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My name is Linda Perkins. I was a member of the Jackson State Citizens
Advisory Committee convened by Richard Wilson; I’m on the Sierra Club
Forest Conservation Committee, a Board member of the Redwood Forest
Foundation- RFFI. For 12 years, I’ve attended timber harvest plan Review
Team meetings at CDF and have watched literally hundreds of timber plans
move through the review process- including those from Jackson.
I’ve lived in Albion for 26 years; my grandson was
born there in 1985. By the time he was 11 years old, the industrial
timberland properties around Albion had changed hands 3 times. We are
still watching today what my grandson witnessed three times in his short
11 years, the further sale, and fragmentation- and conversion- of our
forestlands.
At the height of the timber wars, a county supervisor
remarked, “Our forests are so depleted, we’re really fighting over
crumbs.” Now our differences have been reduced to the small percentage of
forests on Jackson.
I want to make two points regarding Jackson State’s
management. These come not only from my background as an environmentalist
but from my residence here and my deep concern for the community and its
economic health.
First. The industrial-style forestry practiced on
Jackson to demonstrate the economic value of cutting 2nd growth
has been wasted as a demonstration to the timber industry. Industrial
timberland owners have moved to their own economic beat, moved through the
county, cut their second- and third- and fourth- growth and moved on, one
after another. Jackson’s mandate has long been passé. It’s time for
Jackson State to move on to a new mandate, one that we hope will be a
demonstration for recovery and restoration in our county.
Second: I don’t believe that the California
Department of Forestry, as presently structured, is the proper agency to
manage our public forest. My reasons are these:
(1) There is a conflict between CDF’s oversight of
the harvest of our county’s private timberlands and the management of
public land. Based on CDF’s rationalizations that have allowed large-scale
depletion of our private timberlands, CDF would be hard pressed to apply
judicious practices to Jackson.
One agency cannot encompass such a double standard.
It is a conflict for CDF to tell us that our water quality, our fish and
wildlife are protected by the practices they allow on depleted industrial
lands, and then to try to embrace for Jackson the practices that current
science shows are needed to maintain a healthy, sustainable forestry. It’s
too difficult a divide.
(2) Secondly, there
are no biologists in the agency. That speaks volumes.
(3) My final reason: it is a conflict for an agency
to be the lead on projects that are generating from public land the money
that CDF uses to review plans on private lands. Monies generated from
Jackson should go back into Jackson- for research, education and
restoration.
My vision is that a new agency be created to manage
Jackson, one that would better reflect the best available science, the
altered regional economics and the changing public perception of how this
state forest should be managed, an agency that could focus on recovery and
restoration rather than timber extraction.
I would further
implore that the Board take seriously input given by the public and not
simply shelve, as was done with the Citizens Advisory Committee Report of
1999, the comment it receives from the citizens of Mendocino County. We
believe strongly that both our environmental ethic and civic ethic demand
our full participation in protecting this forest and our community.”
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