Urgent Alert on Jackson State Forest

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July 12, 2002 Alert
from the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters
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URGENT! Jackson State Redwood Forest Needs Your Help!

Your help is urgently needed. The California Department of Forestry (CDF) is rushing to resume massive logging in Jackson State Redwood Forest, which is owned by the people of California. The 50,000-acre Jackson State is California's largest state forest, located only a few hours drive north of San Francisco.

Jackson State should be a sanctuary for endangered species and a recreational haven for the people of California. Instead, the State wants to intensively log the forest to pay for programs that subsidize the
industrial logging industry.

A lawsuit last year halted logging in Jackson State Forest under a long-outdated 1983 management plan. CDF and the Board of Forestry are now racing to approve a new management plan so logging can resume this year. The new plan would put 4 of every 5 acres of forest on the chopping block, log the oldest second growth stands, involve massive herbicide use, and defer development of an expanded recreation plan.

ONLY OVERWHELMING PUBLIC OPPOSITION CAN PREVENT THE RESUMPTION OF MASSIVE LOGGING IN OUR STATE FOREST. Please write CDF today!

Comments must be RECEIVED at CDF's office in Sacramento by July 19, 2002:

Chris Rowney, Deputy Chief for State Forests
CDF
PO Box 944246
Sacramento, CA 94244

CDF is not accepting comments by fax or email, but the Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest has made it easy for you to express your views via their website. The Campaign will be delivering to the governor, legislators and CDF all comments sent to their website BY JULY 15. OR - You can send your own letter (see sample at the end of this alert), making sure to get it to CDF *by July 19.*

For sample comment letters, updates, and additional information on the
Jackson State Forest Management Plan and EIR, visit

http://www.savejackson.org or http://www.jacksonforest.com/EIR/eir_top.htm


Jackson State Forest... It's your forest!

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SAMPLE LETTER TO CDF
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July 12, 2002

Chris Rowney, Program Manager
Demonstration State Forests
California Department of Forestry
Post Office Box 944246
Sacramento, CA 94244-2460

Jackson Demonstration State Forest
Draft Management Plan and DEIR

Dear Mr. Rowney:

I would like to comment on the proposed Forest Management Plan (FMP) and the draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for Jackson Demonstration State Forest. I am concerned that the Plan and DEIR have not adequately considered a number of important factors. I am particularly concerned about the fragile population of marbled murrelets and the potential for murrelet habitat on state land.

The DEIR made no mention of the federal Recovery Plan for marbled murrelets. It should have. According to the federal Recovery Plan:

"The very small nesting and at-sea population of marbled murrelets along the coast of Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin Counties is important to future reconnection of marbled murrelet populations in northern and central California, if they can survive over the short term. Almost all of the older forest has been removed from this area, although small pockets of old-growth forest occur in State parks and on private landsŠ. Much of the remaining marbled murrelet nesting habitat in this Zone [Zone 5, Mendocino County] is located on private lands.

"The maintenance of this population will require considerable cooperation between State, Federal and private management representatives. Recovery efforts in this Conservation Zone could enhance the probability of survival and recovery in adjacent Conservation Zones by minimizing the current gap in distribution. The population is so small that immediate recovery efforts may not be successful at maintaining this population over time and longer term recovery efforts (e.g. developing new suitable habitat) may be most important. However, if this small population can be maintained over the next 50 years, it will greatly speed recovery in this Conservation Zone. Whether or not marbled murrelets can recolonize regenerated old-growth forests over
such a large geographic area is not known." (page 129)

The federal Recovery Plan is the best available scientific information about the status of marbled murrelets. The information in the Recovery Plan indicates that it is reasonable to believe the very existence of marbled murrelets in the region and perhaps their viability throughout the Pacific Coast south of Alaska may depend on actions taken at Jackson. Murrelets' status as endangered under the California ESA makes it incumbent on Jackson to implement the federal recovery plan strategy. Under CESA, state agencies have a duty to help recover endangered species as per Fish and Game Code sections 2053, 2055, and 2061:

2053. The Legislature further finds and declares that it is the policy of the state that state agencies should not approve projects as proposed which would jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or
threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat essential to the continued existence of those species, if there are
reasonable and prudent alternatives available consistent with conserving the species or its habitat which would prevent jeopardy.

2055. The Legislature further finds and declares that it is the policy of this state that all state agencies, boards, and commissions shall seek to conserve endangered species and threatened species and shall utilize their authority in furtherance of the purposes of this chapter.

2061. "Conserve," "conserving," and "conservation" mean to use, and the use of, all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this chapter are no longer necessary. These methods and procedures include, but are not limited to, all activities associated with scientific resources management, such as research, census, law enforcement, habitat acquisition, restoration and maintenance, propagation, live trapping, and transplantation, and, in the extraordinary case where population pressures within a given ecosystem cannot be otherwise relieved, may include regulated taking.

The federal Recovery Plan is the best available science regarding how best to conserve marbled murrelets. Its recommendations must be applied at Jackson.

Some of the very few known murrelets in the region are nesting adjacent to JDSF on parkland in Russian Gulch. Every effort must be made to protect them by protecting all the adjacent forest stands located in Jackson. A very large area around the nesting birds must be left intact to minimize any threat to their nesting success. Additionally, because the region's forestland is overwhelmingly held as private property, Jackson Demonstration State Forest is the only opportunity available in the region where it would be possible to develop marbled murrelet habitat on a large scale. This should be done. Finally, research on how best to accomplish this is needed and doing so is squarely within Jackson's "demonstration" mission. The FMP as proposed fails to make a substantial contribution to recovery of marbled murrelets and this is a significant adverse effect of the plan that the DEIR has not identified and for which no mitigation is currently proposed by the Department. The FMP as proposed also violates CESA. We have herein proposed mitigation and ask that you incorporate that mitigation into the Forest Management Plan.

Sincerely,