Divided into Stands, Together they Fall: A critical analysis of salvage logging in the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest

This research takes elements of the scholarship on environmentalism -- political theory and ethical philosophy -- and evaluates them together in the context of the conflict over salvage logging in the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon. I tell the story of the conflict through a history of land and fire management in the U.S. Through a closely detailed account of the anti-salvage logging activism, I explore the gap between ethics and political responsibility and how they unfold in this battle against deforestation. This research offers an in-depth look into how the environmental movement struggled internally to identify goals, and to challenge powerful economic and political systems that prevent significant change from taking root. I argue that the environmental movement needs a theory of environmental responsibility as a framework by which to better understand the strategies and complexities of environmental conflicts. The task of environmental responsibility is to confront the challenge of how to make the environmental movement responsive to the political and economic conditions that produce conflicts, and how environmentalism can overcome the limits of liberal individualism. As forests continue to dwindle, and as activists across the nation mobilize to stop the Keystone XL pipeline that will carry Canadian tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, the future of environmentalism has never been more critical.