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An ecological disaster in northern BC
Timber companies are clear-cutting a rare ecosystem in northern British Columbia, and the devastation is heart-breaking. The inland rainforest is one of the world’s only temperate interior rainforests, and it’s home to thousand-year-old cedars and 2,400 other unique species including bears, wolverine, and the threatened mountain caribou.
In an in-depth feature now online at Cascadia Magazine, photojournalist Daniel Mesec reports on this tragic environmental disaster and a local environmental group, Conservation North, that’s fighting to get these old-growth forests protected.
Watch the short video, read the full article, and then take action here.
Thanks to Geos Institute for a grant that made this project possible. And if you appreciate reporting like this on issues important to the Cascadia bioregion, please consider becoming a recurring contributor to Cascadia Magazine. We can’t do this without your help.
WA governor Jay Inslee ends US presidential bid
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow this evening, Washington governor Jay Inslee, an advocate for climate action, announced he’s ending his campaign for US president after disappointing polling numbers.
Prominent Spokane Republicans call for extremist legislator to resign
The Spokesman Review reports that Spokane mayor David Condon and police chief Craig Meidl–both Republicans–have called for Spokane-area legislator Matt Shea to resign after it came to light that the extreme right-wing politician spied on local officials, supported an armed biblical militia group, and supports creating a 51st state based on Christian ideology. This comes as a report at VICE notes that the neo-Nazi group The Base is looking to establish a military-style training camp in Washington. For more on extreme right-wing groups active in Cascadia, listen to journalist Leah Sottile’s Bundyville podcast.
A phone app that could warn you before Cascadia megaquake
KUOW looks at a new phone app being developed by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network that will be able send alerts to phone subscribers in Oregon and Washington a few seconds or up to a minute before a mega-quake hits, buying people precious time to take cover and prepare. A similar system is in development for Vancouver Island.
Commercial BC salmon fishers ask for disaster declaration
In what is looking like a record low season for return of sockeye salmon to the Fraser River, struggling British Columbia commercial fishers are asking for disaster assistance from the federal and provincial government. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles Times investigation finds the US government suppressed a report that found new irrigation plans would have in impact on Northern California salmon runs and endangered Salish Sea orcas dependent on them.
A Cascadia connection to the search for Amelia Earhart’s plane
NW News Network profiles Jeff Glickman, a photo archeologist in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, who is instrumental in the promising new search for Amelia Earhart’s vanished airplane. Robert Ballard, known for finding the Titanic, is now undertaking an expedition to the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro to find wreckage of the pioneering aviator’s plane. The evidence? A 1937 archival photo that Glickman analyzed seems to show a piece the Lockheed aircraft’s landing gear.
Poetry by Matsuki Masutani
At Geist, you’ll find “Marriage Poems,” by Matsuki Matsutani, who’s originally from Japan and now lives on Denman Island BC. It’s a deceptively simple series of observations on life with his wife as an expat:
“I say “We,”
meaning my wife and I.
She also says, “We,”
meaning her and me.
Sometimes they are significantly different.”
Read the complete poems here.
That’s your curated selection of news, environmental reporting, arts, and culture from across the Cascadia bioregion. Thanks for reading. To our new subscribers, our apologies for a delay in receiving this newsletter–a glitch on our website prevented some of you from being subscribed, but now you are. We hope you enjoy it! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Matt Shea in a video posted on YouTube