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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Redwoods:
Protection of 'Hole in Headwaters' Urged
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation
Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
06/29/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Efforts
to save Headwaters Forest's magnificent old-growth redwoods
and
surrounding ecosystem remain incomplete.
This recently
established
$480 million redwoods sanctuary is threatened by intensive
industrial
forest management--a "Hole in Headwaters"--happening on
adjacent
lands. Preserving any particular forest
stand depends upon
maintaining
a healthy and intact landscape context.
The long-term
survival
of this magnificent redwood cathedral depends upon expanding
buffers
of regenerating redwood-dominated ecosystems.
The
Environmental
Protection Information Center spearheads this campaign
at
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/ .
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1
Title: Protection of 'Hole in Headwaters'
Urged
Source: Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
Date: June 28, 2000
By: ERIC BAILEY, Times Staff Writer
Forestry:
Activists will ask court today to block logging plans for a
thousand-acre
stand of unprotected trees surrounded by a newly created
redwoods
sanctuary.
When a
$480-million deal was struck last year to spare the majestic
old-growth
redwoods of the Headwaters Forest near Eureka, an end to
one of
California's most contentious timber wars seemed at hand.
But the
fight isn't over.
Logging
foes are now pushing to save what they've dubbed the "Hole in
the
Headwaters," a thousand-acre stand of unprotected trees surrounded
by the
newly created wilderness sanctuary.
Today
they go to court in Eureka to ask a judge to block plans by
Pacific
Lumber Co. to log the area. Should the ruling--expected later
this
week--go against them, forest activists have vowed to launch a
new
round of mass demonstrations, tree-sitter protests and other acts
of
civil disobedience.
Already,
activists have cranked up the rhetorical volume, suggesting
that
skulduggery is afoot in Sacramento. They contend that Gov. Gray
Davis
pushed forestry officials to rubber-stamp Pacific Lumber's plans
instead
of letting the public weigh in, an allegation the governor's
office
rejects.
The
renewed tussle has left officials at Pacific Lumber and the state
Department
of Forestry bewildered. Most had hoped that wrangling over
Headwaters
would end after a deal in March 1999 ushered in public
purchase
of about 10,000 acres of old-growth forest, putting the
ancient
trees forever off limits to logging.
But as
part of that agreement, Pacific Lumber got a swath of second-
growth
redwoods--most of them 60 to 80 years old--at the far northern
edge of
the Headwaters preserve.
Logging
foes have attacked this arrangement as an unacceptable
compromise
that would denude hillsides and send silt cascading down
into
the Elk River, a fragile spawning ground for endangered salmon.
The
Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Information Center
filed
suit after Pacific Lumber got Forestry Department permission
earlier
this year to use helicopters to haul timber off 595 acres of
the
property.
The
activists contend that noise from the huge, twin-rotor choppers
will
spoil the wilderness experience for visitors to the protected
forest,
which is separated by a ridgeline from the area slated for
logging.
"They're loud--it's hard to overemphasize how loud they are,"
said
Paul Mason, executive director of the environmental center. "It's
this
phenomenally deep, rumbling roar."
Pacific
Lumber officials counter that helicopter logging is far easier
on the
environment than tractors and other heavy equipment that can
scar
hillsides--and still make noise.
"We're
using the most environmentally sensitive method of logging, and
it's
still not good enough," said Mary Bullwinkel, a company
spokeswoman.
"For some people, whatever we do won't be good enough."
As
concessions to state regulators, Pacific Lumber also decreased the
acreage
it proposed to log by 15%, agreed to restore damaged swaths of
forest
and promised to avoid logging when roads are wet and
susceptible
to erosion.
Environmentalists
say such steps are fine but fall short. They note
that
Pacific Lumber agreed as part of last year's deal to abide by the
nation's
strictest logging rules on its 200,000 acres in California.
Logging
foes believe the company should live by those tougher
restrictions--such
as a ban on timber cutting near seasonal streams--
in the
Headwaters property as well.
Pacific
Lumber officials counter that the rules don't apply because
the
property inside Headwaters was approved for harvest before last
year's
deal was struck.
State
forestry officials agreed. Although the agency's advisory board
recommended
that public hearings be held, department officials
approved
Pacific Lumber's altered plans after a cursory review earlier
this
year.
Environmentalists
suspect that politics played a role in the fast-
track
decision, suggesting that the governor--an unabashed friend of
big
business--pushed forestry officials to avoid any public hearing on
Pacific
Lumber's altered logging plans.
"The
department just rubber-stamped the changes," Mason said,
"apparently
at the direction of the governor."
Louis
Blumberg, a Forestry Department spokesman, said Davis had no
involvement
in the agency's decision-making process. Instead, he said,
the
department viewed Pacific Lumber's switch to helicopter logging
and
other changes as an improvement that helped the environment and
didn't
warrant public debate.
Mason
sees a ready remedy: Buy the Hole and make it part of
Headwaters.
"The
public spent a boatload of money on the reserve," Mason said. "If
we
spend a little more, we could protect this investment forever."
ITEM #2
Title: Pacific Lumber, environmentalists clash over
unprotected
acreage
Source: Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
Date: June 28, 2000
HEADWATERS
FOREST RESERVE, California (AP) -- It took years of
haggling
and $480 million to create the nation's newest wilderness
sanctuary,
a forest so serene that the sound of a hummingbird can
startle
the occasional hiker.
That
silence could be shattered by huge Chinook helicopters hauling
away
Douglas firs and redwoods if the Pacific Lumber Co. wins a court
battle
Wednesday over the so-called "Hole in the Headwaters."
A
lawsuit to block logging in the preserve's lone remaining uprotected
area
was filed by the Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection
Information
Center. They accuse the administration of Gov. Gray Davis
of failing
to allow public comment on the plan.
"The
public and the environment will be irreparably harmed," the
groups
argue in the lawsuit, filed in March. "Helicopters will
trespass
upon the reserve's promise of awe and solitude, ruining the
experience
of anyone unfortunate enough to enter."
Pacific
Lumber is ready to begin logging if the judge rejects the
environmentalists'
injunction request. Earth First!, whose members
have
chained themselves to tractors and trees, is already training
volunteers
for a long summer of civil disobedience.
Plan
approved by Department of Forestry
The
decision could have huge implications in the region, where
Humboldt
State University in Arcata is one of the few major employers
outside
the timber industry, and tourism hasn't begun to replace the
kind of
salaries loggers get.
The plot
in question is just within the northern edge of the 7,400-
acre
preserve created more than a year ago 250 miles north of San
Francisco.
Pacific
Lumber acquired the tract from Elk River Timber Co., which had
state
approval to log the area using roads that have since become
restricted
by the Headwaters agreement. Four months ago, Pacific
Lumber
asked to use helicopters instead.
Company
spokeswoman Mary
Bullwinkel
said the project covers 595 acres and includes buffer zones
around
streams to protect several protected salmon species. Pacific
Lumber
said its own biologists conducted surveys to ensure logging
would
not encroach on habitat of the spotted owl.
The
California Department of Forestry approved the helicopter plan
within
two days of receiving the request from Pacific Lumber "because
all the
changes improved the environmental impact," CDF lawyer Louis
Blumberg
said.
Logging
in the area was always part of the deal, he said.
The
environmental groups say politics is at work and that Davis told
his
department to rush the approval.
"This
is complete supposition on their part," responded Stanley Young,
spokesman
for the state Resources Agency, which oversees the Forestry
Department.
"The governor had nothing to do with this decision."
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