Letter to the Editor: The AMEX timber harvest plan at Jackson Demonstration State Forest relies on out-of-date plans

Dear Editor: 

Certain assertions about AB2494, the historic bill to modernize the 1947 management mandate for Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), Tribal co-management, and a logging plan, bear challenging.  

First, debating the details of the “AMEX” timber harvest plan (THP) is no longer germane, since public comment is closed. The 428-acre plan, located in the biodiverse heart of Jackson near Chamberlain Creek on un-surveyed, culturally sensitive lands, has been approved by Cal Fire, the Jackson Advisory Group and the Board of Forestry long since. What remains relevant is that, unlike regular THPs of three-to-five years’ duration, the AMEX (Adaptive Management Experiment) plan lasts for twenty years, potentially locking in prior practices ahead of the nascent bill, setting up an end-run around Tribal co-management and Tribal Ecological Knowledge.  

With so much in the balance, why the push to bulldoze roads, cut down trees, spray herbicides and set fires in the name of science? (The University of Nevada-designed experiment involves “introducing” variable intensity fires on large plots planted with non-native species and out-of- area redwoods, to mimic future dire scenarios and compare outcomes.) When questioned about the rush during a field tour, JDSF manager Kevin Conway insisted climate change was now “so urgent, we have to prepare for catastrophic events. The entire forest could burn up!”

Why then does Cal Fire insist on operating under the 2016 forest management plan (itself a remake of the 2007 document and lacking an EIR) that barely mentions the climate, and Tribal co-management not at all?  

Save Jackson Coalition opposes the AMEX THP because it relies on the old, out-of date and severely inadequate forest management plan, even though an update is imminent, a Tribal co-management agreement is absent, and a paradigm-changing bill awaits the Governor’s signature. To correct another misconception, the bill does allow research, as long as it meets the new law’s criteria. It would behoove Cal Fire to wait until the bill is enacted, Tribal co-management is implemented, and an updated, acceptable forest management plan is in place, to see if AMEX still fits under the new rules. 

Applied to all 85,000 acres of California’s fourteen State Demonstration Forests, AB2494 represents a truly seismic shift in our approach to public lands management, not only by replacing industrial logging with biodiversity conservation, enhanced recreation, carbon storage and climate care, but also by allowing the Northern Pomo and Coast Yuki Tribes access to their ancestral lands as restitution for past harms now recognized by the State of California. The bill aligns with previous legislation to strengthen Tribal rights and contributes to Governor Newsom’s “30X30” goals of conserving 30% of state-owned lands by 2030.  

AB2494 is not perfect and was not intended to address the AMEX THP. As with any big change, conflicts will need to be worked out, another reason to go slow. The choice to demonstrate good faith by respecting the three-year pause is Cal Fire’s. Perhaps the first lesson to learn from Traditional Ecological Knowledge is patience.