Forest Program

Environment Now's Forest Program has three key goals:

• Eliminate commercial logging on all public lands in California by transitioning the Forest Service to restoration
• Promote true sustainable forestry practices on private lands 
• Fully protect all old growth

Because of the threats that continue to confront California's forests, forest restoration remains one of Environment Now's most active program areas. In fact, in spite of public outcry and activism, California is losing its forests at a prodigious rate. Old growth, including some trees over 1,000 years old, and its irreplaceable natural habitat is even at risk. Currently, this fight is exacerbated by an anti-environmental agenda in Washington and the implementation of the “Healthy Forest Initiative.”

Environment Now focuses on three regions of the state: the north coast, the central/northern Sierra and the southern Sierra. In each region we are working with program partners to reverse irresponsible logging and subsequent destruction of our forest ecosystems.

North Coast
Private Forest Land Reform

Environment Now’s partner on California's north coast is the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). In the past we have worked with EPIC on a number of important projects, including efforts to protect the Headwaters Forest and the threatened Coho salmon. Currently we are working with EPIC on using the Clean Water Act to protect forest watersheds. EPIC is also providing diligent oversight of the development of the first watershed-based permits for logging related to water pollution.

In the north coast region, more than 85% of the rivers are listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act, and all native salmon species are listed as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act. In listing these streams and fish during the 1990s, the EPA and the National Marine Fisheries Service identified logging operations approved under the Forest Practice Rules as being the primary reason for such listings becoming necessary. EPIC's work in this area has great potential for reforming the practices of timber companies across the state and country.

View EPIC's current report that documents Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's ongoing violations, including hundreds of violations of the Forest Practice Rules.

Photo courtesy of EPIC

The Mouth of Bear Creek in Humboldt County, one of the most degraded watersheds in the area

Central/Northern Sierra
Private Forest Land Reform

During the last several years, the forests in the Central/Northern Sierra region have been the targets of massive clear-cutting implemented by one of California's largest timber companies (which owns roughly 1.4 million acres of forestland in the state). This company, via clear-cutting, also plans to convert 70% of its forestland to plantations in the coming years. This management will devastate California's forests, destroy water quality, decrease water supply, endanger wildlife and completely alter the Sierra Nevada ecosystem. In response, Environment Now and partner organizations are diligently working with attorneys and activists in the region to ensure that the Forest Practice Rules are enforced and that sustainable forest practices are implemented immediately. Our partner in this region, Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, is working with other key activists to implement grassroots activities to support these efforts.

Photo courtesy of Ebbetts Pas Forest Watch

SPI Clearcut - Calaveras County

Public Forest Land Protection

Though logging on national forests has decreased over the last several years, the Bush Administration’s “Healthy Forest Initiative” threatens this progress.  It attempts to increase logging under the guise of wildfire reduction and forest health. In California, this initiative has taken the form of the administration’s “Forests with a Future,” a management plan essentially to replace the Sierra Nevada Framework. The Sierra Nevada Framework represents the culmination of 10 years of scientific analysis and received more than 47,000 public comments and peer reviews by independent scientists. The Framework changed the direction of the Forest Service from over logging and road building toward a more balanced management approach. It set in place guidelines to remove brush and small trees near communities to decrease the risk of catastrophic forest fires while protecting ancient forests. Alternatively, the “Forests with a Future” plan calls for logging large trees as a fire-prevention measure (contradicting the Forest Service’s own science  as well as the science of the original Framework), doubling logging levels and allowing timber companies to cut trees up to 30 inches in diameter in old-growth forest reserves.

Environment Now’s partner in this region, Sierra Forest Legacy is fighting to re-implement the original Framework through strategic litigation and grassroots organizing. The Sierra Forest Legacy’s legal and scientific staff has been intimately involved in the Framework administrative process for years and possesses a familiarity and depth of knowledge of the issues that will be invaluable in this effort.

These defensive strategies are combined with Environment Now’s efforts to shift fire prevention to local communities to ensure that fire risk reduction does not occur out in the forest. Through the Sierra Forest Legacy's Fire and Fuels Program, Environment Now proactively works to educate the public about the true nature of fire and to empower homeowners to fireproof their homes. One of the Sierra Forest Legacy’s key strategies is to counter the Forest Service’s public claims about fire risk reduction by recruiting new messengers to speak in local communities about fire. Public health professionals, scientists, public safety professionals and other respected voices now regularly communicate the best fire science to the media and various communities. Another partner in the effort to communicate the truth about of fire in the Sierra Nevada is Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology (FUSEE). FUSEE’s program uses firefighters to educate the press, public and policy-makers about fire-related logging from wildland firefighters’ perspectives and to speak out on behalf of the conservation community.

Southern Sierra
Public Forest Land Protection

Protecting the Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument has been the focus of Environment Now’s work in the southern Sierra Nevada. Our program partner in this region is the Sequoia ForestKeeper, whose primary goal is to protect and restore this region by acting as the eyes, ears and voice for the Sequoia National Forest and Monument.

During the last several years, the Sequoia ForestKeeper has been instrumental in the fight to protect the Monument, which was originally created to protect the Giant Sequoia groves and their surrounding ecosystems from logging-oriented management practices. Despite the clear intent and language of the Giant Sequoia National Monument Proclamation, in January 2004 the Forest Service issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement outlining a management plan for the Giant Sequoia National Monument that centered on logging. In 2005, a coalition of activists--including EN program partners the John Muir Project, the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign and the Sequoia ForestKeeper--filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the plan. In the fall of 2006, a judge concurred with the challenge and ruled that the plan for the Monument was, in fact, faulty and declared it invalid in its entirety. The Sequoia ForestKeeper and partners are now working to ensure that the next proposed plan for the Monument is truly as protective as it was originally intended. Sequoia ForestKeeper’s president, iconic environmentalist Martin Litton, has also been instrumental in bringing attention to the Monument and the importance of ensuring that it is protected into perpetuity.

Photo courtesy of Sequoia Forestkeeper

Logging truck in Sequoia National Forest

Statewide
Public Forest Land Protection

Environment Now’s goal to end logging and transition the Forest Service to restoration of our public forests is shared by our program partner the John Muir Project (JMP). Through its litigation program, the JMP has initiated several innovative lawsuits aimed at stopping logging on national forests in the Pacific states. This includes recent suits that have halted several destructive salvage logging projects as well as projects initiated under the guise of "thinning" to prevent fire. The JMP is also working to expose in the courts, the Forest Service’s financial conflict of interest. One of the JMP’s recent court cases compelled a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel to address the issue directly:
“It has not escaped our notice that the [Forest Service] has a substantial financial interest in the harvesting of timber in the National Forest ... the [Forest Service] appears to have been more interested in harvesting timber than in complying with our environmental laws."
The JMP has also had many dozens of news stories and op-ed pieces about these issues published in publications across the country including the New York Times.

In 2003, the John Muir Project launched its Fire Science Research Program, which examines the effects of fire in the ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada. The research thus far has revealed the first-ever findings about post fire conifer survival and species that rely on severely burned forests. For example, preliminary results indicate that some woodpecker species, including the black-backed woodpecker have a very strong association with severely burned forests. The preeminent International Journal of Wildland Fire has confirmed publication of the JMP’s study on post-fire conifer survival. This publication shows the importance of such work. The JMP’s research will continue to evolve and will be used to provide a truly independent and scientifically rigorous examination of fire and its role in the Sierra Nevada. In addition, the JMP’s use of this science research in court has resulted in the amendment and withdrawal of several timber sales in the Sierra Nevada. Complimenting the John Muir Project’s science program is research being conducted by the Institute for Bird Populations.

In an effort to require that the Forest Service consider all economic value of the forest when it makes management decisions, Environment Now is supporting the Forest Conservation Council (FCC) in its appeal of the “Forest Economics” lawsuit. A ruling in favor of the FCC would require the Forest Service to complete a cost-benefit analysis before implementing a timber sale, which is an existing though typically over-looked requirement of the Forest Service. If successful, this bold litigation could be a critical catalyst in transitioning the Forest Service from logging to restoration.

Working with the nonpartisan budget watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense, Environment Now is also exploring the Forest Service’s timber sale program, specifically focusing on the salvage sale program and salvage sales in California.  TCS is working to discover the cost to the federal taxpayer and to uncover data exposing the Forest Service’s institutional bias favoring such sales.