geddry. “The estuary deserves the same standing in these proceedings as inanimate objects like corporations.”
This filing precipitates the first US Rights of Nature Symposium being held at Tulane University School of Law, New Orleans, LA. The symposium brings together key leaders in the Rights of Nature movement – from Ecuador, Nepal, the United States, and other countries, as well as from local communities and tribal nations. The symposium’s promotion says this about the event, “Communities, people, and even governments are recognizing that there is a need to make a fundamental shift in humankind’s relationship with the natural world by placing the highest protections on nature through the recognition of legal rights.”
More information about the symposium and access to the live stream found here: https://celdf.org/rights-nature-symposium/
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Mary Geddry
541-551-1492
Voters in Lincoln County have adopted Measure 21-177 by 61 votes. The delay in the final ballot count came as voters who had not signed their ballots were given the opportunity to sign. Voters had until 5pm this evening to make their ballots official with a signature. The vote count at the end of election night had the measure passing by 27 votes.
“It’s been over thirty years since aerial spraying of pesticides have been poisoning our county, so waiting a few more days to confirm that the people of Lincoln County are ready to put that toxic legacy in the past has been well worth it”, says Rio Davidson of Citizens of a Healthy County. “Our right to a healthy environment is key to our quality of life and livelihoods and the people in Lincoln County are done with the timber industry sacrificing our future.”
Measure 21-177 prohibits the aerial spray of pesticides in-order to secure the right to clean air, water, and the overall right to health of people and ecosystems. The common practice of the industrial timber industry is to aerial-spray toxic pesticides (1 to 2 applications yearly for the first 3 to 5 years of growth) on clear-cuts to kill off vegetation “competing” with the growth of newly planted and young commodity crop trees.
“A line has been drawn in the sand by the people of Lincoln County that says our right to decide on protecting our right to clean water, personal health, and protection for ecosystems is more important than allowing a corporate agenda to continue to cause harm to the community.”, says Nancy Ward, board member of the Oregon Community Rights Network (ORCRN).
Despite the affirmative vote of the people of Lincoln County in saying yes to Measure 21-177, Citizens for a Healthy County and the ORCRN are anticipating that the timber industry or supporters of the timber industry will not honor the new law prohibiting aerial spraying and will file a lawsuit to block or overturn the law. Such a lawsuit will pit the right of a community self-government authority to protect health, safety, and welfare against corporate activities that threaten or harm the community’s rights.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
To learn more about Measure 21-177 go to www.yes-on-21-177.org.