REDWOOD NEEDLES
REDWOOD NEEDLESPresented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, The REDWOOD NEEDLES
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By Kathy Bailey, Redwood Chapter
Just a few hours north of San Francisco stands one of the healthiest large forests on the Northern California coast. Its 50,000 (fifty thousand) acres contain old growth trees, mature second growth, salmon and steelhead streams, prehistoric archaeological sites, dozens of sensitive, threatened and endangered species and miles of just plain beautiful country.
But these days, it seems, practically anywhere there's a forest there's the need for an organization to save it. In this case it's the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Forest (www.jacksonforest.com). Jackson Forest needs to be saved because every year tens of thousands of trees, an average of 28 million board feet, are cut mainly from undisturbed groves, some as old as 100 years. Time for another buyout? No. This is not Headwaters. You and I already own Jackson Forest. By far California's largest state-owned forest, Jackson reaches almost 20 miles from the Mendocino coast to the ridges of the inland valleys almost to Highway 101.
"We are working urgently to let people know what is happening to Jackson State," said Steve Antler, Director of the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest. "Quick action is needed to save this forest. The California Department of Forestry (CDF), which manages Jackson State, both writes and approves timber harvest plans for the forest. They are logging the biggest, oldest, second-growth trees first. Current logging plans will cut into 1000 acres of forest that haven't been logged for 80 to 100 years, destroying the delicate balance of trees, ferns, shade and light that it has taken so long to reestablish."
The goal of the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Forest is to return the 50,000 acres of public forest to a healthy and renewing state. To assist this goal, the Campaign filed a lawsuit in June to halt further logging in the forest until the management plan, last updated in 1983, is revised. Campaign organizers believe that the public wants a future for public forests very different from the heavy logging program set out in 1983. Also, said Antler, "Californians are likely to see that it makes no sense to cut publicly owned redwoods while at the same time we're paying hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to save redwoods at Headwaters Forest."
Located near the towns of Fort Bragg and Mendocino and enveloping their watersheds, Jackson Forest is criss-crossed with a hundred miles of streams, including tributaries to the Noyo River and Big River. It is a trove of diversity, with habitat for creatures ranging from the yellow-cheeked chipmunk to the spotted owl, some abundant, some declining. But one has only to walk a short way on the public trails to find debris from recent logging, scars from clearcuts, and invasion by exotic pest species such as gorse, pampas grass and eucalyptus.
The Campaign's vision is of a forest that gets better year by year, becomes more and more beautiful, and more and more open to hiking, biking and exploration of its improving wonders. The Campaign urges all to please join in.
What you can do:
Learn more about Jackson State Forest by visiting the Campaign's website (www.jacksonforest.com). Call the Campaign at 707-964-5800 if you are interested in seeing the forest first-hand. Guided tours are available to witness both the wonders and the devastation of Jackson. Rather than continuing to cut its magnificent old redwoods and firs, it is time to start treating Jackson State Forest as the public treasure that it is.
Campaign to Restore Jackson State Forest
707.964.5800 fax: 707.964.6202 website: www.jacksonforest.com
email: campaign@jacksonforest.com PO Box 1789, Fort Bragg CA 95437
Please write or call Senator Wesley Chesbro, Room 3070, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814 (707)576-2771 and Assemblymember Virginia Strom-Martin Room 4098, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, (707)576-2526. Tell them to ask the California Department of Forestry (CDF) to immediately stop logging or submitting Timber Harvest Plans (THPs) for any part of Jackson State that has not been logged in the last 70 years. These sections of the forest contain maturing, old second growth redwoods and firs that serve as habitat for birds and wildlife, help keep water clean for salmon and steelhead, and are prime areas for recreation. [These are also the areas targeted by CDF's proposed Timber Harvest Plans.]
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