Forestry

The Copper Top timber harvest plan (THP 1-24-00103-MEN) was filed by Gualala Redwood Timber (GRT) on July 17, 2024. The plan calls for logging redwood and Douglas fir trees in 163 acres adjacent to Old Stage Road, just north of the Gualala Arts Center. Agency review team, chaired by CalFire, recommended plan approval on September 5, 2024. Public comment period …

The Steam Donkey timber harvest plan (THP 1-23-00099-SON) was filed by Gualala Redwood Timber (GRT) on July 31, 2023. The plan calls for logging redwood and Douglas fir trees in 824 acres adjacent to The Sea Ranch. CalFire rejected the initial filing on August 10, after reviewers (from CalFire, Fish & Wildlife, Water Quality and CA. Geological Survey) identified 65 …

A presentation by Ethan Arutunian in February, 2024, hosted by the Forest Protection Forum of Sierra Club California’s Stop Clearcutting CA Campaign. In this talk, Ethan Arutunian describes how a grassroots campaign by Friends of the South Fork Gualala (FSFG) completely stopped the 283-acre Bootleg timber harvest plan (THP) in the Gualala River watershed. They defeated CALFIRE, and a wealthy …

For Immediate Release, August 5, 2023 Contact: Ethan Arutunian, Friends of the South Fork Gualala, info@fosfg.org, 206-353-3487Daniel Garrett-Steinman, Garrett-Steinman Law Offices, dan@dpgslaw.com, 415-996-7823   SANTA ROSA, CA – In a legal victory for the Gualala River watershed, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Bradford DeMeo has ordered the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to annul and set …

A local redwood logging project disturbs the quiet — and why these forests deserve better. by Robin Applegarth, Dec. 4, 2022 Reprinted by permission Coastal redwoods treetops, photo by Robin Applegarth SOMETIMES ONE HAS TO BEAR WITNESS when a situation seems impossible to stop.   So, I found myself sitting on a stump in the forest this month, listening to the …

by Tom Wheeler, Executive Director Environmental Protection Information Center July 18, 2022 EPIC has unearthed documents through a Public Records Act request that show that CAL FIRE has been secretly editing questions submitted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on timber harvest plans submitted for the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, which is managed by CAL FIRE, as well …

By J. Stephen McLaughlin November 19, 2021 © Copyright 2021 Independent Coast Observer Reprinted with permission www.mendonoma.com The local environmental advocacy group Friends of Gualala River on Monday notified federal and state agencies, in addition to Gualala Redwood Timber, LLC, that it intends to sue in U.S. District Court to block the so-called “Little” Timber Harvest Plan, alleging violations of …

by Sonia Waraich, The Mendocino Voice, November 16, 2021 Reprinted by permission Jackson Demonstration State Forest photographed on the morning of Sept. 29, 2021. Photo by Sonia Waraich MENDOCINO Co., 11/16/21 — A debate has been raging for the past few months on whether Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) is being managed in the best way possible in the face …

Are human logging actions affecting the adaptation and survival of this ancient species? by Robin Applegarth, Nov. 7, 2021 Reprinted by permission Redwoods Path, Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash OUR CAR BUMPED DOWN A DIRT ROAD, descending into a canyon of tall redwood trees. The sunlight lessened as deep forest and the canyon walls rose up around us. Thousands …

A letter to California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot, from the Environmental Protection Information Center, October 14, 2021 Dear Secretary Crowfoot, It is imperative that the State of California move to immediately calm tensions in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. The past week has seen multiple threats directed at forest activists and the presence of private paramilitary security within …

Forests of the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska are critical to addressing the climate crisis, but they’re under threat of logging. April 19, 2021 Written and designed by Madeline Cowen & Chandra LeGue As our world faces the ongoing climate crisis, one of the most important things we can do is protect and restore forests in the Pacific Northwest and …

After years of trying, and succeeding, to stop the Timber Harvest Plan (THP) called “Dogwood,” the fight was lost this past week. Those of us who have put so much effort into stopping this terrible logging plan are so very disheartened by this. We mourn the loss of the Redwood trees, the damage to the floodplain of the river, and …

by Matt Simmons, August 3, 2021 Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) reprinted with permission Two weeks ago, we [EPIC] reported a troubling trend in timber harvest plan approvals. CalFire has been approving THPs prior to conducting necessary biological surveys for endangered, rare, and sensitive species. This practice prevents the public and state agencies like the Department of Fish and Wildlife …

by Chris McManus Independent Coast Observer July 23, 2021 Reprinted by permission © Copyright Independent Coast Observer, Inc. www.mendonoma.com As part of its Salmonid and Watershed Restoration Project, Friends of Gualala River has launched a new lawsuit, this one focused on the Gualala River’s North Fork in the watershed’s northwest corner, the only hydrologic area of the watershed that is …

by Tempra BoardThe Sea Ranch Soundings • Summer 2021 © copyright 2021, The Sea Ranch Associationreprinted with permission Friends of Gualala River (FoGR), our area’s grassroots watershed protection non-profit, continues its hard work defending the Gualala River from the threat of floodplain logging. On May 20, FoGR filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt logging of Gualala Redwood Timber …

Friends of Gualala River and Center for Biological Diversity filed an Endangered Species Act lawsuit in September, 2020, against the Gualala Redwood Timber Company, to protect threatened and endangered fish, birds and frogs from the proposed “Dogwood” logging project which targets 100-year-old redwood trees in the floodplain of the Gualala River. The following are excerpts from our Motion for a …

Historically, the Gualala River was home to abundant coho salmon and steelhead trout populations that numbered in the tens of thousands. Today, the endangered coho salmon are all but gone and threatened steelhead are struggling to survive in the home river they evolved and adapted to over millennia. The dwindling salmonid population is a critical indicator of the declining health …

Excerpted from “The effects of timber harvest versus forest protection in JDSF [Jackson Demonstration State Forest]” by John O’Brien, PhD. Dr. O’Brien has a doctorate in climate and atmospheric science from U.C. Santa Cruz, and lives adjacent to JDSF, but his comments on logging and climate change are relevant to similar redwood forest lands on the northern California Coast. Executive …

Compiled by Alan Levine   California Forest Management Practices And The Conservation Of Anadromous Salmonids https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=30710 by Stephen Swales Ph.D., Fisheries Branch, Wildlife and Fisheries Division, California Department of Fish and Game, November, 2010 In California and the Pacific Northwest, widespread declines in the abundance of anadromous salmonids over the last several decades have been attributed largely to the loss …

The Case for Establishing an Independent Forest and Resource Management Agency to Secure Healthy Forests in California Excerpted from: Richard A. Wilson and Sharon E. Duggan, WHY IT IS TIME FOR A “CALFIRE DIVORCE”: THE CASE FOR ESTABLISHING AN INDEPENDENT FOREST AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AGENCY TO SECURE HEALTHY FORESTS IN CALIFORNIA, 12 Golden Gate U. Envtl. L.J. 1 (2020). https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/gguelj/vol12/iss1/2 …