Board of Forestry Rejects Jackson Forest Advisory Group Consensus
Even for a body famous for doing the wrong thing, the Board of Forestry sank to new lows in its treatment of the unanimous consensus recommendations of the Jackson Forest Advisory Group. (read more)


Your Redwood State Park: Richardson Grove, Gateway to Redwood Country BIG TRUCKS or BIG TREES? What do YOU want?
The Preliminary Injunction secured in federal court against CalTrans on their Richardson Grove Project remains in effect until the hearing for summary judgement, which is scheduled for Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 9am in San Francisco Federal Court. Please attend. The State hearing will be in Eureka at the Humboldt County Superior Court in mid-March. (read more)


Organizing for the Redwoods Is Paying Off!
On the Richardson Grove Campaign front, a core group of people from several organizations, including the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, brought a large, colorful and passionate crowd to Sacramento on June 22 to rally in front of Caltrans headquarters, hold a sidewalk press conference, and deliver a fabric-draped wheel barrow full of signed postcards and petitions to Gov. Jerry Brown's office. (read more)


Time to Demand Change: Direct Action to Save Richardson Grove!
The moment we knew was coming is now here. With Caltrans accepting bids from contractors, the Richardson Grove Project is imminent and could start as early as May 2011. (read more)


Opponents of Richardson Grove Highway Project File Second Suit to Save Old-growth Redwoods
On September 27 five individuals and three environmental advocacy organizations filed a federal lawsuit against the California Department of Transportation. The Federal Action challenges a major construction project along Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park in Humboldt County. The project will destroy prized old-growth redwoods to allow access for large commercial trucks. The lawsuit--the second suit citizens have filed to stop the controversial project--was filed due to Caltrans' failure to conduct a thorough environmental review of the project, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. (read more)


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)