Press Release

Suit Seeks to Halt Logging of State-Owned Redwood Trees
June 13, 2000

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Vince Taylor    707 937-3001
Steve Antler     707.964.5800

The Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest filed suit today to make the California Department of Forestry (CDF) follow its own laws and halt logging in California’s biggest state forest, a 50,000-acre treasure located in western Mendocino County.

The suit filed this week in Mendocino County Superior Court charges that the state’s logging operations in Jackson Demonstration State Forest are illegal. Board of Forestry regulations require all logging in state forests be done under a "current management plan." Jackson Forest’s management plan was last revised in 1983 and is now eight years past its 1992 revision deadline.

While CDF continues to run Jackson Forest under its cut-heavy 1983 plan, times have changed drastically. Industrial timberlands are cut over, and the region’s salmon streams and salmon fleet are both nearly defunct.

Compared to the heavily logged industrial timberland that surrounds it, Jackson Forest remains a large habitat where thousands of forest species can not only be preserved but could thrive. The Campaign to Restore Jackson Redwood Forest’s suit demands that all logging there stop until CDF’s management plan is updated.

The Campaign to Restore Jackson Redwood Forest is an organization of local residents formed to make restoration, education and recreation the main purposes of the Forest.

According to Steve Antler, Campaign Director, "CDF is logging tens of thousands of trees every year in this publicly owned redwood forest under a management plan prepared when conditions and scientific knowledge were very different. Today we know that trees near streams and large areas of contiguous forest need to be preserved to provide sanctuary for endangered species. Jackson State Forest is uniquely capable of filling these critical needs, as well as of providing outstanding recreation for California’s growing population. The 1983 management plan gave no consideration to these factors. Continued logging under this outdated plan is clearly illegal and contrary to the public interest."