| April 26, 2001
For Immediate Release Campaign contact: Vince Taylor (707)
937-3001, or Sephe Fox (707) 964-5800
Legal contact: Paul Carroll (650) 322-5652
Court Halts Logging in Jackson State Forest
April 26, Ukiah. The Superior Court of Mendocino County
today stopped Jackson State Forest from logging two pending timber sales.
The sales would have logged 900 acres of old second growth redwood in the
largest forest owned by the state. The court issued a Temporary Restraining
Order (TRO) in response to a request by the Campaign to Restore Jackson
State Redwood Forest, which has a suit pending to halt any further sales
until a new management plan is approved for the Forest. A hearing on a
Preliminary Injunction was set for May 4.
According to the Campaign’s suit, California Board of Forestry
regulations require that logging in state forests be done under a "current
management plan." Jackson Forest’s management plan was last revised in
1983. By its own terms, the 1983 plan was to have "a major review at the
midpoint of its effective period (1987), and be completely revised in
1992." Neither was done.
The suit asserts that any further logging based on the old
management plan not only violates the Board of Forestry mandate but ignores
important science developed since 1983. Apparently the California
Department of Forestry (CDF), which manages Jackson State, agrees with the
latter contention. A 1999 News Release of CDF states, "A new [management]
plan is needed to bring the existing plan up-to-date recognizing new
scientific information about the relationship of forest management
to endangered species (primarily coho salmon, spotted owl, and marbled
murrelet) and water quality protection."
The old management plan predated the disciplines of conservation biology
and landscape ecology, both of which emerged during the past 15 years
specifically to address the loss of species due to landscape alteration and
destruction.
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