Property Rights/Environment Failed General Election
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PEAPAC Recommends: NO

Violates private property rights; restricts proper dominion/stewardship over creation; statism seeks control over land.

Summary

Bans clear-cutting and imposes strict regulations on timber harvest.

Biblical Reasoning

First, in our reasons to oppose this Measure i s the great importance the Bible places on private property rights… This Measure would greatly restrict legitimate uses of one’s own land. Certainly private land owners can and do, at times, exercise poor stewardship over the land entrusted to their stewardship. But in God’s wisdom most land is to be in the hands of a myriad number of private land-owners. Statism seeks an unbiblical control over all land by the civil state, and this Measure would go a long way to that statist goal.

Second, this Measure would, in our opinion, negatively impact our ability to exercise godly dominion over the earth. We do have a stewardship responsibility to the earth (Gen. 1:26; Ps. 8:4-8; Ps. 24:1). That stewardship responsibility does not mean that we cannot log. We find no such prohibition in the Bible… (Deut. 20:19 and 20 provide specific protection for trees in the midst of warfare.)

Deuteronomy 20:19-20 — “When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege: Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.”

Election Results

19%
81%
YesNo

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the forestry restrictions (81% No).

Full PEAPAC Analysis

PEAPAC Explanation: This Measure is a radical attempt to put enormous restrictions on logging in Oregon. We strongly oppose this Measure, and urge a No vote.

PEAPAC Commentary and Recommendation First, in our reasons to oppose this Measure i s the great importance the Bible places on private property rights. (See “The Bible and Private Property…”) This Measure would greatly restrict legitimate uses of one’s own land. Certainly private land owners can and do, at times, exercise poor stewardship over the land entrusted to their stewardship. But in God’s wisdom most land is to be in the hands of a myriad number of private land-owners. Statism seeks an unbiblical control over all land by the civil state, and this Measure would go a long way to that statist goal.

Second, this Measure would, in our opinion, negatively impact our ability to exercise godly dominion over the earth. We do have a stewardship responsibility to the earth (Gen. 1:26; Ps. 8:4-8; Ps. 24:1). That stewardship responsibility does not mean that we cannot log. We find no such prohibition in the Bible. But just as clearly, we are not free to wantonly destroy or fail to protect trees from devastating blights or other adverse conditions. (Deut. 20:19 and 20 provide specific protection for trees in the midst of warfare.) This Measure would prohibit the use of some compounds that are very valuable to healthy tree production, and should thus be opposed for sound Biblical environmentalist reasons.

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