If passed during the March 2002 statewide ballot, the "California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhoods and Coastal Protection Act of 2002" proposition could provide funds to purchase forest in the Mattole which are presently under siege by Pacific Lumber Company. Over 60 activists have been arrested during the past year while protesting logging in this largest unprotected continuous stand of old growth lowland Douglas Fir forest in the state. Proposition 40 would authorize $2.6 billion for parks acquisition and land, air and water conservation. Help pass proposition 40: NFW | TPL | PCL

In a separate effort, the Citizens' Campaign for Old Growth Preservation (CFOGP) has formed to place another initiative on the Nov 2002 statewide ballot calling for the preservation of old growth trees and stands on non-federally owned forestlands in the State of California. Old growth is defined as trees that were alive in the year that California became a state (1850).