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| COALITIONS
and COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS INVOLVING FORESTS FOREVER |
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environmental battles are won by one group working alone. Over the years Forests Forever has entered into many cooperative arrangements, collaborations, and coalitions– formal and informal– with other groups. In every case Forests Forever contributed, and in most cases contributed uniquely, by generating broad-based grassroots pressure through direct-contact organizing. Our supporters sent thousands upon thousands of constituent messages (letters, phone calls, faxes, in-person lobbying visits, etc.) to targeted elected officials and other decisionmakers. Our chief instrument was our large field and phone canvass programs. |
Rally to save Headwaters Forest, 1997. |
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California oaks |
The Oak Woodlands Protection Act (SB 1334 - Kuehl) was signed into law on Sept. 24, 2004. Our closest organizational ally in the push for enactment of this bill was the California Oak Foundation. This new law subjects any project that would destroy oak woodlands to an environmental review and requires mitigation of any damage to oak woodlands. Our campaign began in November 2003. From that time to the bill’s enactment, we generated 1,967 cards or letters to targeted state senators, 4,918 to assemblymembers and 2,090 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. | |||
| Forests Forever is one of the endorsers of Campaign for Old Growth's (CFOG's) fight for legislation to prohibit the cutting of any tree that was alive in 1850, the year of California's statehood. CFOG is a coalition of California groups that fought for passage of the Heritage Tree Preservation Act (SB 754 - Perata) beginning in 2001. Forests Forever board member Kent Stromsmoe led the team of lawyers and advocates that crafted the bill's language, and beginning in 2001, Forests Forever's staff worked to pass the measure, generating over 1,600 constituent messages in support of the bill in 2004 alone. Recent action on the bill saw its passage through the Senate in 2003 and several Assembly committees the following year. You can view the the CFOG endorsers page, where Forests Forever is listed as a supporter, here. | ||||
| Joining the Campaign to Save Jackson State Redwood Forest and the Dharma Cloud Foundation as a co-plaintiff, Forests Forever sued the California Board of Forestry in 2002 over its flawed management plan for the 50,000-acre state taxpayer-owned forest on the Mendocino County coast. The management plan would have subjected vast tracts of the forest's century-old redwoods to industrial-style logging, but it failed to meet basic requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, and in August 2003 Judge Richard Henderson ruled in our favor. Logging in Jackson has been stopped while the plan is being rewritten, and no logging has occurred there since 2003. You can read our alert on the lawsuit victory here. |
Jackson State Forest |
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Clearcut in Sequoia National Forest |
The Sequoia National Forest region sees many environmentally unsound timber sales and salvage logging plans floated in any given year. Forests Forever has frequently signed on as a co-appellant or comment provider against some of the worst logging and "fuels-reduction" schemes in this ecologically fragile area. Our chief partners have included Sequoia ForestKeeper, Sequoia Forest Alliance, Tule River Conservancy, Kerncrest Audubon Society, and John Muir Project. Read one comment letter from earlier this year here. | |||
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| An alternative bill is the Act to Save America's Forests, last introduced in 2004 as H.R. 5312. Forests Forever endorsed this legislation, originated by the umbrella group Save America’s Forests, in 2002. Boasting 101 initial House co-sponsors, including author Anna Eshoo (D-Atherton), the measure would ban clearcutting on the national forests and keep loggers out of ancient forest areas. The Act to Save America's Forests has been endorsed by over 600 eminent scientists, including Jane Goodall, Edward O. Wilson, and Peter Raven. | ||||
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Snow in the Sierra |
Forests Forever is a member of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, which fought against Bush administration efforts to weaken the Sierra Framework, the land-use plan governing logging and development of California's 11 national forests along the Sierra. (See here for a full list of coalition partners.) Forests Forever's activity on this issue peaked in 2003, when we generated over 8,000 constituent letters and calls to Senators Boxer and Feinstein and Regional Forester Blackwell in favor of a strong plan protecting ancient forests, wildlife, wilderness recreation, and clean watersheds. | |||
| In 1999 Forests Forever first wrote, then gained introduction of Assembly Bill 717 in the California legislature. Championed by then Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley, the bill's final form would have banned clearcutting. We worked very closely with three chief groups: Sierra Club California provided liaison in the halls of Sacramento, helping to shepherd the bill through key legislative votes; The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) helped with policy analysis and language drafting; and Citizens for Responsible Forest Management brought its experience in promulgating the state's strong Santa Cruz logging rules to bear. After the bill had gained momentum we were joined by CALPIRG, Audubon California, and the Planning and Conservation League. Forests Forever utilized its support base of tens of thousands of citizen activists to write, call, fax and email, pushing the bill through all its committees and its floor vote in the Assembly in 2000. At its final stop on the last day of the legislative session, the measure was killed in behind-the-scenes maneuvering by hostile politicians who succeeded in running out the time left for a Senate floor vote. We had generated just under 60,000 constituent messages in favor of the bill in 2000 alone. | ||||
| Our longest coalition membership was unquestionably with the Headwaters Forest Coalition, which consisted of about a dozen groups, among them the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, and Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH). This coalition formed in the early 1990s and effectively disbanded around 1999, just after the 7,500-acre Headwaters Forest Reserve was acquired and set aside. The Headwaters fight took place on many fronts over a decade or more and continues even today, with Pacific Lumber Co. recently threatening to file bankruptcy if the government did not waive key provisions of the original Headwaters Reserve acquisition deal– provisions protecting fish, soils, and watersheds. Headwaters Forest, a 60,000-acre mature redwood forest in southern Humboldt County, encompassed the largest groves of virgin redwoods remaining unprotected at the time. Headwaters Reserve surrounds about 3,000 acres of these ancient trees. |
Redwood grove in Headwaters Forest |
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Photo credits, from top: Timothy Parker; Tom Jenner; Andria Strickley; Martin Litton; USDA Forest Service; Djuna Ivereigh. |
FORESTS FOREVER San
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