Over the past nine years, the Cereus Fund of the Trees Foundation has helped enable restoration and preservation throughout California's North Coast. In total, the Cereus Fund, Trees Foundation's largest and longest-running donor-advised grantor, has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to grassroots environmental projects throughout the redwood region. In this issue we highlight the Cereus Fund grants for 2007. Dozens of community-based groups, and well over one hundred projects have benefited from the vision and commitment of the Cereus Fund over nearly a decade of giving. With a focus on grassroots solutions and sustainable communities, the Cereus Fund has empowered a wide range of strategies and tactics as part of a vision of holistic recovery for the globally unique north coast.
It is with deep appreciation that we honor the Cereus Fund and the collaborative efforts it has sustained for the benefit of communities both wild and human. Like the hundreds of activists that Trees Foundation has supported over the years, the Cereus Fund has made a visionary, long-term, and effective commitment to the restoration of the global treasure that is California's North Coast. Achieving the goals of natural abundance, sustainable communities, and recovery of native wildlife are that much closer thanks to the Cereus Fund and its many partners. Below are but a few of the projects that the Cereus Fund has enabled in partnership with grassroots groups and dedicated individuals this year.
Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters--$5,000
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With respect to the Save the Oaks campaign, we have been instrumental in organizing media events such as the February 20 press conference exposing the very likely existence of a Native American archaeological site where the University of California plans to replace the native oak grove with development, and a high-profile tree-sit event dubbed the "Grand Dammes tree-sit" that included 90-year-old Save the Bay founder Sylvia McLaughlin, 72-year-old former Berkeley mayor Shirley Dean and 86-year-old Councilwoman Betty Olds holding a press conference from a plywood platform in an oak tree.
We, as well as our north coast grassroots colleagues, are wrestling with analysis of the dramatically changed landscape in the redwood region brought about by the PL bankruptcy filing. We have been developing public education materials as well as resources for media. We have written up a couple of treatments of the corporate bankruptcy that is digestible by the masses--but especially for the large number of people in the greater Bay Area who have cared about and been tracking threats to the redwood forest and Headwaters Forest for years. We also put on a public event at the Ecology Center that featured the Humboldt Watershed Council's excellent PowerPoint presentation on the topic, and offered analysis of the impacts of the bankruptcy on the forest, the communities, and the workers.
Our support of grassroots activism recently has included helping the Bay Area-based Save the Oaks campaign achieve fiscal sponsorship through the Agape Foundation, and funneling of volunteers, resources, and outreach opportunities to that campaign. We also support the civil rights of activists by participating in the Civil Rights Outreach Committee, working with the Civil Liberties Defense Center law office and other activists on media and outreach strategy.
BACH has other projects in the wings, including the Redwood Region Tours, announced in the last Branching Out. This has been delayed by infrastructure changes at other groups we hope to partner with for this project, but is being pursued enthusiastically, as is the rest of our work. Part of our overall agenda continues to be growing and encouraging more activists and effective activism capable of spawning changes in the direction of ecological sanity. There are many paths.
California Wilderness Project--$1,850
In an effort to address problems created by Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) use, the US Forest Service embarked on a 5-step process that will result in a system of designated OHV routes. At the conclusion of the process, cross-country travel outside of designated routes will be prohibited.
In 2006 the Cereus fund granted the necessary funding to allow CWP to inventory unauthorized OHV routes in northern California National Forests. Our efforts focused on those routes that were in environmentally sensitive or roadless areas. In addition to the inventory work, CWP became involved in the OHV route designation process in an advisory capacity. Both the 2,000,000-acre Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and the 1,000,000-acre Lassen National Forest extended invitations to CSP to become actively involved in their route designation process. In 2007 CWP has been attending meetings and workshops in both of these National Forests and working to increase the participation of the environmental community in this process.
Thanks to the support of the Cereus fund, CWP is actively working to ensure that OHV routes are not permitted in roadless areas, or areas that are environmentally sensitive.
Eel River Salmon Restoration Project--$5,000
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We are currently in negotiations with NMFS for permission, and the required Section 10 Permit, to allow us to take one female Chinook salmon from Redwood Creek in southern Humboldt for next year's program. From our perspective this does not seem like a large request as people are still fishing for and keeping Chinook salmon as part of the commercial, sport, and Indian subsistence fisheries. While using hatchery steelhead was not ideal from our perspective this year, it did work and students had an 81% survival rate from the eggs received to planting of their fish back into the Mad River. We can expect similar survival rates for the Chinook salmon eggs if we are allowed.
This year we also had the opportunity to offer part-time employment to three Americorps Watershed Steward Program graduates to work in the "Salmon in the Classroom Program." Educating and empowering our local youth through programs such as this gives us hope that the next generation will make decisions and take actions that ultimately bring back the salmon, and offer a brighter future for us all.
Environmental Protection Information Center--$5,000
EPIC thanks the Cereus Fund for its support of our Public Lands program. We review a stream of activities on the four national forests of northwestern California: the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, Mendocino and Six Rivers. We submitted comments on more than 15 projects in the last year, and pursued litigation in several cases where our comments and administrative appeals failed to convince the Forest Service to abandon destructive and illegal plans.
Litigation is an indispensable tool for public lands advocacy, especially under the present administration, which has sought both to roll back environmental protections and to promote ill-considered logging schemes at virtually every turn. However, our willingness to litigate where necessary doesn't preclude collaboration with the Forest Service and other stakeholders. On several forests, we are guardedly optimistic about the prospects for sustainable changes in Forest Service practices and policies as a result, in part, of our engagement. The Mendocino is a particularly good example.
Three years ago, the Mendocino National Forest was still pressing ahead with efforts to log remnant old-growth forests high in the Thomes Creek watershed in the Divide-Auger timber sale. EPIC won our lawsuit challenging that project. Then the Forest Service withdrew its Cold Chimney-Ocean timber sale after our administrative appeal showed that project's legal vulnerabilities. While we don't endorse the practice of "salvage" logging after fires, the Mendocino has over the last few years proposed two limited post-fire logging projects which we did not seek to halt, in part because the forest did respond to our concerns and suggestions.
Today, the bulk of the Mendocino forest's proposed logging projects-a category limited by the near-absence of a timber industry around the forest-are in fact of a type we can generally support, because the focus now is on accomplishing thinning-from-below projects in strategically located areas, where they can help to reduce the risk of serious damage from very large, very hot fires. This thinning work goes hand-in-hand with a policy shift that is also an ecological goal: reintroducing fire to landscapes where it has been systematically suppressed for the last half-century. EPIC is now working with the Wilderness Society's Rich Fairbanks (a 20-year veteran of the Forest Service's fire programs) to advance a pilot project that would increase prescribed burning on the Mendocino National Forest by an order of magnitude (e.g., from 2,000 acres annually to 20,000 acres). The primary obstacle is securing additional funds from Congress, but with fire suppression efforts consuming a steadily increasing bite of the Forest Service's overall budget (from 15% in 1996 to about 45% in 2007), we are confident that we'll be able to win support for a program that will demonstrate the ecological and economic virtues of using small, cool fires to reduce the risks of big, hot ones.
Friends of Small Places--$2,000
Friends of Small Places is working to improve our watersheds and the small communities that live in them by minimizing the impacts from gravel mining and its associated processing. Thanks to the assistance of the Cereus Fund, we have been very busy as we try to rein in the gravel industry, cause positive changes for the industry, and foster environmental responsibility. A major goal has been to improve the performance of government agencies responsible for oversight and compliance and make sure that they enforce the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and all attendant environmental laws.
The Regional Water Board has been consistently and systematically ignoring the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in its issuance of water quality certification, to the detriment of our beautiful north coast rivers. Late last year, through our efforts and in partnership with Friends of the River, the Environmental Law Foundation, and the Voice family, we were able to revoke and reopen for public hearing four gravel water quality certification permits. These permits were re-applied for in May of this year, and a new round of public hearings were scheduled. The comments we submitted are extremely important in that they constitute the public record and will provide the basis for future action against the Regional Water Board once the administrative process runs its course. We are now preparing for the Water Board's response.
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FOSP has filed several Public Records Act requests with California Department of Fish and Game, North Coast Regional Water Quality Board, and Humboldt County Planning Department. We are studying the responses and looking for ways to improve environmental control and minimize gravel mining and processing impacts. To that end we have also started the process of filing Code Violation complaints on several gravel mining and processing sites. So far, using the complaint process, we have been able to get the County of Humboldt to issue a desist order against debris being stockpiled on the bank of a river. We are hopeful that with these complaints we can start the administrative process on possible CEQA, Water Quality, and Conditional Use Permit violations on several other sites.
FOSP is very grateful for the funding support from Cereus. It has allowed us to update necessary software and purchase equipment that is vital for our work, and contributed to our growth and stabilization as an organization.
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center--$5,000
The attacks on our public lands and landmark environmental laws are increasingly brazen, but recent years have also been among Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild's) most successful yet
in terms of on-the-ground protection for northwest California and southwest Oregon's Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion.
Our campaign work to defend at-risk species, permanently protect old-growth forests and key wildlands, and to restore lands impacted by more than a century of poor management practices has seen rapid growth this year, as have our efforts to encourage a timber economy shift to thinning previously logged tree plantations.
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Logging of Owl Habitat Held up by Courts--As a result of our February 2007 victory in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against the US Fish and Wildlife Service, five biological opinions allowing for the logging of spotted owl habitat were pulled, temporarily stopping logging of 72,000 acres. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has now released its draft Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, which would essentially do away with the reserve/habitat network. KS Wild and colleagues will be deeply engaged in defeating this plan in the coming year and a half.
Defending Federal Law--In March 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the Bush Administration's gutting of the National Forest Management Act, which provides the planning procedures for the management of our National Forests, illegal. Administration officials had bypassed legally required environmental reviews and endangered species protections, eliminated enforceable environmental protections from the forest planning process, and they sprung the final forest planning rules on the public without sufficient notice of the paradigm shift that the rules accomplished. Two cases, one brought by Earthjustice and one by the Western Environmental Law Center, were decided with the same ruling. KS Wild was initially represented by WELC.
The Domino Effect--As a result of our successful litigation strategy, Forest supervisors and District managers have recently displayed an increasing willingness to scale back and improve projects in order to move forward. For the first time in years, Klamath Forest Supervisor Peg Bolland ruled in our favor on an administrative appeal, dropping old growth and clearcut units from the Tennant project and promising to drastically scale back on all heavy-handed logging on the Forest.
Reducing the Road and Motorized Trail Network--As a requirement of a 2004 Forest Service rule, all National Forests must designate legal Off Road Vehicle routes. KS Wild is tracking this process for the Six Rivers, Klamath, and Rogue River Siskiyou National Forests. Earlier this year, the Six Rivers put out their proposal in several parts. We have appealed the decision for the Smith River National Recreation area and are preparing to litigate it, primarily due to its designation of new routes in Inventoried Roadless Areas and rare, sensitive plant habitat.
Mattole Restoration Council--$5,000
For most of this year, the Forest Practices Review Program (FPRP) of the Mattole Restoration Council has been focusing on two projects connected with Pacific Lumber Company (PL). Both projects involve influencing an outcome of PL property in the Mattole watershed. The FPRP has been continuing to participate in PL's watershed analysis for its Mattole holdings, and has been tracking PL's bankruptcy proceedings (filed in January 2007).
PL's bankruptcy came as no surprise to most who have followed the company's business in the last decade. Maxxam bought out the original company in 1986 and proceeded to overburden the company with debt for its own gain, hastening the financial collapse of PL. While the notorious Headwater's Deal protected prime old-growth redwood forests purchased by the state and federal governments at an inflated cost, the profit of millions went directly to Maxxam. Very little of the original debt was paid and almost all the available timber on their other lands under the terms of the deal was prematurely harvested, decimating what could have been a sustainable resource.
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The FPRP of the MRC have joined with several other Humboldt County groups to form the Timber Acquisition Group (TAG) that represents a broad array of environmental, conservation, labor, timber, and county interests. Our common vision is for community ownership and sustainable management of PL lands, thereby reducing the threat of future subdivisions and forest fragmentation.
Meanwhile, the watershed analysis for PL's Mattole lands continues, albeit at a slower pace. In mid February (2007), the FPRP's technical team submitted over 75 pages of comments reflecting a range of our expert analysis about PL's analysis of the Mattole (thus far). These documents were burned onto CDs and sent not only to PL, but also to the six different regulatory agencies involved in the process. We hope to continue being a player in negotiating the strongest watershed protections possible while allowing an appropriate level of management so long as the property is maintained as a working forest. Final approval of prescriptions will be up to the state and federal agencies that signed PL's Habitat Conservation Plan.
Mattole Salmon Group--$3,500
The Mattole Salmon Group's (MSG) Mattole River Estuary Water Quality Project seeks to quantify water quality throughout the Mattole estuary/lagoon and evaluate habitat suitability and salmonid distribution over several study years. The information gained by multi-parameter water quality monitoring in conjunction with dive population monitoring will provide the most accurate and reasoned understanding of habitat conditions for juvenile salmonids in the Mattole estuary that is currently possible to achieve. Lack of suitable rearing habitat in the Mattole estuary is a limiting factor for salmonid survival. This project is imperative to quantify factors that limit salmonid utilization of the estuary for oversummering, enabling an evaluation of strategies to both restore the estuary to a functional habitat for salmonids and to ameliorate oversummer survival
for these endangered and threatened species.
Project coordination began in March with the purchase of required water quality equipment. From March through May, 2007, the MSG finalized the study design in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries by determining datasonde placement, temperature logger placement, dive locations, and final compilation of supplies and materials. Snorkel dives began in May 2007 and have occurred every week since then. Divers snorkel the estuary documenting counts of juvenile salmonids identified by species (Chinook, coho, and steelhead), size, and location. Four datasondes and two temperature loggers are deployed throughout the lagoon. MSG is in the estuary every week either conducting snorkel surveys or calibrating and downloading data from the sondes. This will continue through October or until the onset of the fall rains, whichever comes first.
Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy--$4,000
Plans to restore an important salmon-bearing stream to its original course in the Mill Creek watershed were put on hold due to the recent change to wilderness status for the area. The Bureau of Land Management was finally able to give final approval after MCWC submitted the necessary paperwork and the extra training required for the project was completed. This stream diversion project requires heavy hand digging of two old logging roads that cross a streambed plus removing the fill to a stable location with shovels and wheelbarrows. Due to the on-site conditions after approval was secured, MCWC postponed the start of the project until the first substantial rains come in the Fall of 2007. At that time, the recontouring of the streambed will be easier and the project will be able to proceed in a more efficient manner.
Restoration Leadership Project--$5,000
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Richard continued his participation with the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, the Buckeye Forest Project of the Buckeye Conservancy, the Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF), and the Humboldt Watershed Council. He was elected secretary of the ISF Board. The funding from the Cereus Fund also enabled him to attend key meetings of the Fish and Game Commission and the Citizen Advisory Committee to the Department of F&G, where he strongly advocated for implementation of the Coho Recovery Strategy and for adequate regulatory measures. A strong focus for Richard is the establishment of adequate monitoring to ensure protection and recovery of listed salmonids--and for project proponents to be responsible for carrying out basic monitoring responsibilities.
Two developments are especially gratifying: One is the actual implementation of the Mattole Forest Futures Pilot Project by the Mattole Restoration Council. Richard helped for some years, through Cereus funding, to get this project off the ground. The Mattole Restoration Council is undertaking a Program Timberland Environmental Impact Report (PTEIR) that is directed toward an overarching environmental evaluation in the whole Mattole River watershed that will enable landowners to practice a high-standard, light-touch forestry with less complication and expense.
The other development is that the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI) recently announced their acquisition of over 50,000 acres of the Hawthorne Timber Company's `Usal District' which is now being called the Usal Redwood Forest. RFFI was backed by the Bank of America in a landmark transaction which will lead to sustainable community-based forestry for that land for generations. A conservation easement will be placed on that land in a year or so. Richard has advocated such a transaction for years and has been appointed to RFFI's advisory group for the project.Support from the Cereus Fund has enabled Richard to make valuable contributions to RFFI's work.
Another significant, but less spectacular, benefit from Cereus has been the upgrading of Richard's computer equipment. Richard now has for his use in his work an Imac Intel 20" computer, which among other things, will allow him to produce useful and educational short features from his large collection of watershed restoration and activism video footage.
The above-described work would be impossible or greatly hampered without support from the Cereus Fund. We continue to be very appreciative of this support as we work toward achieving project goals.
Salmon Forever--$5,000
The Cereus Fund provided operating expenses of Salmon Forever's Sunny Brae Sediment Laboratory and field monitoring stations, and supported our efforts to promote land management which protects and enhances the health of Humboldt Bay watersheds.
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Salmon Forever provided technical and field support for the Friends of the Eel River's Van Duzen Watershed Project. In support of the Salt River Ecosystem Restoration Project, we fabricated an equipment boom and bridge board for suspended sediment monitoring on Francis Creek in Ferndale. We are currently implementing a Soil Pin network in Elk River to measure bank channel scour and aggradations and implementing a set of Water Surface Elevation monitoring stations for use in flood modeling, and upgrading survey sets in Elk River and Freshwater using a total station to make topographic surveys and tie in existing channel crossections to official elevations.
As we have done for several years with Cereus fund support, Salmon Forever continues to train Humboldt State University Work Study students in Lab and Field methods.
Salmonid Restoration Federation--$2,500
SRF has been working with the California Watershed Network and an ad hoc coalition of watershed groups to come up with a legislative solution to create a sustainable funding source for the salmonid restoration field. For several decades, California has relied largely on periodic bonds to finance resource management restoration. More than 300 California cooperative conservation partnerships currently conduct erosion control, fish and wildlife enhancement, and water quality improvement projects--yet there is no long-term, sustainable source of restoration funding.
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Proposition 84, the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Act, was passed by California voters in November 2006. Watershed partnerships found the first round of Proposition 84 grants difficult to access, confusing, and cost-prohibitive to participate in. Thus, a coalition of organizations including SRF is encouraging legislators to make this program more accessible to nonprofits, small local governments and disadvantaged communities.
On a national level, SRF generated support letters for expanding the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund for the state of California. Of the $66 million PCSRF dollars available last year, California received less than 10%. California's commitment to enhancing coastal salmonid populations was evident by the state providing approximately $16 million toward coastal salmonid restoration last year. The magnitude of the socioeconomic effects of quality restoration projects in California is unsurpassed. Considering the extent and range of anadromous salmonids in coastal California, and the number of population units listed under the Endangered Species Act or the California Endangered Species Act, SRF encouraged the National Marine Fisheries Service to increase California's PCSRF funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
SRF collaborated with the Urban Creek Council, California Watershed Network and other groups to track legislative efforts affecting salmonids, draft restoration-funding language, and produce and coordinate the Watershed Forum in Sacramento. The Watershed Forum brought together restorationists, legislators, watershed stewards, and agency personnel to address potential sources of restoration funding and Salmonid recovery efforts.
So far in 2007, Cereus grant funding enabled SRF to advocate on behalf of all of these issues, send representatives to key hearings, develop talking points, mobilize citizens, and make headway towards securing long-term sustainable funding for salmon restoration efforts.
Salmon Protection And Watershed Network--$2,500
The Salmon Protection And Watershed Network (SPAWN) is working to restore salmon habitat, educate the public about caring for the fish, and protect the largest remaining run of wild, endangered coho salmon in California from environmental threats in Lagunitas Creek Watershed in Marin County. Following are highlights from a few of our watershed projects.
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To date in 2007, SPAWN has restored 5,500 square feet of native riparian buffer areas along Larsen San Geronimo Creeks. Native planting included willow, maple, redwood, red and blue elderberry, elk clover, torrent sedge, dogwood, buckeye, and hazelnut. In addition we have hosted 18 public creek restoration workdays at our sites with 162 volunteer participants for a total of 648 hours of volunteer time. Volunteers planted 725 willows and oaks and other native species along the creek, removed invasive species by hand, and installed irrigation to support new plantings.
The 30-year storm event that struck on New Year's caused havoc in the San Geronimo watershed and a number of local landowners sought our guidance to help repair the damage. Addressing the cumulative impacts, many of which occurred on private parcels is critical to the recovery of local salmon. To date, we have completed erosion control on the very steep, 4,200-square-foot Lagunitas slide on San Geronimo Creek. Volunteer climbers helped sow native bunch grass and cover the area with erosion control fabric. This fall we will be planting additional trees and shrubs from plants propagated at our new Native Plant Nursery.
In our Native Plant Nursery we are currently propagating 2,500 new native plants from local genetic stock. These plants are available to landowners at cost.
Sanctuary Forest--$5,000
This year Cereus support contributed to Sanctuary Forest's Mattole Flow program which strives to sustain healthy dry season instream flows in the Mattole River headwaters. Low flows are the single greatest threat to the survival of endangered coho, Chinook and steelhead salmonids in the river system.
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Participating landowners must enter into 15-year agreements not to pump water from the river during critical dry periods. Two years of funding the necessary monitoring and enforcement of these agreements are built into each tank installation budget. Sanctuary Forest is currently working to raise the necessary funding to monitor, enforce and administer the program for the remaining 13 years of the agreements.
The low flow situation remains as urgent as ever. Results from the 2006 monitoring revealed that it was the 6th lowest flow year out of the last 55. Depressed numbers of returning coho last season are correlated with lows flows that occurred in 2003. There has been even less rainfall so far in 2007. Sanctuary Forest's work on this project, and Cereus support, could not have come at a better time.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Summer 2007