Rural regions will gain influence on Oregon's wildlife panel

These water-panel regions will be the basis for appointments.

In Oregon, a state with a strong rural-urban divide, rural areas will get a larger voice in wildlife policy now that members of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission will be appointed from watershed areas, not one each from congressional districts and the regions east and west of the Cascade Mountains, the state's main politcal divide.

Northwest Oregon, the state's main urbanized area, will still have control of the commission but won't be so dominant, reports Mateusz Perkowski of Capital Press: "Members will be chosen from among five river basins," but two basins "that include the populous Willamette Valley will each get two representatives, while the remaining three basins will each get one representative."

Oregon's six congressional districts

The much-amended bill passed the House unanimously and the Senate 23-2. "Tribes, farmers, ranchers and hunters claimed urban representatives disproportionately steer fish and wildlife policies, which should instead take into account expertise from across the state’s varied geography," Perkowski reports. The river basins will be those defined by the law for the state Water Resources Commission.

Lauren Poor, the Oregon Farm Bureau’s vice president of government and legal affairs, told Perkowski, “Consideration of how wildlife policies affect rural communities is something we feel has been lacking under the current commission structure.” If so, that won't change right away, since current commission members will be allowed to serve out their terms. But "giving southern and eastern Oregon greater influence on decisions, such as the looming update of the state’s wolf management plan . . . is a step in the right direction, she said."