May 24, 1991
The beleaguered government agencies, having learned to "sleepwalk through the 80's," have placed a great burden upon the informed environmental public. Nowhere is this clearer than in regards to the forestlands of California, our greatest natural resource.
The Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance is composed of concerned citizens and local watershed groups who have taken on the burden of reviewing the work of the state's various regulatory agencies with responsibility for our forest and watershed resources on the north coast. After many years of forestry reform work behind us, including watershed impact monitoring, testifying at public hearings before the state Board of Forestry, and full public participation in the timber harvest plan review process, the RCWA has come to the end of one road and the beginning of another.
On May 10, 1991, the RCWA filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Forestry and Board of Forestry alleging the abuse of their public trust duties as mandated by existing law. We also submitted a petition to Secretary for Resources, Douglas Wheeler, seeking to have the timber harvest plan program brought up to date to conform with the requirements of current California law, incorporating full environmental protection as its principle purpose.
Our goal is simple: to achieve true sustainable forestry practices as envisioned by the 1973 Forest Practice Act--a forestry bound by the biological realities of the forest, its species and its soil, not by the demands of the marketplace and the short-term profit dictates of the timber corporations. (The pending compromised forestry legislation does not even address these central issues.)
We are confident that we have a strong case and an equally strong and respected environmental attorney, Sharon Duggan, who has an outstanding track record and working knowledge of the Forest Practice Act and California Environmental Quality Act. Our case goes to the very heart of the problem: the disguised deregulation of timber harvesting in California. Not content to just define the problem, we are developing, with a team of forestry and environmental experts, simple, enforceable remedies.
As a non-profit public interest group, we are urgently seeking your generous financial support. Your tax deductible contribution will go directly into this litigation and its incumbent expenses. We enclose a recent press release and newspaper clippings but if you would like more information on these legal actions or about RCWA itself, please contact us. Donations should be made out to: "RCWA--Forest Practice."
In the final decade of this century, we must take that quantum leap necessary to begin a whole new sustainable approach to our dwindling earth resources. Let us start with the forests and their watersheds.
Won't you join us?
Our thanks,
Richard Hart
Bill Johnson
Stephanie Tebbutt
Chris Tebbutt
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited