FIGHTING FOR THE FOREST
Group attempts to turn Jackson Forest into redwood preserve
FORT BRAGG » Driving the 25-mile, winding pass known as California Highway 20, you could be excused for missing the weather-worn, wooden sign welcoming you into — and through — Jackson State Demonstration Forest.
After all, the towering redwood trees dappling the sunlight over the road and the misty fog that clings to every curve is what most drivers are there for, as they head toward the craggy cliffs of the Mendocino coastline.
JDSF — or just “Jackson,” as it’s known locally — extends for a staggering 48,000 acres beyond that stretch of road. Nestled between the small mountain town of Willits and the coastal city of Fort Bragg, it is home to innumerable second-growth and old-growth redwoods, rare species of animals and birds, several dozen campsites, waterfalls and mossy paths to hike, cycle, ride and motor through.
But JDSF is also what’s known as a working forest, and despite the reputation it has among locals as a haven of natural wonders — the state says it needs to earn its keep.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (also known as Cal Fire) operates nine Demonstration State Forests in the state, totaling around 72,000 acres. JDSF alone makes up approximately two-thirds of that.
According to Calfire’s website, the state’s nine demonstration forests grow approximately 75 million board feet of timber annually and harvest an average of 20 million board feet each year — enough to build 12,500 single-family homes. Calfire has recently announced there will be six new timber harvest plans on more than 5,000 acres in JDSF over the next seven years. Revenue from these harvests fund the management of the state forests. There have already been 12 THPS in the last four years, and the next six would constitute the largest harvests, by far.
But opponents contend the revenue also funds Cal Fire’s other activities — such as fighting wildfires like the Oak Fire, a 1,100acre wildfire that came dangerously close to Willits and JDSF in September 2020 — and that money isn’t necessarily set aside for the sustainable, ecological management of the forest, much less the management of its public amenities.
One of the most vocal opponents is Chad Swimmer, the president and a founder of the Mendocino Trail Stewards. The Stewards began in 2019 with
the intent of establishing a publicly-operated group that would assist Cal Fire in maintaining the hiking paths and other tourist-attractive locations in JDSF, but have increasingly felt that Cal Fire has depended on their assistance without providing its support.
So on Jan. 1, the Stewards announced its intent to turn the western third of JDSF into a redwood forest reserve. On its website, the Stewards wrote they were “initiating a campaign to pass legislation to create an approximately 20,000 acre Redwood Forest Reserve with a mandate for non-motorized recreation, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation science.”
The Stewards now need to find a statehouse sponsor, and Swimmer said they will try to gain the support of Senator Mike Mcguire, Mendocino County 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams or 2nd District Assemblymember Jim Woods.
“This movement may come as a surprise to some, but we did not just appear out of nowhere,” Swimmer wrote in a statement at www.mendocinotrailstewards.com. “We are standing on the shoulders of ‘The Campaign to Restore Jackson State’ of 20 years ago, which shut down logging entirely in this state forest from 2001 to 2008.”
“People don’t know that such a beautiful forest can be cut down,” Swimmer said. “The only people who call it a working forest are the people who work it. Everyone else just calls it a forest.”
Among the Steward’s biggest concerns is the speed at which the harvest plans are being pushed through. The group also asserts that the relevant Cal Fire meetings were closed sessions, in violation of the Brown and Bagleykeene Open Meetings acts, and the public was neither made aware of the timber harvest plans, nor had the chance to offer comment on them. (Cal Fire disputes these claims.)
“There’s a lot going on in these 48,000 acres,” said Mike Powers, forest manager of JDSF. “(What the Stewards want) is in line with creating an area that would be similar to a state park. That’s frankly very different to what we do as a state forest.”
JDSF was established in 1949, after the railroad companies left the Mendocino coast, and the logging industry went with them. The Stewards contend that Cal Fire has not updated its harvesting policies in the decades since.
“No one even said the phrase ‘sustainable forestry’ in 1949,” Swimmer said.
But Powers said the forest is tightly managed, and the new harvest plans were carefully organized so as to reduce ecological impact to any one concentrated area. The fact that six new harvest plans were announced at one time shouldn’t be construed as an attempt to sneak something under the radar, he argued, but rather that “most of the staff were gone (last summer) and involved with fire responsibilities, to a big degree.”
“We are behind on planning and got stuck having to make hard decisions,” Powers said.
Adding further fuel to their fire, the Stewards have also cited ecological research proving that wildfires spread faster in recently logged areas, where low brush and invasive species cover the ground, and the group has recently taken out ads in local papers, publically mourning the loss of tourist-friendly paths and opportunities in the forest — a business sector which much of the coast now makes its living from — and asking locals to sign a petition against the harvest plans.
In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, tourism revenue generated $441.7 million for the county of Mendocino, much of that coming from towns and cities on its’ coastline like Mendocino, Fort Bragg and Caspar, and the natural attractions dotted along those towns like Jughandle, Mackerricher, Van Damme and Russian Gulch state parks.
The next two timber harvests planned for 2021 are in the Jughandle and Caspar areas, covering hundreds of acres and crisscrossing popular hiking, riding and biking trails.
“It’s hard for people to get information from Cal Fire,” Swimmer said. “People drive up here from the city for a week of mountain biking and find the trail is closed. The future of our county is not in timber, the future of our county is in tourism.”
So far, the Stewards have not found a statehouse sponsor for their bill, but they have begun gathering signatures for a petition to stop the first two timber harvests, slated to begin later this year.
Ultimately, Swimmer says, win or lose, their goal is “change what a demonstration forest is.”
“I would like it to be a forest that demonstrates climate change mitigation, carbon sequestration and low-impact recreation,” he said. “The state is very rich and the amount of money involved here is very small. They don’t need to log Jackson to make money from it.”