North Coast Land Conservancy's Katie Voelke on Oregon's Land-Sea Connection, reckoning with ownership of stolen lands, and more!

08/14/23 • 29 min

North Coast Land Conservancy, or NCLC, has been working to conserve land along the northern Oregon coast and coast range for nearly 40 years, and Katie Voelke has been its Executive Director since 2008.
In this interview, she discusses NCLC's conservation philosophy, Oregon's land-sea connection, reckoning with the ownership model of conservation on stolen indigenous lands, and more.
Learn more about North Coast Land Conservancy at https://nclctrust.org/
Learn about our organization, the Coast Range Association at https://coastrange.org/ , and my email is [email protected]

Support the show

Support the show

Previous Episode

Representative Mark Gamba on Oregon's 2023 Legislative Session - Part Two

This episode is part two of my conversation with State Representative Mark Gamba, breaking down the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2023 legislative session

Mark Gamba represents house district 41, which encompasses Milwaukie, Oak Grove, and parts of Southeast Portland. I knew I could trust him to give an honest assessment of his first year in Salem, and he really delivered.

You don’t need to listen to episode one before jumping into the second half of our conversation, but I highly recommend listening to both episodes. Find the first episode in our podcast feed or HERE.
Research Links/Show Notes:

Representative Mark Gamba’s legislative website: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/gamba

Some of our allied organizations’ 2023 Session recap:

About the Oregon Forest Resources Institute:
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/08/04/oregon-forest-resources-institute-osu-timber-industry-investigation-lobbying/

https://www.propublica.org/series/the-cutting

Polluted By Money Series:

https://projects.oregonlive.com/polluted-by-money/

Support the show

Next Episode

Fighting the "Biomass Delusion" with Rita Frost and Peter Riggs

One of the most important questions in the drive to rapidly decarbonize our society is how to replace fossil fuel generated electricity with clean, renewable sources

And one of the key questions there is, what counts as clean and renewable?
Today’s episode is all about biomass energy, which is essentially the burning of pelletized wood for electricity. The Biomass industry is valued at over 100 billion dollars per year and growing, and many countries count biomass as renewable and carbon neutral.

But is it really? Or is it one more false solution which is polluting communities, exploiting natural resources, and worsening the climate crisis? And with the Biomass industry looking to expand into the Pacific Northwest, what does that mean for our timberlands and rural communities?
To answer these questions, I’m joined by Rita Frost and Peter Riggs

Rita Frost is a forest advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Born and raised in the Southern US, she lives on unceded Kalapuya land in the Willamette Valley. Rita has worked with communities confronting the biomass manufacturing industry in the Southern U.S. for the past 8 years.

Peter Riggs is the director of Pivot Point, which works on a variety of land use and climate change issues in Washington state, nationally, globally. He is based on Harstine Island in the southern Salish Sea.
Research Links/Show Notes:
https://environmentalpaper.org/the-biomass-delusion/
Drax in Longview: https://www.kttn.com/v2-energy-market-for-wood-pellets-globally-threatens-u-s-forests/
https://naacp.org/resources/resolution-wood-pellets-opposition
https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/new-study-confirms-harmful-impacts-of-biomass/

Support the show