Photo Albums |
Logging In Hare Creek
The logging plan developed by the California Department of Forestry (CDF), the managers of Jackson State Forest completely ignores the potential, major recreation values of this part of the Forest. Lower Hare Creek is the closet part of Jackson State Forest to Fort Bragg and lies between heavily populated Highway 20 and Simpson Lane. It could have served as a major recreation attraction for this city, as well as serving local residents. Instead, the areas nearest to the roads are being turned into a logged-over woodlot. Many decades of healing will be required before Lower Hare Creek once again becomes a true forest, providing shelter and habitat for species dependent on mature redwood forest and exhibiting the wonderful mix of filtered light, shade, ferns, rhododendrons, and multiple other plants that make walking in a redwood forest nourishment for the spirit. The photos in the accompanying albums include ones of the north side of Hare Creek prior to logging, showing the beauty of the forest there, a well-used recreation trail, and the many blue rings that mark trees for cutting. Photos on the south side of Hare Creek show the destruction of the forest, which is especially dramatic in areas of tractor logging, but even where cables are used to remove the logs, the canopy is destroyed and the ground littered with slash. Also shown is how Jackson State logged right up to the backyard of, at least, one of its neighbors. Addendum 2001 This plan was already approved and underway when the Campaign filed suit in June, 2001 to stop all logging in Jackson Forest. Although, we won the suit, the laws governing challenges of timber harvest plans excluded already approved plans; so the logging was completed. Thirteen thousand trees were logged in this area of the forest adjacent to Fort Bragg neighborhoods. The beauty, spiritual nourishment, and recreation formerly provided by the publicly owned forest in Hare Creek was destroyed by CDF for money they used to subsidize the private timber sector. CDF is planning a similar massive timber harvest in Mitchell Creek, another area close to residential development. A new campaign to protect OUR redwood forest has arisen. If you are as outraged as I by CDF's behavior, you can help stop the destruction by joining the New Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest.
Vince Taylor |
2000. In May of this year, the first year of the new
millennium,
Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) sold the right to log seven
million board feet of trees on 599 acres of Lower Hare Creek to the the
Mendocino Redwood Company. Logging began in June and is continuing as of
this writing.