McKay Tract Update

December 19, 2011


As the winter rains begin to soak in, we busy ourselves with community organizing, staying dry, building new living quarters in the tree-village, and replenishing our water stores. We're now entering year four of the occupation in the McKay Tract/ Ryan Creek watershed to stop this precious habitat from being clear-cut by Green Diamond Resource Company, aka Simpson.

"Green Diamond Resource Company has taken care to protect and nurture such forests for 120 years" ... from greendiamond.com

Green Diamond announced last winter that they were working with Trust for Public Land, a non-profit conservation group, to designate a community forest in the McKay Tract. Trust for Public Land said that a detailed plan would be presented in Spring of 2011, but nothing has materialized. Since then, GD has repeated that they intend to carry out their plunder of the last mature Redwood groves in the Ryan Creek drainage. So with the complicity of state and federal agencies, the company still aims to decimate this Spotted Owl nesting and breeding area.

The logging plan was set to expire this August, as no work had commenced since it's approval three years ago. In July, to our alarm, GD filed start-up on the logging plan and did a minor amount of road maintenance. This qualified them for a one year extension on the time period to execute the plan. In the start-up letter to state logging agency, CDF (aka Calfire), GD forester Greg Templeton said that they're waiting for timber prices to increase before they log this site, which sounds illogical as they are clear-cutting much forest elsewhere. Templeton also flatly denied that any significant changes had occurred at the proposed logging site. However, GD knows full well that the tree village includes a sprawling ropes course, tying up approximately 4-5 acres in the heart of their proposed road network.

In the face of an uncertain future, one thing is for sure, the occupation of this Redwood forest will continue.


This article can be found online at www.treesfoundation.org/publications/article-478

Forest & River News is produced by Trees Foundation.