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Camilla Mortensen is the longtime local editor of Eugene Weekly, the area’s alternative newspaper. The paper, which has been in print since 1982 (originally as What’s Happening) continues to print more than 27,000 copies a week in addition to its popular email newsletters and website. Camilla has a masters degree in folklore and mythology from UCLA and a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Oregon. She has been a reporter and editor at EW since 2007 and teaches journalism at the UO in the mornings before heading to the Weekly’s office. She also teaches newswriting at Lane Community College and advises The Torch student newspaper.
Biofuels, wildlife preserves, a community’s access to clean water: These are the kinds of issues we think of as social and environmental positives, but these same seemingly good things can be wielded like clubs and injure Africa’s indigenous populations, who are often forced off their ancestral lands by governments and multinational corporations. Continue reading
Insect control made awesome. Continue reading
Lane County plans an animal services update at its Tuesday Feb. 26 meeting: Continue reading
The Social Justice Real Justice conference at the UO Feb. 14-17 and the culminating rally against fossil fuels on the last day of the gathering opened the doors to people who may not have thought in the past that they had a seat at the table, says Caleen Sisk, chief of the Winnemum Wintu and a speaker at the SJRJ conference. The conference brought local activists and those new to activism together with internationally recognized thinkers and activists such as Cornell West and Winona LaDuke as well as well known voices of the alternative media. Continue reading
The Trapper Timber Sale in the Willamette National Forest just won’t go away, Josh Laughlin of Cascadia Wildlands says. “This is a like a low-grade horror movie where the zombie keeps coming back from the grave.” The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is taking comments on the old-growth logging proposal’s latest iteration, which reduces the cutting from 149 acres to 44 acres and the proposed acres to be burned from 92 to 36, according to a press release from McKenzie River Ranger District. Continue reading
The McKenzie River, the source of Eugene’s drinking water, would be protected from destructive suction-dredge mining and other threats if a bill introduced to the Oregon Legislature this week is passed. The bill, which adds rivers and tributaries to Oregon’s Scenic Waterways System, would also protect rivers such as the Chetco, Rogue and Illinois, among others. Continue reading
A big ruling for the Western Environmental Law Center: WELC, which has offices in Eugene, succesfully argued the that the Bureau of Land Mangement can't keep secret the names of corporations that want to lease public lands to drill for oil and gas. “Every community has the right to know what corporations are seeking to drill on public lands near their homes and where they recreate,” WELC attorney Kyle Tisde said. The press release is below. Continue reading
A panel made up of cash-strapped county leaders, timber executives and environmentalists couldn’t reach consensus on dealing with logging on 2.6 million acres of western Oregon’s federal forestland, but it drew up some options to send to Congress anyway. “The governor tried to spin the report that he sent to Congress as the findings of the panel,” says Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild, calling the proposal “a summary of the bad ideas that have been put out over the last several years.” Continue reading
The Lane County Board of Commissioners voted on Feb. 12 to send a proposed jail tax to the voters in May. The vote was 4-1, with progressive Commissioner Pete Sorenson as the lone “no” vote and conservative Commissioners Sid Leiken, Jay Bozievich, Pat Farr and Faye Stewart voting in favor. Continue reading
The roster of speakers for the UO’s Social Justice Real Justice (SJRJ) conference reads like an all-star cast of activists, journalists and thinkers. From national luminaries, including Cornell West and Winona LaDuke, to activists fomenting change on a local level such as Eugene’s Michael Carrigan and Jason “Pleado” Wellman, the Feb. 14-17 conference is loaded with issues, causes and ideas. Continue reading