MENDOCINO Co., 11/16/21 — A debate has been raging for the past few months on whether Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) is being managed in the best way possible in the face of a drastically escalating climate crisis. On Monday, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors decided to get involved and send a letter to the state, urging officials to review whether Cal Fire’s current management practices align with the state’s climate goals. Local staff say their work already aligns with those goals.
After about two hours of discussion and a couple dozen public comments, the supervisors voted unanimously to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Natural Resources Agency asking that Cal Fire’s current management of the forest be reviewed scientifically. Specifically, the resolution is asking state officials to:
- include the climate impacts of commercial logging on state land in its 30×30 plan to conserve 30% of the state’s land and waters by 2030;
- publish a scientific report on how the current management practices in the forest are impacting carbon sequestration capacity and wildfire resiliency, as well as how they might be impacted by other types of management;
- align the forest’s management goals with the state’s climate goals in a way that enhances the scientific, recreational and economic opportunities there.
“It was our hope to come up with a resolution that was pro-science,” said 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams, who brought the resolution forward with 4th District Supervisor Dan Gjerde. “Not anti-logging, not taking any one perspective, but pro-science.”
Community members in support of the resolution said second-growth redwoods are the greatest carbon sequestrators on the planet and need to be preserved at all costs. “Redwood is a luxury wood,” said Sarah Rose, a high school sophomore at the Mendocino Community High School. “And the redwood industry is not a luxury that we can prioritize over our collective future.” Roughly three out of every five community members said they wanted the supervisors to support a scientific review of the forest’s management practices.
But forest researchers and staff said they’re following the science and are not only aligned with the state’s climate goals, but research at demonstration forests like Jackson State are helping inform those goals, said Jackson Demonstration State Forest’s Program Manager Kevin Conway. “The Demonstration State Forest Program is included as an existing state effort to meet the goals within the 30×30 plan,” Conway said. “So we’ve been recognized as what we’re doing now today already being compatible and contributing toward those state goals.”
The land was almost completely deforested when the state bought the property 70 years ago, and Conway said the state’s work actually reforested the land while demonstrating it could be used for recreation, research and timber production. The resolution wants a report on how current management practices are impacting carbon sequestration, but Conway said Cal Fire already keeps track of that. Research from the forest shows it’s storing 19 million metric tons of carbon dioxide as of 2017 and it’s sequestering carbon dioxide at a rate of approximately 200,000 metric tons per year, offsetting the emissions of just under 43,500 cars.
The state used the 2016 JDSF Management Plan to put together its statewide Report on Forest Research, which was released June 18. “The report basically outlines the highest priorities for forest management research right now,” said Michael Jones, the UC Cooperative Extension’s forest advisor for Mendocino County, “including things like climate change and carbon management, wildfire risk management and traditional ecological knowledge.” The fact that the state is already using the forest’s management plan and research plan to guide its own research priorities suggests local priorities are already aligned with those of the state, he said.
Williams said Cal Fire was having issues communicating this with the public and sending a letter to the state could help fortify Cal Fire’s position that it’s already taking the scientific approach. The board has been receiving ongoing comments from the public about commercial logging in Jackson State Forest, Gjerde told The Mendocino Voice on Friday. Activists have been disrupting logging in the forest since finding out about a timber harvest plan (THP) in the Caspar 500 during the past spring. They’ve been calling for a moratorium on logging in the forest until the community is brought to the table and its concerns are heard.
The disruption of logging in the forest has led to hiccups in the local timber industry. Bruce Burton, one of the owners of specialty redwood sawmill Willits Redwood Company and the purchaser of the Caspar 500 timber sale, said the halt in logging forced him to haul in timber from Humboldt and Santa Cruz counties. “That represented close to 50% of our consumption for the year,” Burton said, “and in one fell swoop not only did the Anderson Logging Company, who we are under contract to, to do that job, they immediately had to find work for 40 employees that they had assigned to that task. That just happened overnight.”
The board doesn’t have another means to help address the conflict besides asking the state to review the plan, Williams said. “We have a lot of conflict brewing locally,” Williams said. “I don’t want to see, and I don’t think the board wants to see, conflict between the public, our public servants, foresters, researchers. And Cal Fire has a chain of command and what we’re doing with this resolution is going to the top of that chain and asking that there be assurance, verification that there’s alignment.”
The JDSF Advisory Group (JAG) is holding a meeting from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, Nov. 16 at Camp 20 in Jackson State Forest, which is along Highway 20 between Willits and Fort Bragg.
Great article on JDSF. Check out the history. Decades ago much of the revenue was distributed to small forest landowners. That money had to be used to improve forest lands. Currently it is my understanding revenue from JDSF pays for salaries. If this is true there will be little incentive for Cal Fire to meet the supervisors goals.
Thanks for your brief article. It is unfortunate that the author chose to primarily quote Calfire without completing any fact checking. Here are a few key facts, that the reporter could have easily uncovered with a little work.
1. The management plan does not discuss climate change. Indeed in the entire 900 page EIR for the Management Plan, only 5 pages are dedicated to a discussion of climate change. Further Calfire’s own Timber Harvest Plans for JDSF as recently as last year included a statement that the science is not clear on climate change.
2. JDSF was not deforested when it was acquired by the state in 1947. In 1947, there were over 10 square miles of unentered ancient forest. Now there is less than 3/4 of a square mile. There was also over thirty square miles of forest that had only been logged once, most of that over fifty years before. Now there is a maximum of five square miles that has only been logged once.
3. There were over 700 letters submitted on this item. The most of any item before the board and les than 5% of the letters were opposed to the resolution. The vast majority were in favor of the resolution.
I suggest that the Nov. 15 Board of Supervisor Meeting be viewed to get the whole balance of public comment voices that spoke at that meeting and can be viewed at https://mendocino.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=265
The Board of Supervisors rec’d at least 800 letters/emails submissions and 50 archived phone calls for the public record. Please go to link and click on 4a) Discussion and Possible Action Including Adoption of Resolution Requesting Scientific Review of Jackson Demonstration State Forest (Sponsors: Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Gjerde)
Demonstration and Recreation are the three main operating elements of JDSF – a forest owned by the taxpayers of California. Does anyone see the conflicting elements here? This is not about the old divisive trope pitting environmentalists against loggers— or special interests using social media to shut down logging– rhetoric that is recklessly tossed around. The cry from the public is to ensure the resiliency of these publicly owned forests in the face of climate change and asking for placing a moratorium to resolve inherent contradictions in the mission of JDSF and issues found in standing THP rules. JDSF operates under Cal Fire & California Board of Forestry who in turn regulates logging. The Board of Forestry, stacked with timber industry interests, govern the Timber Harvest Rules and their regulations are outdated in their response to the unprecedented and historic impacts of climate change and how forests have enormous potential in mitigating climate change. And this is not in alignment with the Governor’s plans. The scientific community agrees that present approaches to logging forests contribute to climate change because it depletes the forests’ ability to absorb vast amounts of the warming gas CO2.We would like to think that sustainable logging is not about clearcutting. Unfortunately, certain types of near clearcutting are employed —” allowable cut, “ “even-aged management,” “sustained yield,” “variable retention,” are under so-called sustainable forestry practices.Logging terminology is often not understood by the public or policymakers. many variations of terminology mean that technically correct usage may not be descriptive or updated to todays’ science or enough to know what is meant in each case.
The bottom line is the competeing interests need to be balanced.
The whole of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest is Unceded Pomo Lands, there is many cultural sites, burial sites, and sacred sites. Some have been identified and compromised by Cal Fire and the logging operations and road building.
This forest has been inhabited for thousands of years, it has been used for shelter, manicured in areas for wildlife and vegetation production.
Salmon, steelhead, and trout were plentiful in the streams.
Presently the person who is to identify cultural sites has less than 12 hours of training, that person decides what is and is not a significant native historical site.
The state has an extremely poor history in identifying, protecting, or preserving native cultural sites.
I do believe this year is the first time the local native community has been involved with examining the Timber Harvest Area’s, it is supposed to happen before the THP is approved, not after they have been started or completed.
Damage has been done, some areas have been destroyed, others may be in harm’s way.
This is business as usual for how the government protects native cultural areas.
David Martinez added some invaluable information and I would like to take what he said even further. A question is often asked “who is best suited to manage Jackson State?” Well the answer to that is obvious, its original stewards the Pomo, or more broadly perhaps the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council (https://sinkyone.org/). Who better to manage the land than its indigenous inhabitants who faithfully, responsibly and effectively nurtured the forest for thousands of years before colonists ever set foot on these shores? The truth is, neither cal fire nor by extension the timber industry is “managing” JDSF, capitalism is, and that needs to change. Capitalism lacks the ancestral wisdom and knowledge to manage this invaluable resource. JDSF should be ceded back to the Pomo and both cal fire and the state should then be lucky enough to learn from them how to truly “manage” a forest ecosystem without the corrosive influence of capital.
I once again think that some of the people against logging the redwoods in a state owned forest are misinformed and not aware of the history associated with their complaints. All through civilization the powers that be..i.e. greedy and conscience less politicians and their employers corporations and the wealthy…will not do anything until it’s to late. There will be no substitute material to replace Redwood until the last sun blocking…debris causing…smelly redwood grove is annihilated. Then and only then can the discovery of a building material just as good be invented. History is the best teacher.