There's a Gap in Mendocino County forestsÑwhat's left of them, that is. On July 1, 1998, a newly formed company, the Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC), assumed ownership of Louisiana Pacific Corporation's 235,000 acres of mostly cut-over timberlands in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. The Fisher family has a controlling interest in both MRC and The Gap, Inc. They've made a fortune, reported to be in excess of $11 billion, from clothing sales at their Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy clothing stores and have invested part of it in the final liquidation of L-P forests.
The Gap tries to project an environmentally friendly corporate image, but MRC's actual logging practices do not jibe with the Fishers' promises of conscientious forest stewardship. According to the California Department of Forestry (CDF), fifty percent of the timber harvest plans (THPs) filed by MRC since their takeover contain clearcutting and over seventy percent contain high-impact logging methods, including clearcutting. These are the same percentages as for L-P THPs filed in 1997 and 1998 (plans which the Fishers now own as well.)
Current (1997-'98) Fisher family plans include all or partial clearcutting in many watershed areas; one, at Flynn Creek, almost denudes a steep ridgeside and calls it "alternative prescription." They call other high impact plans "rehab" or "shelterwood removal."
Fisher spokesperson Sandy Dean has been trying to sell this L-P clearcutting program as "restoration!" publicly using the example of a 418 acre Elk Creek clearcut , which he characterizes as "primarily tanoak." But MRC's own forester declares that the areas marked for clearcutting are 58% redwood and Douglas fir. Dean leads people to believe that the company's clearcutting plans are somehow benign.
MRC's logging program is aimed at taking the last merchantable trees on their forest lands. Many coastal residents suspect that once they extract the last timber profits, the Fishers will divide the land into small parcels and sell it off (the family is also in real estate development).
The same Elk Creek logging plan that Sandy Dean keeps trying to paint green, THP 1-97-445 MEN, is a disaster in the making for Coho salmon. L-P fish distribution data (released under threat of lawsuit) shows that the "10 or fewer" fish found in Elk Creek, just downstream from the proposed clearcutting were the only Coho found in a 150 square mile region. The first version of the THP suppressed that data, and the licensed professional forester who wrote the plan now says that more surveys are required. He proposes to clearcut the area, then repeat his previous stream channel analysis, proposing no new fish surveys. Last April, Mendocino coast residents obtained an injunction on THP 445, but CDF is about to fraudulently re-approve it. In a deal worked out with the Fishers' lawyer, Jared Carter, and the outgoing attorney general, CDF "fixed" the plan with minor and cosmetic changes.
Adding insult to injury, CDF is about to approve another 402 acre logging plan, THP 1-09-266 MEN, directly downstream from those same pitiful Elk Creek Coho, despite the fact that it doesn't discuss the cumulative effects of the upstream THP 445. Together, these plans propose over a thousand acres of logging surrounding this dying fishery, and neither plan considers the other.
In the early 1990s, the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance asked the Superior Court in San Francisco to declare that the Board of Forestry must write Forest Practice Rules resulting in "maximum sustained production of high quality timber products." No such rules had ever been written in the 20 years of the Forest Practice Act. In 1994, as a result of the heroic efforts of Stephanie and Chris Tebbutt, Bill Johnson, Richard Hart and Sharon Duggan, the court ruled that the Board does indeed have such a duty.
Meanwhile, Pete Wilson appointed his campaign manager Terry Gorton to head the Board of Forestry, and Gorton and industry lawyers got busy writing our present "sustained yield" rules which, as we know, have resulted in "maximum sustained production of pecker poles." However, there is still the potential for real sustained yield rules as long as the Board has to comply with RCWA v. Board of Forestry (RCWA #1).
Failed gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren appealed this ruling, as one of this last acts as California Attorney General. The hearing took place on December 17, 1998 in the Court of Appeals in San Francisco, before a panel of three Appellate Justices. It appears, from questions the Justices posed (starting with, "What are we doing here?") that liquidation logging may lose this one.
Though it's a bit late in the day to be thinking about "sustained yield," we do have the future of the current crop of 11- to 16-inch diameter trees to consider. Will we ever have a true forest here again?
At the turn of the century, local people used to fill wheelbarrows with what were called "silver-sided salmon" two or three times a winter. As late as the 1970s there were still fish in the streams and in the ocean. What has happened since that timeÑall the way up to this New Year's EveÑis one of the crimes of the century.
* Contact friends and relatives and tell them about the on-line petition. It is available for downloading or on-line signing at: * Ask friends and relatives to boycott all Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy clothing stores and ask them to write a letter to the Fishers, telling them why. Write to: The Fisher Family, c/o Robert Fisher, Gap, Inc., 900 Cherry Avenue, San Bruno, CA 95400, phone# (650) 932-4400.
¥ Write to public officials:
Governor Gray Davis, California State Capital, Sacramento, CA 95814;
Virginia Strom-Martin, California State Capital, Sacramento, CA 95814;
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, California State Capital, Sacramento, CA 95814;
California Department of Forestry, P.O. Box 670, Santa Rosa, CA 95402, fax (707) 576-2608;.
For more information, call Mary Pjerrou, (707) 877-3405, Redwood Coast Watershed Alliance or Mary Bull, (415) 731-7924, Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap.
To help or donate badly needed funds for the cause, contact the above or the MEC, (707) 468-1660.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited