Rainbow Ridge: Concerns of Excessive Timber Harvest In The Mattole

Dear Friends,

The author of this letter has lived in the Mattole since l970. He was a

founder of the Mattole Salmon Group, the Mattole Restoration Council and

the Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy. He served as President of the

Institute for Sustainable Forestry and was active in the efforts to try to

bring Maxxam and PL into compliance with the long-terms health of the

watershed. Comments and suggestions below are his and should not be

attributed to any organization or group.

Over the three decades after Maxxam Corporation took control of Pacific Lumber

Company (PL), residents in the Mattole Valley joined with forest activists from all

over in a struggle to bring some level of ecological protection to PL lands in the

watershed. These lands, often referred to collectively as Rainbow Ridge, include

much of the Lower and Upper North Forks of the Mattole. They comprise, along

with neighboring ranch lands, an exceptionally beautiful and wild place on the

planet and contained, at the time of the takeover, some of the largest previously

unentered forest stands dominated by old Douglas fir in the entire Mattole and

beyond. (The considerable majority of PL lands outside the Mattole are redwood

dominated.)

Despite efforts during these years of hundreds of young people willing to risk

their lives sitting in trees so they wouldn't be cut down and of Mattole residents

who endured arrest and social censure as a consequence of protest, many of

these stands were logged. The North Fork watersheds, like well over 90% of the

forested areas in the entire Mattole, had already experienced enormous

sediment-related damage to steep hillslopes and stream courses from the post-

World War II logging and the road-building related to it.

Because of their proximity to the triple junction, sediment delivery into the

Rainbow tributaries has been exceptional over the years even for the Mattole.

Though extensive restoration of aquatic and upslope habitat has been

undertaken throughout the Mattole since l980, the hydrologic systems of the

North Forks are still in a state of considerable sediment-related dysfunction. The

once-potent coho, chinook and steelhead fisheries in those tributaries have not

yet begun to recover.

In 2008, Mendocino Redwood Company (now recomposed locally as "Humboldt'

Redwood Company) succeeded in its efforts to win possession of the PL lands

to close a long Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. Some, including leading

Humboldt environmental groups welcomed this change as a positive resolution of

the long struggle against an enemy (Maxxam) implacably determined, despite the

ecological and long-range economic consequences, to extract all possible value

from their 220,000 acres of land, mostly in redwood.

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MRC, now HRC, seemed positioned to bring some level of relief from the

enormous degradation of the land and watercourses that had taken place. They

also seemed to offer potential alleviation from the grinding conflict that had

developed between environmentally or restoration-oriented residents and those

who depended on timber harvest for their livelihood. Maxxam had been as toxic

societally as it was ecologically.

After several years of inaction in their Mattole holdings, HRC has now submitted

three timber harvest plans for Rainbow Ridge that spread out over 1,000+ acres

and in most estimates include the last, biggest and best stands of timber that

Maxxam left standing on the Mattole holdings. While containing trees of varying

ages, these lands are the largest legacy of the past—and the most fungible

(convertible to cash)--in HRC's Mattole ownership.

It must be noted that HRC appears to be approaching the issues involved in a

more transparent, open-minded fashion. Their relationships with critics of the

plan--representing significant segments of our community--has been far more

collegial than had been the case with their predecessors. HRC seems to have

committed itself, overall, to a lighter touch in their logging, preservation of

fragments of older forest and a more open dialogue with the community of people

for whom Rainbow Ridge is important.

Still, the plans, now approved by CalFire, represent a substantial challenge to the

possibility of ecological and hydrological recovery in tributary watersheds already

heavily impacted by past logging. No amount of cooperation with the

community can escape the fact that the largest contiguous unentered areas in

the ownership is to be roaded and cut, albeit selectively. The fact that the land in

the plans is mostly steep and erodible should require even greater care and

attention. Any reasonable assessment for certification must be based on a

comprehension of the nature of the situation and a thorough understanding of the

ground including the effects of prior management.

In the long run, it may no longer be reasonable to suggest that entry into one of

the very few remaining areas of previously unentered forest is justified by a

"lighter touch" alone or by preservation of small parts of the overall stand or by

attractive new designations and protocols Some stage of recovery in the

drainages to be logged and in neighboring ecological communities should be

agreed upon and achieved or at least set firmly in motion before new impacts are

initiated in this kind of stand and on this kind of ground. Herbicide use is also a

serious problem in the community.

As well-intended and eager to do the right thing as HRC may be, they, like the

Mattole community, are stuck with a management history in the North Forks and

throughout the watershed that cannot be so quickly erased and which seriously

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limits the possibility of commercial harvest that remains within the ambit of

ecological sustainability. We collectively cannot act as if there is no history of

excessive timber harvest, no Maxxam, no blasted stream courses, no salmon

populations at the verge of extinction. We cannot act as if there are numerous

stands in the North Fork drainages that have not been entered. Many of us would

welcome HRC into the efforts to restore and enhance. As it stands now, though,

their protestations that they are not being driven commercially provoke some

skepticism by virtue of the fact that the first time out on Rainbow Ridge, they are

going right to where the most readily available commercial harvest in that area

resides—the most valuable remaining legacy of an otherwise hugely altered preharvest

past.

In light of the history on Rainbow and the nature of the terrain, the most

reasonable course forward might be a continuation of the heartening dialogue

now in mid-stream between owners and neighbors in conjunction with

forbearance from harvest activities until a balanced viewpoint as to the status of

recovery has been gained and included in the planning process. HRC and the

certification team might seek to put themselves with us into the larger geological

and temporal framework, in which restoration of watershed and forest health is

central and through which alone sustainability of a dependable level of harvest

can be determined and achieved.

David Simpson

P.O. Box 81, Petrolia, CA 95558 hnpetrolia@aol.com