This one’s well worth your eyes and ears this morning:

“Nearly thirty years ago, the small town of Oakridge, Oregon lost its last sawmill. And almost overnight, what was once a booming logging town lost the brunt of its economic affluence to the newly listed as endangered northern spotted owl – a cryptic species which requires large swaths of intact old-growth forest to persist. With its need for dense, contiguous stands of forest, the northern spotted owl had thrown a rather large stick in the spokes of a thriving logging industry – one that likely would have logged every square inch of old-growth forest left in the Willamette Valley if it had been left unchecked. As protections for the struggling species continued to ramp up, Oakridge and the surrounding towns continued to decline. People fled as jobs vanished, and local businesses shut down. For decades poverty and unemployment ran rampant, and became an issue many thought would leave Oakridge down and out for good.”

Check out more at Tillak!