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Help Restore Our Publicly Owned Redwood Forest Jackson State Forest is a public treasure -- 50,000 acres of beautiful redwood forest located within a few hours drive of San Francisco. The state has been massively logging this public forest, owned by you and me. The profits subsidize the private timber industry. The public forest should not be used for the benefit of the timber industry. Our goal is to restore the forest to old growth for recreation, habitat, and education. All logging
in Jackson Forest should demonstrate the highest attainable sensitivity
to aesthetic and ecological values and should contribute to restoration,
habitat, recreation, or education. Find out more about the Campaign. Provide information to the Campaign in complete privacy.
Recreation
The forest is a recreation paradise. with rustic
camping and hundreds of miles of trails and roads for hikers and
bikers.
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Recreation Committee Meets Saturday, July 26 The next meeting of the Jackson Forest Recreation Committee will be on Saturday, July 26 from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Fort Bragg Senior Center, 490 N. Harold Street.. [Note: above correct address is a change in location from some previously distributed information, including information in the July 17 Beacon/Advocate.] This meeting follows up on the very successful first meeting, where five recreation groups prepared lists of their major interest, concerns, and goals. This meeting will focus on choosing near-term priorities for action (such as inventorying and mapping trails), assigning responsibilities, and setting milestones. The meeting will also discuss how best to organize a Jackson Forest users group. Formation of a user group supported by the staff of Jackson State Forest is part of the new management plan. If you live near Jackson Forest or want to enhance recreation in the forest, please attend. More information and recreation reports. Jackson Advisory Group Meeting August 1-2 July 23, 2008. The Jackson Forest Advisory Group (JAG) will hold its monthly meeting on Friday and Saturday August 1 and 2, 2008. Agenda Friday and Saturday meetings will begin at 9:00 a.m. at the Fort Bragg Senior Center, 490 North Harold Street. Friday morning, the JAG and the public will have their final opportunity to comment on the recommended harvest plans for Brandon Gulch proposed by the Late Seral Development Committee. A report on the Recreation Committee meeting of July 26, 2008 is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. on Saturday. Other items on Saturday will be continued work on development of a JAG work plan and a report on current activities at Jackson Forest. The Saturday morning there will be a presentation by JDSF staff on the current management plan, with emphasis on the allocation of the forest to various purposes, goals, and harvesting methods. One of the major tasks of the JAG is to review the current allocations, develop a long-term landscape plan for the forest, and to propose revising the current allocations to fit the landscape plan. The Saturday morning meeting will adjourn at 11:00 a.m., to be followed by a field trip to Camp 3, near Camp One. The JAG Late Seral Development Committee is due to provide the full JAG its recommendations on harvest plans for Camp 3 at the September JAG meeting. The purpose of the field trip is to familiarize members of the committee with Camp 3 terrain, stand conditions, and recreation aspects. See the Agenda for details, locations, and times. Draft minutes for the July JAG meeting are now available. June 30, 2008. The Subcommittee on Late Seral Development released its draft preliminary report on marking prescriptions for timber harvesting in Brandon Gulch. [July 15 draft now available.]This is a working document, very tentative and expected to be revised. It is released in preliminary form in keeping with the legal manadate that all deliberations of the Jackson Advisory Group are open to the public. The intent is to accelerate the development of old growth conditions in Brandon Gulch. The report recommends two entries twenty years apart, with the goal of creating conditions within 40 years that will set the stage for return to old growth conditions over the next 100 to 150 years. The proposed harvests will create space around the largest trees to increase their rate of growth, while attempting to keep diversity in the forest structure and the canopy sufficiently intact to discourage sprout growth. The report and minutes of its meetings are available here. Public comments are welcome and should be addressed to the chair of the subcommittee, John Helms Recreation Committee Meeting
On June 28, 2008, the Recreation Committee of the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG) had its first meeting. In addition to Committee members Peter Braudrick and Vince Taylor, about 30 avid recreationists attended. A brief introduction stressed that both the new management plan and the charter of the JAG mandate the development of expanded recreation opportunities in Jackson Forest. Now is the time for the community to make known its desires and to help design the recreation plan for the forest. The JAG has through 2010 to develop its recommendations for changes to the management plan. A recreation plan can be a part of the JAG’s recommendations. Unlike the past, Cal Fire is receptive to public input, and there will be funding to support recreation. Five different recreation interests were represented, with many people supporting multiple interests: Hiking, Off Road Vehicles (OHV), Bicycling, Equestrian, and Shooting. The meeting broke into sub-groups to come up with
points, goals, and priorities. Then each group presented its findings to the
meeting as a whole, receiving comments and questions. There were common points
among the groups. Almost everyone wanted an inventory and good maps of the
present trails. There was a strong desire to expand the trail system. Also,
the different groups wanted to be able to find ways to let each group have its
favorite recreation without harming others’ pleasure in the forest.
First Meeting on Forest Management Plans for Brandon Gulch and Camp 3 May 29, 2008. The first meeting of the group charged with designing the logging plans for Brandon Gulch and Camp 3 will meet Tuesday June 3, 2008, at 9:00 a.m. at Jackson Forest headquarters in Fort Bragg. .Details. There will be a field trip to the two plans, followed by discussion back at forest headquarters in Fort Bragg. (Draft Minutes of June 3 meeting) Brandon Gulch and Camp 3 are the two timber harvest plans that the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest stopped for eight years through its court actions. These two plans are in stands of redwoods that haven't been touched since the initial logging nearly 100 years ago. They are beautiful, mature forest, and they are in the heart of the recreation area near Camp One. What happens to these stands will set an important precedent for the future of other similar stands. The Campaign has reached an agreement with Cal Fire to allow harvesting in the two plans to hasten the development of old-growth conditions. The technical term for old growth is "late seral," and the meeting on Tuesday will be the first in a series to design timber harvests to "accelerate late seral forest conditions" in Camp3 and Brandon Gulch.
The group assigned the task of recommending the marking of trees to be cut is a subcommittee of the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG), the independent advisory group established to provide oversight and recommendations on management of Jackson Forest. All of its meetings will be open to the public, and it will interact with the full advisory group as it develops its recommendations. Recreation values
will be explicitly considered by the subcommittee,
but they need to hear from you about your concerns and desires.
John Helms, chair -- forest ecosystem dynamics, silviculture
Location and Times Public is responsible for its own transportation, food, and water.
Official notice and agenda |
EditorialsRead my latest Jackson Wanderings column, published in the Fort Bragg Advocate and Mendocino Beacon at the new Jackson Forum New Ways to Learn and ParticipateJuly 8, 2008. As the topics being considered by the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG) expand, you will find it challenging to keep abreast of developments and to get your views heard by the JAG. Help is here in the form of several new online capabilities. Real-time online email archive This location has real-time archive of all emails among members of the JAG on topics of substance, together with attachments. Replies under the same heading are kept together making it easy to follow the discussion. This site is particularly useful at the moment for following the JAG's discussions about how to manage Brandon Gulch and Camp 3 for accelerated old growth development. You can't post at the site, but you can email me any comments or thoughts, and I will email them to the JAG and post them to the group. New Jackson Forum Blog INow you can add your own two cents (or priceless golden words) to the discussion about the future of Jackson Forest! The Jackson Forum Blog is now open for business. IThe blog will be updated regularly with news about and reports from those working to plan the future of Jackson State Forest. The Forum is the place to go to find out what others are saying about Jackson Forest and to have your own say. Check it out now! Where We Are and Where We Came From Branching Out, the newsletter of the Trees Foundation, recently published my article on the history and developments of the movement to reform management of Jackson State Forest, Where We Are Today and Where We Came From. Also an Adobe Acrobat Version What Lies Ahead?
As memories tend to be short, many may have forgotten that during the 1990s, the state was cutting upwards of 60,000 trees per year from our public forest. The major management goal was “to get out the cut.” Timber harvests were concentrated in previously unentered 80 to 100 year-old stands, and also in local neighborhoods that adjoined the forest. Public opposition culminated in the formation of the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest in 2000. The Campaign undertook a succession of lawsuits that effectively tied up all timber harvesting from 2001 until this year. For the last two years, those at the center of the controversy have been working to find common ground. I am happy to report that these efforts have borne fruit. Am opportunity has been created to transform our local 50,000-acre Jackson Demonstration State Forest into a model of excellence, into a world-class demonstration forest that will bring pride to our community, the timber industry, the research community, and the forest managers. In January, 2008, the Board of Forestry approved a new management plan that contained the essential features of a consensus reached among representatives of major county timber interests, the Campaign, and the Sierra Club. With this approval, the state can now legally resume logging in Jackson State. What does this mean for the forest and for you and me? A new “Jackson Advisory Group,” is currently being appointed. It will have a balance of people with environmental, conservation, timber, and science concerns. Its charge is to work during the next three years to develop a consensus on a long-term landscape, recreation, research, and management plan. The advisory group will likely invite local people with knowledge and interests to join subcommittees focused on different aspects of forest management. Monthly meetings open to the public are likely. It also seems likely that the staff of Jackson Forest will welcome formation of a “Friends of Jackson Forest” to allow volunteers to assist in restoration and recreation projects. During the time the public is working with the advisory group to develop a consensus management plan, until 2011, all harvests in Jackson Forest will take place under strong protections “to assure that long-term planning options, particularly in sensitive areas, will not be precluded.” Protections include avoiding harvests in areas that have not been entered since 1920 or that have a significant density of large trees (with some possible initial exceptions), review of all harvest plans by the advisory group (which will provide a forum for public input), harvesting only by selection methods (no clearcuts), and retaining at least 70 percent of tree canopy (or the equivalent) and not reducing the average tree diameter in the harvested stands. Thanks to reform legislation, revenues from harvests in Jackson Forest will only be able to be spent within the state forest system. During the first three years, harvest levels will be limited to those needed to finance operations of Jackson Forest. Harvest levels will be a fraction of those occurring during the late 1990’s. We are truly at the beginning of a revolution in management of our forest. Thanks are due to all of those in the community, the timber industry, the Board of Forestry, and most especially the Director of the Department of Forestry, Ruben Grijalva, and his staff, whose hard work and willingness to seek consensus made this possible. Vince Taylor For
more history, see below and
here. January 10, 2007. When the Board of Forestry approved the new management plan for Jackson State Forest on January 9, 2008, it was a milestone in the long struggle to reform management of Jackson Forest. In thinking about where the reform effort goes from here, I found myself thinking about how we got to this point. 1995 marked the first public demonstration against the industrial logging practices that had characterized management of Jackson Forest since it started operations in the early 1950s. Demonstrations escalated in following years, with activists chaining themselves to gates in hopes of preventing logging in redwood stands that had grown back untouched for nearly 100 years. More
Earlier Editorials |
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