What is Headwaters Forest?

July 17, 2000


For the past 15 years, Headwaters Forest has been the premier old-growth redwood preservation effort in Northern California. Located about 10 miles southeast of Eureka, these vast unprotected ancient redwood forests were controlled by the Pacific Lumber Company, which was purchased by the Texas-based Maxxam Corporation in a hostile takeover in the mid-1980s. Due to the extreme debt burden that resulted from the takeover, the new owners of Pacific Lumber radically accelerated the liquidation of these ancient redwood stands.

Dozens of lawsuits were filed against Pacific Lumber (PL) to slow the cutting of these last unprotected stands, while seemingly endless direct action protests were staged by EarthFirst! Things came to a head in 1992 when the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) sued PL for violating the Endangered Species Act when it illegally logged an ancient redwood grove (Owl Creek) that was habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet. The court ruled that any further logging of this endangered species habitat would likely cause the bird?s extinction in the region. The judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding PL from logging the grove, unless it could get special permission from the Fish and Wildlife Service via a ?Habitat Conservation Plan.?

In September 1996 an agreement was announced that transferred about 7500 acres of property (about half ancient forest) to the public in exchange for $380 million in cash and property and a substantial tax break to Maxxam. This deal also required PL to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan and Sustained Yield Plan that would govern their logging operations for the next 50 years. A pitched battle ensued to determine the standards that would be included in the company?s Habitat Conservation Plan. The end result was a political compromise. Several areas of murrelet-occupied ancient forest were set aside for the next 50 years, and improved protections for fish and other wildlife were agreed to. However, in exchange for accepting these restrictions on some of their activities, PL was given the green light to liquidate thousands of acres of ancient forest that otherwise may have been protected as endangered species habitat. Thus the conservation values we have fought for continue to be threatened.


This article can be found online at www.treesfoundation.org/publications/article-39

Headwaters Update is produced by Trees Foundation.