URGENT!

Forests Forever advances reform measures to save California's forests

Send a message
to Gov. Jerry Brown
that Californians demand changes in the way their state's forests are managed

California’s forests can’t take the assault anymore

Clearcutting; herbicide spraying; global warming; hotter, faster fires; lax logging rules; greedy timber executives; complacent bureaucrats: all have hammered the forests into submission.
 
The woodlands desperately need help in recovering.
 
To begin to restore the forests’ vigor, Forests Forever has rolled out the most extensive forestry-reform effort in its 22-year history: the California Statewide Sustainable Forests and Watersheds Campaign.

The challenge now is to get the word out. We need your help convincing California Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislators of the dire need for change.

TALKING POINTS:

• Give the DOC a chance
Without new forestry management, California’s forests will continue to suffer. At present the lead agency charged with overseeing logging is the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF).
 
But CDF’s chief role is firefighting, not resource management.
 
We propose legislation to put in charge the agency whose profile most closely fits the job responsibilities, the state’s Department of Conservation (DOC) .

Timber harvesting falls directly within DOC’s jurisdictional mandate. The agency
provides services and information that promote environmental health, economic vitality, informed land-use decisions, and sound management of the state’s natural resources.

• Online access to THPs
Forests Forever advocates publishing all Timber Harvest Plan (THP) documents online as one of the quickest and most affordable ways to advance public participation in California’s resource management decisions.
 
• Filing fees for THPs
The state Board of Forestry (BOF) should institute a reasonable THP filing fee based on the acreage of the cut. The cost, now underwritten by the taxpayer, would be borne by the landowner or timber owner filing the THP. The fees would be deposited into a THP Review and Enforcement Fund.
 
• Strengthening the Water Code
Logging is “the leading source of impairment to water quality in the North Coast of California,” according to the U.S. EPA. Yet the state’s water code inadequately addresses the need for logging operations to protect vulnerable watersheds.

Forests Forever proposes strengthening key definitions in the state’s water quality control laws to bolster regulators’ authority to safeguard watersheds.
 
• Clarifying legislative intent
Currently California’s Forest Practice Act (FPA) in essence designates timber production as the primary purpose of the state’s forests. The act fails to accord equal weight to ecosystem preservation.
 
Forests Forever proposes legislation tailored to expressly mandate and not merely consider ecosystem protection.
 
• Better regulate steep-slope logging
Intensive logging on steep slopes exacerbates erosion, siltation, landslides, debris torrents, and floods. Forest Forever proposes amending the Forest Practice Rules and installing stricter guidelines for logging on slopes of 15 degrees or greater.
 
• Let counties write rules
Counties need more freedom to write their own timber harvesting rules.

Currently if the BOF rejects county-proposed logging rules– as it has done consistently for many years– the county is faced with the extra burdens of time and expense in overcoming such a decision, if it can succeed at all.
 
We propose shifting the burden to the BOF to show convincingly that the proposed county rules are inconsistent with the FPA, or not needed by the county.
 
• Ban clearcutting
As Forests Forever has long argued, clearcutting is the most ecologically devastating logging method. Yet current state law permits the clearcutting of forest patches up to 40 acres each. Such cuts now scar vast stretches of California.
 
Forests Forever has written legislation that would prohibit clearcutting , except in strictly limited circumstances such as the harvest of fiber plantations and Christmas trees, or the creation of needed fire breaks.