Stop the destruction of California’s forests
Clearcutting threatens, water, wildlife, climate

Clearcutting is the most ecologically devastating logging method in common use.

In a clearcut, all of the vegetation in a timber harvest is cut down and removed, burned or killed with herbicides.

Current California law allows the timber industry to clearcut vast areas.

California’s forests are being clearcut at an increasingly rapid pace. Since 1990 nearly 687 square miles of California forests have been clearcut– more than three and a half times the surface area of Lake Tahoe. One company alone (Sierra Pacific Industries, based in Anderson) has been authorized to clearcut more than 250,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada in the past two decades.

Forest-protection advocates were incensed when on Apr. 17 a bill to limit clearcutting in California, Assembly Bill 2926, introduced by Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View), was killed in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee following a lobbying siege by Big Timber. This measure would have significantly restricted the practice of clearcutting and encouraged more environmentally friendly methods of timber harvesting such as selective cutting.

The timber companies knew that if this bill made it out of committee, publicity on the issue would mount. And they know that when the public sees pictures of devastating clearcuts, and learns that this archaic practice is growing rapidly, the public will be outraged and pose an unstoppable political force.

It’s time to raise the stakes and call upon the state’s most powerful elected officials to support a ban on clearcutting.

Clearcutting is highly destructive of the natural environment. Its effects include:

• Destroying wildlife habitat and corridors and endangering native plants and animals;

• Increasing soil erosion and sedimentation in rivers and streams, which increases the need for
costly water treatment, diminishes the capacity of the state’s water storage facilities and harms wildlife;

• Boosting the risk of intense wildfires by converting cool, moist forests into sun-baked slash
piles and later to fire-prone tree plantations;

• Degrading the state’s natural beauty, which in turn affects tourism, recreation, retirement and property values; and

• Contributing to global warming by removing a major natural storage reservoir (standing vegetation) for carbon dioxide, and by exposing forest soils to accelerated weathering.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Ending the practice of clearcutting in California’s forests is necessary and urgent. Our forests are being destroyed at an ever-increasing pace. You can help us fight clearcutting by helping to elevate this issue in the priorities of California’s elected officials.

Please write to the three top officials in the state– Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, and Attorney General Jerry Brown. All three are likely to run for high office again within the next two years. We must encourage them to begin now to build into their campaigns a prominent and aggressive plan to end clearcutting in California.

Tell them about the destruction of California’s forest legacy by a few greedy timber companies that contribute only a small percentage of revenue and jobs to the state. Let them know that this issue is not going to go away until clearcutting in California has been stopped!

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear _____________ :

The health of California’s environment and economy is being jeopardized by clearcutting. Clearcutting harms native plants and animals, contaminates water supplies, increases the risk of forest fires, destroys California’s natural beauty, and contributes to global warming.

It also damages recreation and tourism, hurting the rural counties that depend on these industries.
Since 1990 nearly 687 square miles of California forests have been clearcut– more than three and a half times the area of Lake Tahoe.

To curb this ecologically devastating practice and encourage cleaner and more responsible methods of timber harvesting, I urge you to bring this issue directly to the state’s voters and express your strong support for ending clearcutting.

Please help protect California’s remaining forests for future generations.

Sincerely,

(Your name and address here)