Editor's Note: Cereus Fund 2009
In this issue we highlight the Cereus Fund, Trees Foundation's largest and longest-running donor-advised grantor. Over the past eleven years, the Cereus Fund has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to grassroots environmental projects throughout the redwood region. Showcasing the ability of one person to make a lasting difference, the Cereus Fund has helped enable restoration and preservation throughout California's North Coast. (read more)


Defending Public Lands: Defending Richardson Grove: A Tribal Perspective
The ancient Kahs-tcho (redwood trees) of Richardson Grove have always been regarded as sacred by Indigenous Peoples. Since time immemorial, the Nahs-lin-che keah and other Tribal peoples inhabited and utilized this area of Sinkyoko (S. Fork Eel River), including this place that later became known as Richardson Grove. For Native peoples, the Grove is special because our ancestors inhabited this region for thousands of years, long before the era when the Grove's now-huge trees were mere seedlings. The prayers and songs of our people are forever recorded within the memories of this sacred place. The delicate balance of Sinkyoko's redwood/river ecosystem was maintained through our people's annual world renewal ceremonies, their purposeful burning of the understory, and their wise use and care of the Kahs-tcho along with the myriad plant and animal communities that depend on this great tree for life. We are told our people's blood was one of the elements used in the creation of the Kahs-tcho, intended as a reminder to us that our life and the life of the "red-wood" are vitally connected. (read more)


Take Action!: Stop a Highway Project Through the Ancient Redwoods
Ask any visitor to California's North Coast who has driven the Redwood Highway north from San Francisco, and they'll be able to tell you exactly where they passed through the fabled "Redwood Curtain." At Richardson Grove State Park, just north of the Humboldt County line, Highway 101 narrows to a two-lane road winding through a dim, lush grove of ancient redwoods. These huge trees provide crucial habitat for endangered birds like the marbled murrelet; threatened salmon and steelhead still return each year to spawn in the creeks running through the park. (read more)


Defending Public Lands: The Redwood Curtain Bicycle Run, Part I
What do you do if your state budget is being slashed and burned by an inept actor (again), your State Parks are closing, and corporations are conspiring with developers and state transportation agencies to invade your rural and progressive paradise? On October 2, 2009, activists departed north of Arcata, California, on a bicycle ride heading south to bring attention to the proposed Caltrans project to widen Highway 101 within Richardson Grove State Park; and to support California State Parks facing closure due to Governor Schwarzenegger's state budget cuts. The "Redwood Curtain Bicycle Run" was a three-day adventure of cycling, camping, fun, and interaction with residents of Humboldt County along the Redwood Highway, ending at the "Redwood Curtain" of Richardson Grove State Park. (read more)


Cereus Fund 2009

We extend our heartfelt gratitude once again to the Cereus Fund for its commitment to connect, protect, and restore the wildlands of the North Coast... (read more)


Community-Based Restoration on the Salmon River
Flowing from the Marble, Russian, and Trinity Alps mountain ranges of far Northern California, the Salmon River is the second-largest tributary to the Klamath. Also called the Cal Salmon since there is a major river in Idaho called the Salmon, it is one of the most biologically intact river systems in the west. As the most pristine major tributary in the entire Klamath River system, it provides abundant amounts of clean, cool water into the Klamath that is crucial to the survival of migrating salmon. Despite this, the fishery of the Salmon River is a remnant of what it once was. Several species of the river's fish are at risk of extinction, and there is great need for additional watershed restoration and protection. (read more)


Book Review: The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear by Douglas Bevington, Published by Island Press

The Rebirth of Environmentalism covers the iconic campaigns of the fight for the ancient redwoods of Headwaters Forest, the drive to end liquidation of our public lands forests via the Zero Cut Campaign and the Center for Biological Diversity's cutting edge litigation for species on the brink of extinction. One of the things that makes the book relevant reading for those working in or even observing environmental advocacy is that the campaigns are not iconic so much because of their megaflora and megafauna at center stage in those battles, but that they are emblematic of the effectiveness of the grassroots end of the environmental movement, in comparison with the large national NGO's lumbering down the same campaign paths. (read more)


Trees Foundation awarded 2009 Sempervirens Award for Lasting Achievement in Environmental Advocacy
Each year the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) selects one individual to receive this prestigious award. This year Trees Foundation was the honored recipient. Thank you EPIC and thank you to all of the Trees Foundation supporters--we could not have done it without you! (read more)


Humboldt Watershed Council Moves Forward
Greetings from the Humboldt Watershed Council. We are honored to submit an essay for this edition and decided to give everyone a little history and an update about what we are up to today. Humboldt Watershed Council is now one of the older and more inclusive environmental groups in Humboldt County. The Humboldt Watershed Council (HWC) was created about 12 years ago to put a spotlight on the intense logging practices of the Pacific Lumber Company (PL) that resulted in damage to water quality, habitat stream conditions, and private property in the Freshwater drainage. The HWC was driven by a collection of residents from the affected area and put its energy into creating a collective voice to the water and forestry agencies, politicians, and the general public. They successfully petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to list several watersheds as sediment-impaired under 303(d) of the Federal Clean Water Act. During its early years, HWC focused on forestry rules, THP (Timber Harvest Plan) monitoring and litigation, and the Headwaters Forest acquisition, where it played a prominent role in fighting for a scientifically credible HCP/SYP (Harvest Conservation Plan//Sustainable Yield Plan). In about 2002, the HWC focused its energies on the application of the Clean Water Act to our impaired watersheds. It organized public and scientific testimony for Regional Water Board meetings and evidentiary hearings, filed regulatory petitions, participated in mediation, and initiated litigation to force the State and Regional Water Boards to develop the unprecedented Watershed-Wide Waste Discharge Requirements (WWDR) for logging. The concept of WWDR served as the interim measure until Water Quality began development and implementation of today's Total Maximum Daily Load. (read more)


Diggin' In: The Gienger Report

Several things are on my mind as mid-summer simmers. In my Spring 2009 "Diggin' In" column, I really focused on the California bond funding `freeze' and it's horrific impacts on organizations, businesses, and individuals involved with watershed restoration work--and the potential for continuing and worsening effects. Well, good news & bad news: the `freeze' thawed enough for many restoration businesses and organizations to have their back invoices finally honored by the state and go-aheads given to recommence certain projects. BUT, California's bond rating was recently pushed into the `sub-basement' so there are certainly no assurances that the work done will be paid for anytime soon. IOUs anybody? The new Association of Conservation Contractors and Workers is meeting on August 1st to try and come to grips with the situation and the future of watershed restoration in California. (read more)


Editor's Note: Clean & Abundant Water
Clean and abundant water in our rivers depends on public policy and community action as well as healthy watersheds. With many regional rivers suffering from high levels of pollution and low flows during dry summer months, wildlife and urban and rural communities are being adversely impacted. (read more)


Community-based Forestry: Community Forestry and the Humboldt County General Plan

Last month the Institute for Sustainable Forestry, the Buckeye Forest Project, UC Extension, the Forest Guild, and Redwood Coast Rural Action together hosted the event "Future Forests II: Maintaining healthy and productive working forests on the North Coast." The coalition designed a two-day conference agenda addressing the current economic challenges facing the forest products industry, and non-industrial landowners in particular. FFII brought together a diverse audience including landowners, mill operators, foresters, managers of land trusts, conservation professionals, timber industry representatives, and environmental advocates. (read more)


Diggin' In: The Gienger Report

My original topics for this issue were to include community-based forests (specifically the Usal Redwood Forest in northwest Mendocino County, continuing the theme I focused on in the Winter 2008 Forest & River News); some important aspects of the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc., (RFFI) manifested efforts "to create new stewardship models that would both protect the natural and cultural values and provide a long-term conservation-based economy"; and also the usual short summaries of other issues vital to California's North Coast. However, the panic and resulting critical pressures brought to bear on watershed restoration and conservation-based efforts by the freezing of Bond Funds in California on December 17th, 2008, coupled with the pell-mell rush to submit "shovel-ready" projects for federal Stimulus Funding by early April 2009, have now grabbed center stage for this column. (read more)


North Coast Living: Animal Stories
People in my neighborhood on Elk Ridge above Briceland get very fond of their animals. Not just their dogs and cats and chickens and goats, but also their bears, foxes, mountain lions, owls, squirrels, ravens, and even sometimes raccoons. Some of them we aren't so fond of, but we keep track of them and wonder how they're doing, even so. (read more)


Richardson Grove "Improvement" Project: What are We Trading our Trees For?
Richardson Grove State Park, established in 1922, is approximately 2,000 acres encompassing a majestic stand of old-growth redwoods bisected by the South Fork of the Eel River. For centuries the Eel worked to create the thick layers of rich soil needed to grow the enormously tall redwoods found within the park borders. (read more)