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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is Staff Attorney Melodie Meyer of EPIC. Hey, Melodie.

All right, Mel, we're talking about the Jackson Demonstration State Forest today. What is the Jackson Demonstration State Forest? Take us there in our listener's mind, if you could.

MELODIE MEYER:

Yeah, so JDSF, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, is a state-owned forest. It's near Fort Bragg, it's like the closest big town. It's on the beautiful Highway 20 to the Mendocino coastline and it is the largest state forest in California. This type of state forest, a demonstration forest, is meant to demonstrate forest management techniques by the state. It's also a place where different research projects can be conducted. Originally, this kind of forest was really meant to demonstrate industrial logging, showing how logging can be done through different techniques and it's been well-loved by the community, actually. So that's kind of the tension because it's a really beautiful forest that has been logged over for the most part, but still serves a lot of important wildlife and ecosystem functions. It's really well-known for recreation, mountain biking, mushroom foraging, hiking.

WHEELER:

It's in the backyard of Fort Bragg, so people in Fort Bragg and surrounding communities go there to hang out, literally in some people's backyards, the Jackson. Yeah.

MEYER:

Very, very close to a lot of folks out there. And it's also a sacred landscape for local tribes there too. So, really special place.

WHEELER:

So the Jackson, it, it's not a, it's a state forest, which is a weird land use classification. It's not a state park, so it's continued to be managed for timber production even to this day. Yeah. Yes, that's correct. So I think that land like this is kind of anachronistic. It, it maybe made sense in 1947 when the state of California purchased this land and the state of California purchased it to stop it from potentially becoming a national forest. The state wanted to have more timber production. We're in the post-war housing boom and having two by fours made out of Redwood, that seemed important to the state of California. So it's, it's kind of out of place though, in this modern era to be logging a Redwood forest for, for timber. So it, it stayed on land, but how, how does this logging occur? Who logs the land? Who benefits from it? That sort of thing. Yeah.

MEYER:

So it's logged and managed by CAL FIRE. CAL FIRE is the regulator and it will put out timber harvest plans and then it'll go out for a bid for a logging operator to do the actual operations. But it's all, yeah, it's all state owned by CAL FIRE and the whole timber harvest process from drafting to approval is under the Department of Fire and Forestry.

WHEELER:

So yeah, so CAL FIRE, they're the judge and executioner here, right? They're judge, jury, and executioner. They write the plan and then they submit it to themselves. They review the plan and approve their own logging. This seems like some sort of a conflict of interest, right?

MEYER:

Yeah, yeah, it's difficult to get them to see what the flaws are if they're the ones who are thinking of the plan and writing it all out.

WHEELER:

So redwood forests, redwood forests, of course, are supremely important for a number of things. Climate among them. What can you tell me about the role of the Jackson in sequestering carbon?

MEYER:

Yeah, so it's really important to have this size and scale of carbon sequestration. There's very few remaining redwood forests left. And so any sort of habitat, especially that we can keep along the coastline and into even inland is really important. It's also important habitat for species to be able to move across forests and providing wildlife connectivity. It is close to the coast too. So creatures like marbled murelet are going to be wanting this type of forest.

WHEELER:

Oh, the Jackson, one of the things I think is interesting about the Jackson, you said earlier in the show that the forest has largely been logged over there. There are still some areas that have remnant old growth and there's still individual old growth trees still standing in areas that have been logged, but the kind of forest that largely dominates the Jackson is actually rarer than old growth and that is mature second growth. So here in Northern California, most of the old growth has been logged, right? We have something like four to 5% of historic old growth left. Everything that has been logged is mostly then if it's on parks, it's mostly in private timber holdings and private timber companies generally don't allow for forest to age in this manner.

So we have forests that are 120 years old on the Jackson, which is a really unique age. So this is our future old growth, right? This is old trees that are starting to put on big branches that are really coming into their own and, and despite it having been logged, it is valuable habitat for things like marble murrelets, Northern spotted owls, all sorts of older forest associated species. So, so we have this forest. It's unique. It's capable of vast amounts of carbon sequestration. Coastal redwood forests are the number one forest type for carbon sequestration. Nothing, nothing's better. And it's owned by the state of California. And yet we're logging it for commercial timber production. Why is that? Why, why, why is the state of California doing this? Cause this seems very un-California, right? If, if someone were to like come, come to our state or have prejudices about our state, like this seems like this should be a state or national park, right?

MEYER:

Right, yeah, well, there is current legislation that, unfortunately, does require the state of California to manage these forests in a way that demonstrates, it's called maximum sustained production. And a lot of folks might be familiar with a similar term when it comes to the amount of fish, let's say fish that has to be kept in the river. So what is the amount you can take while still being sustainable? And it's a pretty outdated term and it essentially just requires the state to continue logging as a quote unquote sustainable resource of timber. But it's a little bit too intensive.

WHEELER:

not only require logging, but logging at a, at a clip that is the maximum allowed amount that they could log before you start to see the forest degrade and become less capable of producing timber. So this is, this is managing state owned lands as if you are green diamond or as if you are humble Redwood company, this is managing publicly owned land like an industrial timber company.

MEYER:

Right, and this is why, whenever we ask CAL FIRE, like, can you do something that's more restorative, that's letting the forest get old? They always point to this and say, sorry, we can't. It's on, it's our, we're legally required to do this kind of management. So.

WHEELER:

So the Jackson is not without controversy, as you said, many people live in the area, they recreate their it's a popular place for mountain biking, for mushrooming for birding. There are campgrounds within the Jackson. Tell us about some of the history of of opposition or concern with forest management here.

MEYER:

So a lot of the more recent opposition happened in 2020. CAL FIRE proposed some pretty destructive THPs. One of them, I believe, was called Camp 20, and this would have harmed tribal sacred landscapes and removed some very large mature trees that were visible from some popular trails. And so this, of course, sparked a series of protests and the whole community, environmentalists, Fort Bragg residents, and tribes all worked together to shut down these THPs through direct action and through other advocacy. And so since then, there haven't been any new proposed THPs on JDSF until very recently.

WHEELER:

And hence our show. All right. So I, I, I feel like we should actually go back and talk a little bit about the, the tribal component as you've done a little bit, but I understand that, that this forest area holds pretty significant cultural importance. It was an area that tribal members used to hide from colonial genocide. Is that right?

MEYER:

Yeah, it's it's a very violent history and unfortunately a lot of the tribes in the area were forcibly removed and this was very painful because of course the forest is not only a place of ceremony but it's subsistence living, acorn gathering, other other traditional foods and medicines were gathered from this forest and so that cultural connection has never been completely severed of course because tribes are so resilient but it has been a a major source of tension I would say.

WHEELER:

And CAL FIRE has done things like putting in logging roads on top of historic Native American trails, blasting through archeological zones and disturbing archeological sites. There, there was a report once, and I know that part, parts of the report are confidential about the impact of, of CAL FIRE's activities, but perhaps you could summarize the non non-confidential bits about how logging has impacted the archeological resources here.

MEYER:

Yeah, basically, what you said, there's just been a blatant disregard for the really important resources that are special to tribes. And I think, really, what was happening is that Cal Fire wasn't completely honoring their responsibility to consult with tribes under the California Environmental Quality Act, on whatever impacts would have whatever impacts there would be to tribal cultural resources. So the common thing for agencies to do for tribes is just to send out a letter notice saying, we're going to do this project, if you have any concerns, please reach back out to us in 30 days or less. And so a lot of tribes just don't have the capacity to respond to that. And Cal Fire was just whipping through these THPs too fast of a rate for tribes to respond, and wasn't really giving tribes a chance to see, protect, find out what mitigations there should be for those tribal cultural resources.

WHEELER:

All right, so we have a new timber harvest plan that has been proposed. I understand just the fact that Cal Fire is returning with any timber harvest plan at all, regardless of what's contained within it, that this was felt to be a violation of some sort of a promise by the agency, some sort of a commitment. Can you talk about that?

MEYER:

Yeah, so after that period of having the community effectively put THPs on pause for JDSF, CAL FIRE effectively agreed to not bring any new THPs until the management plan, the forest management plan was updated. And so this forest management plan was updated in 2016, so it's been a while, and even longer than that, it was only reviewed under CEQA, it was reviewed under CEQA way back in 2007, so it hasn't gone through that environmental analysis since then. So it's well overdue for an update, and CAL FIRE essentially said, we need to change the way we're doing things, we hear your concerns as a community, as tribal nations, and so let's come together and update this management plan before we do any new projects.

WHEELER:

And so a management plan that would detail the ways, the areas in which they are going to log, maybe areas that would be set aside, the, the, the resources that you're trying to manage for, whether that be timber or also other sorts of things that we rely on forest for clean air, clean water, wildlife, habitat, recreation, and so on. So a new management plan is in the works, but it's not been delivered yet. And CAL FIRE, despite having made commitments to have timber operations on pause is now moving forward on a new timber harvest plan. Let's let's talk about that timber harvest plan.

MEYER:

Yeah, so this timber harvest plan is called the Amex THP, and it is about 500 acres of group selection harvesting. It's located near the Camp 20 Day Use area and the Dunlap campgrounds. On the east of the THP border is the Big River, and then Water Gulch is the northern boundary of the THP. So it's a pretty ecologically sensitive area with regard to the watershed.

WHEELER:

Big River has listed salmonids and I believe is also listed as impaired for sediment because of this history of logging that's gone on here, all the roads and landings and all the things that have contributed to too much sediment in that river, impairing salmon and other native fish. You are listening to the Econews Report. We're talking about the Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Mendocino County and new efforts by CAL FIRE to log the Jackson. What is being proposed in the Timber Harvest Plan? What is the logging and what are the concerns with this logging?

MEYER:

So there's four units of logging proposed and group selection harvesting for those who don't know is essentially creating mini clear cuts. So there are these openings in the forest, a very intensive logging. The idea is that you're leaving behind trees to grow. So you're creating sort of this uneven aged forest. But the thing with that is that it's allowing CAL FIRE to go in more frequently to log this area. So it's actually creating more disturbance in the long run.

WHEELER:

You say many clear cuts, but leaving trees behind, to be clear, these are, these are clear cuts. It's taking all trees from one area and the leaving trees behind are on the boundaries of these clear cuts. So effectively this is like freckled logging across the landscape where you have lots of little clear cuts that cumulatively represent a large area of even age management, but that are broken up by, by some trees on the borders. Right.

MEYER:

That's right, yeah, and I think it's important for folks to remember too that the logging itself is not the only disturbance, there's also heavy equipment going back and forth on the roads, there's the noise from the equipment being used.

WHEELER:

which is near a campground, right? Right. That people enjoy. Exactly. And also noise disturbances to wildlife as well. Exactly.

MEYER:

Yes, and they are using cable yarding, which is theoretically a bit better because you're not dragging the logs across the forest. But they are also going to be utilizing things like skid trails, which still have some amount of dragging of those big logs on the ground. So with that, some of our main concerns are the potential for sediment delivery into these important tributaries. So as you were mentioning before, we have all these sensitive cell-mounted species. And one of the worst things that you can do is have a landslide or have too much soil deposits into them. And so we're really concerned about that because if you look and you read the THP for this area, it's admitting that it's in a really unstable soil area. There's lots of potentials for landslides and cave-ins along the tributaries. So that's probably one of our biggest concerns there.

WHEELER:

And sediment pollution, just to clarify that that's fine, fine dirt particles that are getting into the water, right? So that makes the water chocolatey, cloudy looking. If you can't really see through the water, then the fish who are present in there can't really see either. Salmon are visual hunters when they're young and so it can impact feeding. Sediment can also snuff out salmon redds, the areas where salmon go to reproduce. If we have sediment pollution during this period, we can cover the salmon eggs and make them die.

So this is why sediment pollution has been this persistent problem in the North coast and one that EPIC together with fishermen's groups like the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations have worked so hard to try to fight is that the number one source of sediment pollution, the number one way that our watersheds are impaired up here is from timber, timber production. It is landslides. It's also persistent sediment bleeding from poorly, poorly constructed and poorly maintained roads and landings associated with logging, right?

MEYER:

Yeah. Another thing that we saw in this THP was it's close to Camp 20, which has what's called the Camp 20 Grove, and that is potential marbled murelet habitat. What's really bad about this THP is that CAL FIRE failed to even include any marbled murelet surveys in the THP at all. They said there's not going to be adverse impact to marbled murelet, and yet they didn't provide any results of the surveys that were supposedly done last year. So that's always going to be a major concern because, as we know, marbled murelet is already in a really sensitive state, and they need a lot of protections, and it seems like they haven't really done a good job of seeing how this project and the loud noise and the roads and potential tree fall is going to impact their habitat.

WHEELER:

And things like corvids, crows, blue jays, or steller's jay. One thing that we know that even if you're not logging the old growth forest that the, the marble murrelet requires for, for their nests, you can still increase competition from, from crows, you know, they'll, they'll come in and they'll, they'll eat the eggs of the marble murrelet and that, that is a terrible problem for a murrelet because it nests once per year, very few number of eggs, it has, it's deeply susceptible to that sort of nest predation. So lots of reasons to be concerned. Talk about the, the coalition of folks who are commenting and who are working on a response to this timber harvest plan and to CAL FIRE's actions more broadly.

MEYER:

Yes, so the the coalition to save Jackson Forest is a ongoing coalition who has been involved for trying to conserve Jackson for a long time. And this includes folks from all all of the communities who use Jackson Demonstration State Forest. So folks who are concerned about tribal cultural resources, bikers, hikers, foragers and bird watchers, environmentalists. So these folks are trying to get the word out about this THP and reminding folks of Cal Fire's promise not to do new THPs until the management plan is updated and until more tribal involvement is incorporated. So specifically looking for something like a co-management agreement. And so these folks are working on not only outreach, but outreach to to state and state representatives trying to get the word out.

WHEELER:

So the Jackson is a very popular place, not only for folks who live immediately nearby, but for folks who come and go mushroom hunting there, unlike so many other places where mushroom hunting is prohibited, you can go and collect mushrooms from the Jackson, which is fantastic. It is a place where friends go for vacation to the campgrounds within the Jackson and immediately adjacent to it. So I imagine that a lot of folks in this listener base will have recreated at the Jackson and want to protect it and might be shocked to learn that the state is logging like an industrial timber company here. So what are ways for folks to get involved in the effort to save the Jackson Demonstration State Forest?

MEYER:

Yeah, so it would be great to have folks who have experienced this part of the forest, especially Camp 20 and Dunlap Campground. As you said, folks who have mushroomed in this area, being able to express their experience on the forest and how important it is and how that could be impacted by this project. Imagine if you are using this area of the forest and all of a sudden you come across this bald part of the forest where there's no more trees. And so having folks write in with their comments, even if it's just something simple like that, would be extremely helpful. The email is santarosapubliccommentatcalfire.gov. So comments are being collected on this THP currently. I will note that the THP was returned, which means CAL FIRE is currently making corrections to it. So there should be a new version of the THP coming out soon and EPIC will be sure to update its supporters on when that happens.

WHEELER:

One thing that you just brought up that always excites my attention is tribal co-management. So we've talked about how tribes had historically used the area, how they continue to use the area for, for gathering and cultural purposes. One of the nice things about this moment is we have this recognition that tribes have this long standing relationship with lands that they've tended and have kind of a unique relationship. And that unique relationship means that we, we owe in some sense a special obligation to work together with tribes. Can you, can you talk about the efforts to promote tribal co-management on the Jackson and how this could be, if done correctly, a test vehicle for forest management elsewhere?

MEYER:

Yeah, so what's a positive development that's happened is the Tribal Advisory Council has come out of that period of engaging with tribes after the Camp 20 THP was proposed and there was a series of tribal consultations about the THP process in general. So theoretically, this Tribal Advisory Council does exercise more power in reviewing things like THPs. And so having that process sort of codified into something like the management plan or a co-management agreement, as you said, would really redefine this tribal consultation process, which is unfortunately a box-checking exercise and transforming that into something that is much more collaborative and actually incorporating things like traditional ecological knowledge into forest management. So that would be the ultimate goal of folks like the coalition and EPIC's perspective is to have it be collaborative and an equal decision-making with CAL FIRE and tribal nations.

WHEELER:

So maybe to close, I can kind of put forward a positive vision of how we want to see the land managed. So we've been talking about how we, how the land is currently managed and critiquing it. But I, I, I see this as an area one where we can start to explore tribal co-management, where we can allow for tribes to participate in, in resource management of their historic ancestral territory. That that's terribly exciting. It also doesn't mean that that some sort of a change in management means that we wouldn't have timber production from these lands. And I think that Redwoods Rising a program from Save the Redwoods Leagues and Redwood State and National Parks is, is a good inspiration here.

So they're Redwoods Rising. We have timber production as a by-product of restoration. We're going in, we're fixing those historic roads. We're taking out failing landings. We're going back in and correcting species composition and doing logging in such a way that we will actually better hasten the development of old growth characteristics here. What's going on is Cal Fire is managing for timber production. And so that's the contrast. I think that we want to see the development of a restoration economy and a recognition that the public, public, public needs, public demands for public lands are different now in 2025 than they were in 1947 when this property was purchased by the state and that the highest and best use for this land is now for clean water, for recreation, for climate sequestration, and that we can do all this and still have some timber production, but let's not have timber production drive our decisions elsewhere. Okay. Mel, any, any last thoughts? Where can folks find out more about the coalition, the Save Jackson Coalition?

MEYER:

Yeah, so folks can find out more at SaveJackson.org and of course we will be providing more updates about where this THP goes.

WHEELER:

All right, well, Mel, thanks for your work on the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. I look forward to having you back on the show to celebrate our success in, in stopping bad logging on state owned forests. Thank you listeners for joining us and join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.