THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
July 12, 2003

By MIKE GENIELLA

A state appeals court barred logging operations Friday in Jackson State Demonstration Forest at least through Aug. 20, a move that blocks a $7 million deal with two Mendocino County timber companies and threatens the loss of local jobs.

The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco is to decide then whether the logging ban will remain in effect until environmental legal challenges to a new state timber management plan for the 50,000-acre research forest can be resolved. A local Mendocino County judge in early June had allowed the logging operations to begin in the forest, which straddles Highway 20 east of Fort Bragg.

The appellate court decision, announced Friday, delighted a Mendocino Coast environmental group that has been waging a two-year campaign to sharply limit future logging in the publicly owned forest. The Campaign to Restore Jackson State Forest wants to stop commercial logging operations in the forest, and allow younger timber stands to mature into trees that would share similar characteristics with those found in old-growth forests.

"The court appears to be taking great pains to protect the public forest," said Vince Taylor, a former Vermont software executive who now heads the Caspar-based organization.

In a statement issued Friday, Taylor said that state forestry officials' attempts to move ahead with two disputed logging sales to support "the private Mendocino timber industry is not reason to ignore legally, mandated environmental protection for the public forest."

But state foresters and timber representatives Friday lamented the delay, contending it will likely cost the state much-needed revenue, and possibly result in local job losses because the management plan implemented in September is now tied up in litigation.

"It's too bad. It represents a lost opportunity to get the logs and the revenue in this season," said Marc Jameson, chief forester at Jackson State.

Mike Anderson, head of a Fort Bragg logging company that started work June 11 only to be halted by a court order a few days later, said he has doubts whether he can keep his crews on the payroll.

"It's pretty hard to find work this late in the season to keep things going," Anderson said.

Willits Redwood Co., which purchased about one-half of the logs to be cut, anticipated the volume would be enough to supply its operations over the next 18 months.

"I'm not sure what we're going to be able to do," said company President Bruce Burton. "A lot of people just don't understand that real people get hurt in these disputes."

Willits Redwood and Mendocino Redwood Co. earlier this year were successful bidders to buy the logs. The logging operations, which would have seen the removal of about one-third of 80- to 110-year-old trees spread across a total of 900 acres, started in early June. But the logging was quickly halted by an emergency order from the appeals court. On Friday, the court said it would continue the logging ban until the Aug. 20 hearing.

At the core of the dispute is a long-term timber management plan for Jackson that state officials had hoped would allow logging to resume after a two-year moratorium.

Unlike a state park, Jackson was established by the Legislature in the late 1940s to be a working forest dedicated to research, education and the demonstration of sustainable forestry techniques.

At the time, Jackson was mostly a cut-over swath of formerly private timberland with limited stands of old-growth redwoods. Today, as the result of five decades of state management, Jackson is believed to have the highest standing timber volume of any public or privately owned second-growth forest in the state.

State forestry director Andrea Tuttle and Resources Secretary Mary Nichols in September said the new management plan would permanently protect any remaining old-growth trees, and set aside an estimated 13,000 acres of large second-growth trees in the Big River-Russian Gulch area.

"Our vision is to recreate a large old-growth redwood forest with habitat for endangered species, including coho salmon and the marbled murrelet, as a natural legacy for the future," Nichols said at the time.

But the coast environmental group led by Taylor has contended that's not enough, and that the state's environmental studies on Jackson are flawed.

A Mendocino County judge's decision on the validity of the environmental studies is pending.

On June 17, Taylor's group asked the state appellate court to put on hold the two disputed logging operations until its legal challenge to the state's environmental studies is complete.

You can reach Staff Writer Mike Geniella at 462-6470 or mgeniella@pressdemocrat.com.