Posted by spiralmom on Mar 5, 2018 in Articles, Blog, Events, Local | Comments Off on You Haven’t Missed a Thing- We record most presentations!
Did you know we strive to record every presentation that we sponsor/co-sponsor? We know people are busy and might not have the time drop everything for our schedule. So we’ve compiled our videos into one place for your easy viewing. You can always hover over the Resources tab and you’ll find our link to theAudio/Visual page, where you’ll find strong presenters such as Winona LaDuke, Mari Margill and local UO professor Craig Kauffman.
Learn more about the effects of Corporate Rights on communities around the world, Rights of Nature inserted into constitutions and Community Rights work in general all on one page! Grab a cup of tea and wrap yourself in a warm blanket and learn more!
Michelle Holman explains Community Rights before Jacqueline Patterson’s presentation…
We have a lot of great presentations coming your way, and did I hear someone say Campaign? Don’t miss this month’s Community Rights Action as we have so many things to talk about. And we just can’t get enough of Chuck Willer! We are also thrilled to have Evaggelos Vallianatos, author of Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA, speaking not only on our PIELC panel, but several times along the coast! Don’t miss the action!
But First…
Thursday Feb. 15th 7:00pm
Lillis Hall 182
UO Campus
And then…
We’re due to hear from the judge any day now. We’ll be discussing the possibility of running a successful campaign.
And one more time…
He’s educating citizens on a different aspect of forestry, one that is very tied to aerial spraying. Don’t miss another chance to see the Director of the Coast Range Association…
Chuck Willer in Cottage Grove
WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 27th @7pm
WHERE: The Healing Matrix
The art of chemical warfare: Oregon community democracy vs. industrial timber and state government in the battle to end aerial spraying
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:
Rio Davidson – Lincoln County Community Rights
TBA member of Community Rights Lane County
Evaggelos Vallianatos EPA whistle blower and author of Poison Spring
Carol Van Strum author of Bitter Fog and chief person behind the Poison Papers
Nature has Rights: The Right to Exist, Evolve, and Flourish
Sunday, March 4th, 9:00 am to 10:15 am
Many Nations Longhouse
Sponsored by RoN-Community Rights Lane County and Oregon Community Rights Network
Does a wolf have a right to survive because it runs, breathes, and values its family (the pack)? Does a forest have a right to exist, thrive, and flourish solely because it is a living entity? Does nature have rights? According to our political and legal systems, it does not.
Laws and governments were not designed to recognize or respect the natural world. Rather they define it as property to be extracted and consumed for profit. That is at the heart of the damage being done to our planet, and until it changes, any idea of protecting Mother Earth is an illusion.
Fortunately, Rights of Nature are starting to be acknowledged and enacted as law. From Ecuador to the United States, to Nepal, and New Zealand; Tribal nations, communities, activists, indigenous peoples, and governments throughout the world are advancing Rights of Nature initiatives.
This panel will talk about the Rights of Nature and what’s being done to get our political and economic systems to recognize them.
Posted by spiralmom on Oct 5, 2017 in Blog, Events, Local | Comments Off on Natural Resource Economist Ernie Niemi
Thursday October 19th at 7pm
Eugene Garden Club – parking across the street
Ernie Niemi is a scientist and natural resource economist trained at the University of Oregon and Harvard. As President of Natural Resource Economics, Inc., he specializes in economic-impact analysis to understand the economic importance of natural resources. He has been active on numerous advisory boards, including the Citizen’s Task Force for Developing a Strategic Plan for the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, and the Technical Advisory Committee on Land Use and Economic Development for the Oregon Dept. of Land Conservation and Development.
Posted by spiralmom on Sep 25, 2017 in Blog, Events, Local | Comments Off on The Signatures are being Delivered to the County Clerk!
Join Us! Friday, Sept. 29th @10am
As we deliver the petitions for certification to the Lane County Elections office at 275 W10th Ave. in Eugene.
Thanks to your hard work, we have collected more than 15,000 signatures calling for a BAN on the aerial spraying of herbicides by timber corporations!
The amendment requires 11,500 signatures of registered Lane County voters, but public support has been so strong the final tally has far exceeded our goal.
WE NEED A BIG TURNOUT
Help us generate press coverage and send a message to corporations that The People Are United! Bring your friends, family, and neighbors, and we will see you there!
Posted by spiralmom on Sep 14, 2017 in Blog, Events, Local | Comments Off on Big Announcement at this month’s CRA!
Thank you to everyone that came out last month after the eclipse. We had lots of fun and enjoyed everyone’s company. You helped us with a very good cause.
We have some great news this month! We’re ready to take the next big step, are you with us? If you’ve been wanting to get involved, this is the time to do it. We hope to see you Monday!
Posted by spiralmom on Aug 11, 2017 in Blog, Events, Local | Comments Off on Community Rights Action is a Fundraiser for CRLC!
This month we’ll be at Falling Sky Delicatessen on Monday, August 21st.
All day long you can present this flyer and CRLC will get 25% of your purchase! Come on over after the Eclipse and celebrate our community, friends and Community Rights work.
Then @6pm we’ll have our Community Rights Action meeting there at Falling Sky! Bring your friends, have some dinner and drinks, and you’ll be helping raise money for a good cause!
Newport, Oregon: This afternoon the Siletz River Ecosystem filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit Rex Capri and Wakefield Farms, LLC v. Dana W. Jenkins and Lincoln County, and Lincoln County Community Rights. This is the third ecosystem in the United States to take legal action to protect its rights, secured in this case by Measure 21-177, which was adopted by Lincoln County voters in the May 2017 election.
The two plaintiffs – Rex Capri of Newport and Wakefield Farms of Eddyville – claim that their “right” to spray toxic pesticides aerially is greater than the right of the people of Lincoln County to protect public health, clean water, and the rights of ecosystems and natural communities not to be poisoned from the air.
Lincoln County Community Rights (LCCR) was granted intervention in the case on July 2, 2017, after the county made it clear that their interest lies merely in getting an opinion from the court and not in actively defending the law adopted by voters in May.
“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,” says Carol Van Strum, advocate for the intervention of the Siletz Ecosystem. “The Declaration of Independence itself asserts that the laws of nature pre-empt human law. Like the Lorax, I speak for the rights of waters and forests and wildlife to challenge human violations of natural law.”
For the first time, the Siletz ecosystem and all Lincoln County natural communities and ecosystems have secured the right to be free from toxic trespass from aerially sprayed pesticides, a right that is essential to ecosystems’ on-going health, function and survival. That right is stated in Section 2(a) of Measure 21-177 or the Freedom from Aerially Sprayed Pesticides Ordinance of Lincoln County.
The Siletz watershed has lost 46% of its forest in the last 16 years. Huge clear-cuts resulting from strip logging abound in the area and have all been aerially sprayed with pesticides multiple times. Barren of vegetation, the steep terrain causes mudslides and pesticide run-off into the river and smaller feeder creeks, posing a high risk of contaminating a major source of drinking water for Lincoln County, and additionally destroying crucial habitat for salmon and steelhead.
Over the last year, high courts in New Zealand, India, and Colombia have recognized rights for rivers as a means of creating a higher standard of protection for those ecosystems. In Ecuador, the federal constitution has recognized rights of nature since 2008, and two different legal cases have affirmed that rivers have rights and that human activity violates those rights. Restitution penalties go to restoring the ecosystem.
“Protecting nature’s rights through law came from rural, conservative Pennsylvania”, says Kai Huschke of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the public interest law firm representing LCCR and the Siletz Ecosystem. “Decades of environmental destruction in Pennsylvania made it a no brainer for folks there to protect what sustains them at the highest level. Today over three dozen communities in the United States, including Lincoln County, have stepped forward to secure nature’s rights.”
Though the lawsuit continues to move forward, there is no indication as to how soon the court will respond to the motion to intervene by the Siletz River Ecosystem.
ABOUT LINCOLN COUNTY COMMUNITY RIGHTS
Lincoln County Community Rights is a public benefit organization that seeks to educate and empower people to exercise their right of local community self-government in matters that pertain to their fundamental rights, their natural environment, their quality of life, their health and their safety. Given the harms that people and ecosystems suffer from the practice of aerial spraying of industrial forest land with pesticides, the group drafted an ordinance to ban aerial pesticide spraying in Lincoln County, Oregon. Measure 21-177 was adopted by voters in May 2017, making Lincoln County the first county in the United States to ban aerial pesticide spraying through the vote of the people.
Posted by spiralmom on May 24, 2017 in Blog, Local | Comments Off on Press Release: Lincoln County Votes to BAN aerial spraying of pesticides!
Monday, May 23, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Rob Dickinson [email protected]
541-543-5735
In a monumental vote, the people of Lincoln County asserted their right to clean air and water as well as healthy communities and ecosystems. With 6,928 votes, Measure 21-177, Freedom from Aerial Sprayed Pesticides of Lincoln County ordinance, is passing by 27 votes. About one hundred ballots are in question (mostly due to lack of voter signatures), and once those issues are resolved there will be a final ballot count by the end of May.
With 99% of the vote counted, and the results running 51% for the ordinance and 49% against, the remaining votes would have to deviate markedly from current returns to prevent the ordinance, which prohibits the aerial spray of pesticides, from becoming law.
“Though we have our fingers crossed that we will prevail, this campaign has already been a win because we raised not only the health issue of aerial spraying in the public’s consciousness but also the lengths the corporate timber and chemical industry will go to cover up the truth”, says Maria Kraus of Citizens for a Healthy County, proponents of Measure 21-177. “Something has shifted in this community and people really feel like they need a larger role in determining the future of this county.”
Community Rights Lane County is proud to stand in solidarity with the citizens of Lincoln County. We share their mission to 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.
The Lane County Freedom from Aerial Spraying of Herbicides Bill of Rights has gained the support of thousands of Lane County voters and will be on the ballot soon. This Bill of Rights would amend the county charter to make it unlawful for corporations or governmental agencies to engage in the aerial spraying of herbicides from helicopters and other airborne vehicles.
This will ensure that all the people of Lane County possess the right to be free from the chemical trespass that occurs when aerially-applied herbicides inevitably fall, drift, or volatilize and expose people, animals, plants, and waterways to chemicals such as glyphosate, atrazine, and others that have been proven to be harmful to humans and the environment.
A second ballot measure would clearly establish that Lane County residents have an inalienable and fundamental right of local self-government – a common sense measure that, nonetheless, has been stripped away by corporate-backed, state pre-emption laws.
The Lane County Self-Government Charter Amendment acknowledges the right of local communities to prevent corporate harms, like aerial spraying, fracking or oil pipelines, with the same authority secured in the Declaration of Independence, the Oregon Constitution, and the United States Constitution.
Lincoln, Lane, Benton, Coos, and Columbia County have united to support a state constitutional amendment that would secure the right of local community self-government. This would allow all Oregon communities to advance greater protections and rights on the grounds of health, safety, and welfare than the state, and to be able to do so without the interference of corporate claimed “rights”. The local self-governing authority would only allow for advancing protections and rights but not for undermining or taking away such protections and rights as already secured by state or federal governments.
While the final tally won’t be known for another week, Community Rights Lane County congratulates the people of Lincoln County on their success in advancing the rights of nature and protecting their community from the unjust practice of aerial spraying. The Community Rights movement is going strong here in Oregon, and we invite everyone in Lane County to get involved in restoring democracy and protecting our community.
PRESS AVAILABILITY To learn more about the ballot measure in Lincoln County and the charter amendments in Lane County, contact: Rob Dickinson at (541-543-5735) or Ann Kneeland at (541-514-9720).
Join our groundbreaking movement to protect our communities from corporate harm!
About
Community Rights Lane County educates citizens about our rights to local community governance. We believe decisions affecting communities must be made by community residents – the people affected by these decisions and laws. We believe corporate structures should not have privileges that elevate corporate interests above community rights.
