To CAL Fire from Mendocino Trail Stewards

We, the founders and supporters of Mendocino Trail Stewards, are writing to inform you of our new group and its aims.

Our mission is to promote recreation in Jackson Demonstration State Forest with the aim of preserving more of these publicly-owned wildlands for recreation, the coastal economy, education, health and the environment.

We are petitioning the legislature to elevate recreation to the same level of consideration as logging in your planning process — at least in some areas of the forest — and to return more of the revenue generated here back to JDSF in order to accommodate this.

We recognize that the employees and staff of CAL Fire work hard and do well at their jobs. We know that you are people who love the outdoors as much as we do, and we want the state to give you the direction and funding to create a different kind of demonstration forest, one that is groundbreaking in how it balances timber interests with those of recreation and healthy outdoor living. We are not trying to create more work for individuals at CAL Fire, but to bring in more funds to support you in making the changes that our community is asking for.

We are not against logging, but we see a forest and a community that is wholly different from when JDSF was purchased from Caspar Lumber Company in 1947. Fort Bragg is no longer a mill town. The harbor no longer hosts hundreds of commercial fishing boats. Outdoor recreation has gone from the pastime of a few to a driving force of rural economies worldwide.

Local residents use, maintain, and value the trails in JDSF: Tourists come to bike, walk and forage mushrooms in the groves, while they and their families spend substantial sums of money at scores of local businesses. Estimates are that mountain biking tourism alone could (with coordinated promotion) generate between $2- 4 million per year.

We have to ask: What will be the future foundations of our coastal economy?

Like the rest of the nation, we have been extremely hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant economic downturn. Our fisheries — both sport and commercial — from abalone to crab, seaurchin, groundfish and salmon, have nearly collapsed. The timber industry, with no mills left on the Mendocino Coast and limited valuable timber still standing, will never return to its boom days. Even the marijuana industry, for many decades the third pillar of our economy, has collapsed.

As in any economically afflicted area, mental health and socioeconomic indicators here are alarming. Over 60 percent of students in the Fort Bragg Unified School District qualify for free or subsidized meals.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, suicide rates are far above the national average; Healthy Mendocino reports domestic violence and mental health issues overall at least 20 percent higher than the California average; adult drug and alcohol abuse is far more prevalent here than elsewhere.

We can not afford to lose any more jobs — timber or otherwise. Yet a look at the breakdown of employment in our county is revealing: According to DataUSA, tourism-related services, including food service, lodging and sales create between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs in the county,