Assemblyman Lou Pappan:

I am writing to ask that you use your good offices to halt logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. I was shocked and dismayed when I learned recently that this beautiful seond growth forest near Mendocino is being logged to augment the state treasury by a few million dollars in a time of budget surplus. I implore you to stop the cutting of these trees.

This priceless resource should not be degraded to meet short term State fiscal needs. It is fiscally irresponsible to log this public forest, while the state is spending hundreds of millions to acquire private redwood lands to prevent logging on them. If the state had preserved the old-growth trees it inherited in Jackson Forest, rather than logging them at the first opportunity, they would have a present market value of one billion dollars - almost 200 times what was received. Sales of old second growth will prove to be equally financially foolish. Moreover, the revenues being generated by logging of Jackson State Forest go into a special state fund that subsidizes forest practices of private timber owners. The public forest is being cut down to benefit private owners of forestland.

The California Department of Forestry has failed to keep its management plan current and to conduct logging operations accordingly. For the past eight years, CDF has been without a current management plan and is logging illegally. The cut-heavy 1983 management plan is out of touch with present realities and science. Industrial timberlands are cut over, the region's salmon streams and salmon fleet are both nearly defunct, and redwood-dependent species are endangered.

The next logging of this is scheduled to take place in the middle of the most popular camping and education area in the Forest. The state's pending plans will destroy sections of the forest that haven't been logged for eighty to over 100 years, sections that are of great value for habitat, recreation, and education. The California Department of Forestry's own advisory committee has recommended that large areas of the forest be devoted to restoration of old growth and habitat for endangered species, with no logging.

CDF's failure to update the management plan has denied the public any influence on policies governing Jackson State Forest since 1983. No further logging should take place until the people of California have had a chance to express their current opinions about proper use of this resource, including proposals to restore Jackson State Forest for habitat, recreation, and education. Please do what you can to halt this destructive and unwarranted logging of public forest.

Sincerely,