Jackson Advisory Group Nears Draft of Recommendations
The Jackson Advisory Group (JAG) was appointed by the Director of CAL FIRE, with the concurrence of the Board of Forestry, in April of 2008. The Group was given a broad charter to review the management plan for 50,000-acre Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Mendocino County and to recommend changes to the Director and Board of Forestry. (read more)


Defending Public Lands: New Era of Yosemite Protection
On September 29, Friends of Yosemite Valley and the National Park Service (NPS) jointly announced a court-approved Settlement Agreement ending 10 years of litigation. This milestone consolidates our Ninth Circuit court victory of 2008 and opens the door for a new generation of protection for Yosemite's Merced River and valley. Under the terms of the Settlement the multi-million-dollar development-minded Yosemite Valley Plan is now rescinded. Follow-on plans to redevelop two Valley hotels are gone too, along with schemes for new parking, roads, and much more. Yosemite today appears to be at a truly new beginning. (read more)


Richardson Grove Improvement Project
Kim, (read more)


Will Natural Forestry Become the New Forestry for Jackson Forest?
I last reported on Jackson Forest developments in the middle of 2008. I skipped the year-end update because it seemed that a holding pattern had developed, and there was not significant new news. There are now developments worth reporting. (read more)


Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest
Management reform for Jackson Forest is moving forward ever so slowly, but it is moving. (read more)


Central Coast Forest Watch
Established in 2007, Central Coast Forest Watch's Director, long-time activist Jodi Frediani, has kept busy on a number of projects. (read more)


Environmental Protection Information Center
This fall, EPIC marks its 30th anniversary. According to Robert "Woods" Sutherland, Keeper of the Ancient Texts, the Environmental Protection Information Center was named by one Jim Demulling, a lifelong timber faller. Mr. Demulling was a great admirer of Upton Sinclair's Depression-era campaign for Governor of California, a frankly socialist program that drove big landowners and corporations into a frenzy of red-baiting, including pioneering use of advertising techniques in a political campaign. Thus was the "EPIC" handle used by End Poverty In California borrowed for the Environmental Protection Information Center: you might say that picking big fights with corporations and their pet politicians is in our organizational DNA. (read more)


Friends of Yosemite Valley
In Yosemite, our efforts continue to reign in a well-funded new generation of commercial development, and to win a long-overdue legal plan to protect the Merced Wild and Scenic River. We have been focused on protecting the Merced while trying to get at what is really wrong here - commercialism and exploitation of a fragile and limited place. Those following our work know that we have labored in the shadow of a well-funded, oncoming development push for nearly ten years. Some damaging projects have been allowed, and many others were halted by our legal efforts. (read more)


Pacific Lumber Bankruptcy Update
After nearly two decades of destructive and unsustainable logging, driven in part by the need to make the interest payments on its crippling debt, Pacific Lumber (PL, PALCO, and its affiliate ScoPac) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2007. In October PALCO presented its strategy for continuing operations to the US Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas. In an effort to repay its creditors PL proposes to: take on even more debt, subdivide and sell valuable forestland, and double its income. (read more)


Please Welcome Our New Partner....: Central Coast Forest Watch
Central Coast Forest Watch (CCFW) is the new kid on the block. Formed in 2007, CCFW is just getting its feet wet in local forest issues. CCFW's staff person, Jodi Frediani, a long-time forest advocate, has kept busy this season on a number of projects. (read more)


In Yosemite: Green Means Dollars Not Sense
Because there is overwhelming desire for the preservation of Yosemite National Park, Californians and all Americans should be aware that their most beloved park is immediately facing a damaging construction boom. Sadly, the press has misrepresented this Yosemite Valley Plan (YVP) as a long-awaited plan to "restore" Yosemite. Government PR aside, the plan itself says just the opposite. Members of the local grassroots group Friends of Yosemite Valley (Friends) are familiar with park documents, regularly monitor park projects, and devote most of their public outreach efforts to countering the "green" spin of the National Park Service. Friends have also spent much of the past decade holding the federal government accountable to the law--holding the line against further commercialization of Yosemite. (read more)


Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest
I reported in the last issue of Branching Out that all of the important interest groups now agree that Jackson State Forest, our publicly owned 50,000-acre redwood forest, should be managed for broad public benefit. (read more)


PACIFIC LUMBER BANKRUPTCY
When Pacific Lumber filed for bankruptcy on January 18, it didn't surprise many people. In fact, forest and community activists had begun meeting to strategize for expected changes more than a year and a half ago after PL had been rather loudly and pointedly threatening bankruptcy to pressure regulatory agencies to give them more logging capability. A lot has happened since Jan. 18. (read more)


Campaign to Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest: Reform Efforts Turn the Corner
After six years of education, and five years with no timber harvests, the idea that our publicly owned 50,000-acre redwood forest--Jackson State Forest--should be managed for broad public benefit has become widely accepted. The Department of Forestry, the Board of Forestry, and even the industrial timber interests in Mendocino County are now saying publicly that Jackson Forest should be managed for research, restoration, recreation, and education--exactly what the Campaign has been recommending since 2000. (read more)


An Activist Shares Her Story: California Wilderness Protected!
On October 17, the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act of 2006 became federal law. The bill added 275,830 acres of federal public roadless land to the Federal Wilderness Preservation System, officially designated as Wilderness. It also protects segments of the Black Butte River (a tributary of the Middle Fork Eel) as Wild and Scenic for 21 miles on existing federal public land, with an additional 6,563 acres for a grand total of 282,393 new Wilderness acres. (read more)