Letters to the Editor 02/27/2025

Guest Opinion: Public Lands Are Under Attack Like Never Before

Between funding freezes, budget cuts, firing thousands of federal public lands employees and legislation and regulations to weaken bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Antiquities Act, the Trump administration and Congress have wasted no time in their efforts to roll back protections for our nation’s treasured public lands and sell them off to private interests. The list is way too long to fit within the required word limit, but here are just a few of the urgent threats our public lands face.

Thousands of National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal employees have been fired without cause. These were park rangers, wildland firefighters, field biologists and other critical staff. They are also our friends, neighbors and community members in Central Oregon and beyond. Our federal land management agencies were already understaffed and it just got much, much worse.
The Trump administration is cutting and withholding essential funding for national and international wildlife conservation, restoration work and community safety efforts.
President Trump’s new Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, recently issued several secretarial orders aimed at rolling back public lands protections and environmental laws in order to open up more public land for oil and gas drilling.
Legislation was recently introduced into Congress that would repeal the Antiquities Act — a law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 that allows presidents to designate nationally important lands as National Monuments.
At the beginning of the new Congress, the House of Representatives adopted a new rules package that makes it easier to sell off public lands.
The House of Representatives also recently passed the Fix Our Forests Act, which, contrary to its name, has nothing to do with “fixing” forests and everything to do with weakening the Endangered Species Act and NEPA, removing public input and science from land management decisions and handing over more control of our public lands to timber interests. This harmful bill could soon be voted on by the Senate and sent to President Trump’s desk.

Public lands belong to us all — not corporate interests. These are the places we hike, bike, hunt, fish, ski and camp; places we rely on for clean air and clean drinking water; places where the fish and wildlife populations can still thrive. These cuts and proposals will devastate our ability to enjoy and care for cherished places like the Deschutes National Forest, the Three Sisters Wilderness, Crater Lake National Park and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

I encourage everyone who uses, enjoys and depends on public lands (it’s all of us) to reach out to Sens. Wyden and Merkley and Rep. Janelle Bynum (or your member of Congress) and share your concerns about these issues. We need champions in Congress who will stand up for the public good and push back against these unprecedented attacks on our public lands.

—Sami Godlove, Oregon Wild

Our Vote is Our Voice

Republican state legislators, led by Christine Drazan (R-Canby), are proposing two bills to limit voting rights in Oregon. Oregon’s pioneering, first-in-the-nation Motor Voter law has successfully increased voter participation, and it’s a thing Oregon voters should be proud of. Additionally, every registered Oregon voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail, along with a detailed voter’s pamphlet to help us compare candidates. With numerous drop boxes at local libraries and municipal buildings, voting is accessible for all, regardless of political affiliation. Ensuring easy access to voting is crucial for our democracy, and Oregon legislators must prioritize this.

House Bill 3470 would require additional verification of citizenship documents by Secretary of State Tobias Read’s office, and House Bill 3473 aims to eliminate automatic voter registration entirely. These reactions stem from a DMV error that mistakenly registered noncitizens to vote — an issue now addressed with improved staff training and scrutiny. Gov. Kotek has initiated an audit and paused automatic registration until the audit is completed. Having previously lived in Pennsylvania, I am aware of the complexities and challenges associated with voting outside of Oregon. My concern is that overreaction to isolated incidents could make it harder to vote. Our right to vote is the foundation of democracy, and Oregon legislators must make voting easier, not harder, for us to elect our representatives.

—Kristine Seibert

Much Needed Pregnancy Loss Resources in the Community

I’ve been a critical care nurse for over 12 years and served in Bend the last six years at St. Charles. I founded A Soulful Sorrow, a holistic healing program and community for women navigating pregnancy loss.

Although miscarriage and pregnancy loss happens to one in four pregnancies, there are quite literally no resources. Being a miscarriage survivor myself and as a nurse, I’ve experienced the staggering lack of resources for our community’s families who lose babies at any gestation. They are left with no mental health resources, support or medical supplies to aid in this experience.

That is why I founded A Soulful Sorrow, to finally shed light on an all-too-common experience that has been stigmatized and in the shadows for too long. We are in the process of becoming a nonprofit. We currently offer free resources and guides to women and their families, free monthly support groups, an online healing program and community of women local and around the world. We have helped almost 1,000 women now.

We are now making our presence known locally and beginning to collaborate with local OBGYN offices and St. Charles to bring these much-needed resources to families. On April 27, I am actually going to be the keynote speaker of an event we are putting on with Deep Roots Birth Collective (a soon-to-be nonprofit that brings birth services to families at no cost in Central Oregon). The event is called Loss Literacy. It is a call to all community leaders and providers to finally learn the compassionate, grief-informed care needed that society and school never taught us.

This expert-led training provides compassionate communication skills, somatic exercises and hands-on tools to ensure we provide families with the dignity and compassionate care they deserve. Because how we show up matters.

—Lauren Paz

Letter of
the Week:

Lauren, thank you for highlighting the dearth of these important services and support groups in our community and country.

—Chris Young

This article appears in The Source Weekly February 27, 2025.