Forests Forever: recent campaign victories

October, 2006

Forests Forever has played an indispensable role in helping to win key battles– some large, some small, but all important — to protect the state’s threatened forests. Here are a few of our most significant accomplishments:

2006 • A federal judge overturned the Bush administration’s repeal and reinstated the original Roadless Area Conservation Rule, deciding a lawsuit brought by Forests Forever and 19 other environmental organizations. • After we campaigned for ten months for AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, the measure passed both houses of the state legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

2005 • Forests Forever spent six months fighting for passage of A.B. 715 by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys). The bill would have denied state funds for undoing federal wilderness protections. • Along with 19 other conservation groups, we filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service demanding reinstatement of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which had been repealed by the Bush administration in May.

2004 • The Oak Woodlands Protection Act (SB 1334) by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger on Sept. 24. This measure requires counties to consider a development project’s effects on oak woodlands and offset the loss of any oaks destroyed. Forests Forever generating thousands of letters, emails, faxes, and phone calls in favor of the bill.

2003 • Forests Forever won a lawsuit against the California Department of Forestry’s logging plan for Jackson State Forest, which would have harvested nearly half of the 50,000-acre redwood tract. The Mendocino Superior Court ruled in our favor on Aug. 5, tossing out the flawed management plan and halting all logging in the forest.

2002 • We helped generate almost 5,000 citizen comments opposing the CDF’s management plan to intensively log Jackson Forest, the state’s largest taxpayer-owned forest. Only 50 comments were submitted in favor of the plan.

2001 • Our organization played a leading role in adding two co-sponsors, Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) and George Miller (D-Concord), to House Resolution 1494, the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act. Forests Forever garnered almost 30,000 constituent lobbying messages on this measure.

2000 • Forests Forever joined with other environmental groups to urge President Bill Clinton and other government officials to create a national monument protecting California’s giant sequoias. The president made his official announcement designating 328,000 acres of Sequoia National Forest as the new Giant Sequoia National Monument on Apr. 15.

1999 • Our canvassers collected over 16,000 constituent letters and obtained 60,000 commitments for more letters, phone calls, faxes and emails in favor of the Keeley bills (A.B. 717 and A.B. 748). We also garnered 141 commitments to visit district offices of legislators in support of the legislation. This political production helped A.B. 717 pass difficult Assembly committees in April and May. • We applied critical public pressure to save Headwaters Forest through thousands of letters and petition signatures to decision-makers. Our efforts helped add Owl Creek Grove and the Grizzly Creek parcel to the final 7,500-acre Headwaters Preserve, which opened to the public in March, 1999.