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From the Stockton Record EPFW asks county to set timber-harvest regulations By Francis P. Garland
- Lode Bureau Chief ARNOLD -- Six California counties have their own set of logging
regulations that supercede those established by the state Board of Forestry, and a
local citizens group is pushing to make Calaveras County No. 7. The group is putting together a timber task force to research the long-term
effects of various timber-harvesting methods, and to draft logging rules
tailor-made for the county. Those rules would need approval by the county Board of Supervisors and
state Board of Forestry before supplanting state laws governing timber harvesting
on private property. Task-force supporters originally hoped the supervisors would appoint the
panel. In September, the supervisors supported it, but in October they rejected it and told supporters they could form their own task force.
The rejection didn't deter the group, however, and co-chairwoman Addie Jacobson said she and others are laying the groundwork for an effort that
could take several months to complete. Jacobson said she hopes to attract a dozen or so people to synthesize the
mountains of information on timber-harvesting methods, their impacts on the
environment and state and county logging regulations. But more people are needed to track down that research, she said. One of the group's tasks will be to research counties that have had Developing local logging rules and getting them approved by the state board won't be easy. Counties must prove to the state there is a special need for local regulations. There is no guarantee the task force will recommend banning clear-cutting despite the fact that the practice came under heavy fire in the Arnold and West Point areas last year, Jacobson said. A major Sierra Pacific Industries clear-cut logging operation in the White Pines area east of Arnold last spring sparked a locally based uprising that resulted in numerous protests -- one of which landed in criminal court. The task force can't go into this exercise with a predetermined outcome, Jacobson said. "We want to do justice to this," she said. Although Calaveras County has a small population base, there are plenty of qualified and knowledgeable people to develop local rules, said Terri Walsh, a botanist serving as a task force co-chairwoman. The group's leaders haven't yet decided if it will ask Sierra Pacific Industries for input, but Jacobson said she'd favor that route. "For the validity and credibility of the document we produce, we need to give them a chance to say their piece." Ed Struffenegger, a Sierra Pacific spokesman, said Wednesday the timber giant, if approached by the task force, would want to be involved. "The amount of involvement depends on where we see this group going in terms of developing recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and how much weight they would carry," he said. Jacobson said the task force has no set timetable to complete its work, but added she's shooting for sometime this spring. If the group develops logging rules, there is no guarantee the county board will support them. Supervisor Paul Stein, for one, said he would not support them because the state forestry board's regulations are sufficient. "The Sierra Nevada is an expansive range of property," he said. "To micromanage a subhabitat of that resource is wrong. If you are going to change the law, it should be done at the (state) level." Board Chairwoman Lucy Thein said the board needs to be open-minded.
"If they come up with a plan and some direction," she said, "we need to
listen to them. That's what we asked them to do -- go forth and find some
answers." * To reach Lode Bureau Chief Francis P.
Garland, phone 736-9554 or e-mail A Forest Is More Than Trees By Verna Johnston, Camp Connell Naturalist and author of two University of California Press books: California Forests and Woodlands (1994) Sierra Nevada, The Naturalist’s Companion, Revised Edition (1998).
In his recent article, “Clear-cutting can be a healthy forest practice if controlled properly,” County Supervisor Paul Stein argues for a continuation of this practice and cites a University of California site, The Blodgett Forest Research Station near Georgetown, to support his view. I commend Supervisor Stein for his willingness to look at the practice of clear-cutting through the lens of scientific research. But his article presents generalizations and conclusions with no specific date to back them up. He does not pinpoint a single study nor provide any hard evidence that shows clear-cutting to be healthy for a forest. His claim that “The UC study...provides irrefutable evidence that clear-cutting can be a healthy forest practice when completed under properly controlled conditions” does not hold up. The web site for Blodgett <www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ forestry/blodgett.html> lists more than a hundred studies. Which study is he referring to? As for “irrefutable evidence,” we know that any scientific investigation of a complex topic such as forest practices is ongoing, much as research in medicine is ongoing. Today’s “truth” may turn out to be tomorrow’s misconception. One of the reasons for a proposed two-year- state-wide moratorium on clear-cutting, which Supervisor Stein opposed, was to give the community an opportunity to collect and examine all current research on this issue. A single study, even one conducted under the aegis of the University of California, is unlikely to provide us with “truth” or ”irrefutable evidence” in this matter. Supervisor Stein is talking timber, not forest, when he praises clear-cutting as a means of “enhancing the production capacity of the ground." "Production capacity,” a phrase borrowed from industry, suggests that the success of forest management can be measured solely by the two-by-fours a forest produces. He further asserts that the ”yield from future regeneration of the forest is more than double” after clear-cutting. A dubious premise. If “yield” means only board feet of lumber harvested from an acre of forest, and that’s the only thing we value in a forest, then the clear-cutting bias can be seen for what it really is -the bottom line-profit from wood. But a forest is much more than trees. The ecosystem we call a forest encompasses all the diversity of life with it-in addition to the trees, the shrubs and fallen logs that shelter and feed wildlife, the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, the wildflowers, the fungi, the incredible array of microorganisms in the earth, the very soil itself. And all of these inter-relate in ways we have only begun to discover to keep a forest healthy. Supervisor Stein’s claim of “direct evidence that water quality can be maintained a a high level and wildlife diversity is actually enhanced” when clear-cutting is practiced needs challenging. What is this direct evidence? Clear-cut slopes usually lead to surface water runoff, erosion and mud slides once the tree and shrub roots and fallen leaves that blanketed the ground are gone. Diversity of wildlife usually is greatest amid a mosaic of habitats, not in the plantation that follows most clear cuts. Supervisor Stein praises clear-cutting as a way to improve on nature, to go beyond what natural selection has achieved over thousands of years. This will take some doing! Instead of wiping out the forest and its wildlife in one dire clear cut, why not selectively harvest some trees at intervals, keeping the forest a continuously going concern both ecologically, anesthetically, and economically? Why such a hurry to devastate our green world?
Verna Johnston, Camp Connell Naturalist and author of two University of California Press books: California Forests and Woodlands (1994) and Sierra Nevada, The Naturalist’s Companion, Revised Edition (1998).
Sacramento Bee October
3rd, 2000 From Shasta to Calaveras counties, unlikely activists are gathering In the past, timber interests have tried to dismiss protesters as radicals who are out of touch with average Californians. Often they were right. But as they get older and more restless, average Californians are increasingly moving to the mountains, establishing businesses and settling into subdivisions. Many of them now worry that "their" mountains will be scalped. In Nevada County, where SPI plans clear-cuts near two forks of the Yuba River, businesses and county supervisors have urged state lawmakers to establish logging rules "that more accurately reflect the changing values of communities." In the Calaveras County town of Arnold, residents have held rallies,
gathered petitions and stitched a quilt to depict the 49 tracts SPI plans to log in the area, including one planned near a popular state park. Some of
the oppositions include Realtors, shop owners and owners of a local country
club. SPI officials say their opposition consists of "a relatively small number of
people making a lot of noise," but others disagree. "This issue has galvanized people like nothing I've ever seen," said
Calaveras County Supervisor Merita Callaway, a retired PG&E manager. The changing SierraSierra Pacific Industries, the state's largest private landowner, is increasingly using clear-cuts -- leveling all trees on a plot -- to harvest timber on its property. Those logging plans are clashing with the changing communities of the central Sierra Nevada, which are becoming increasingly dependant on tourism and affluent retirees, and less reliant on logging and wood products. Acres of Sierra Pacific Industries timber approved for clear-cutting
statewide: Timber harvests In billions of board feet: With elevation and population of about 4,000, Arnold is an old sawmill town
that typifies the transitions of the Sierras. Weathered bait shops stand side by side with tony galleries and New Age shops, which try to lure
customers with promises of "whole life therapies." Many residents say they can live with selective logging
practiced by the previous owner of Arnold's surrounding timber lands, Georgia Pacific.
But about five years ago, SPI started buying Georgia Pacific's lands and introduced a new style of forestry. Sierra Pacific officials acknowledge their clear-cuts aren't pretty. But
they say the cuts are necessary to clear out scraggly, previously logged forests, so SPI can replant and grow millions of faster-growing pines.
Tim Feller, SPI's district manager in Grass Valley, says Californians continue to have a big appetite for wood. He also says the company has been careful to comply with California's relatively strict logging rules, which
limit clear-cuts to 20 acres - 40 acres with exceptions. "A lot of this is coming from the professional forest activist groups," said
Feller. "They shut down logging on the national forests, and now they are Based in Anderson, just south of Redding, SPI was once a little-known timber company. But over the past decade, the family-run firm has gone on a buying spree, led by 71-year-old Archie Aldis "Red" Emmerson. Now it is one of the nation's largest private landowners, owning 1 of 3 acres of timber industry land in California. In a 100-year plan unveiled this year, Emmerson announced that SPI plans to
clear-cut 70 percent of its 1.5 million acres. In July, Emmerson held a party for Gov. Gray Davis that raised $129,000 for the governor's re-election campaign. The company also has a hand in setting timber policy through a seat on the state Board of Forestry. Employees credit Emmerson for securing a sustainable timber base at a time when logging is decreasing on public lands. "Red is an amazing guy," said Ed Bond, SPI's manager of human resources. "He recognized early on that the Forest Service was not interested in expanding its timber sales ... So he begged and borrowed to buy the land we now own." For SPI and many state officials, "own" is the operative word. Unlike
previous battles over public timber sales, SPI is now clear-cutting on its own land, not national forests. It's a point that resonates with SPI
supporters, such as Lee Pendleton, a 63-year-old retired accountant from Grass Valley. Having moved from Los Angeles to Nevada County six years ago, Pendleton says
he is sick of "damn liberals" decrying clear-cuts, even as they build wood decks on their houses "and drive around in their big polluting cars."
Pendleton says SPI should do what it wants with its land, as long as it stays within the law.
"I'm against what the timber companies did in Washington, where you could drive 20 miles from Yakima or Seattle, and see completely denuded Others see it differently. A few weeks ago, Mike Toney walked out of his house near Cedar Ridge, in rural Nevada County, and drove down a bumpy dirt road. Within minutes, he came to a steep hillside of charred stumps and barren ground, where thistles competed with pine seedlings. He got back in his truck, drove a quarter mile down the road and came across another SPI clear-cut. "This is what they call sustainable forestry," said Toney, looking at acres of stumps and seedlings. "I guarantee you, the slope of this hill is more than 50 percent." Under California's 256-page book of forest practice rules, such clear-cuts
are legal. The rules prevent property owners from logging trees within a certain distance of fish-bearing streams, but don't limit the steepness of
hillsides where clear-cuts can occur. To get a handle on the
consequences, the Sierra Club and other groups urged
state lawmakers this summer to suspend clear-cutting statewide for two years, while a commission studies alternative logging practices. Asked what kind of logging method he preferred, Prest cracked a smile.
"I like selective logging," he said, wiping his brow. "There's more shade." By MARK HERTSGAARD On
Wednesday, prosecutors in Russia will try to reopen an espionage Halfway
around the world, in Mexico, no less absurd a dilemma Environmentalism
can be dangerous. While activists in wealthy Nikitin's
troubles with the authorities began in 1996, when he Nikitin
spent 10 months in jail and three years fighting his way The
Bellona Foundation, a group based in Montiel's
case has received media attention, and dozens of members of Russia
and Mexico have each spent 70 years under the thumb of Mark
Hertsgaard Is the Author, Most Recently, of "Earth Odyssey:
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