Logging in the Sequoia National Monument 8/13/2005

Saturday, August 13th

When you stand in a forest in the Sierras it’s the sheer beauty that hits you first and then the stillness. In the silence you can hear your blood pulsing. But today the stillness in the forests of the southwestern part of the Sequoia National Monument is the stillness of death. Looking across the gutted and burned out remnants of forest, one is reminded of Dresden after the firebombings, or of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or perhaps of the smoking ruins of an indigenous village overrun by marauders. It is the haunted, unquiet stillness that follows nightmares. Stumps of recently thriving trees dot the landscape like a field of grotesque, partially buried amputees. Tire tracks of bulldozers and logging trucks criss cross the pulverized, fragile western slopes of the Sierras. The detritus of logging--slash piles, plastic tape, twisted and broken tree limbs and trunks--is scattered about in casual arrogance.

This pageantry of destruction is brought to you by Sierra Forest Products of Terra Bella California (that a company like this is located in a town with such a name is only one among many sad ironies in this sordid story) and its chief sponsor, the US Department of Forestry. In a stunning, relatively overlooked area of the southern Sierras, just east of California Hot Springs and the south valley town of Porterville, the Forest Service is facilitating one of the most rotten deals in the recent, rotten history of logging on public lands. And these are not just any public lands but a National Monument established in 2000 to protect giant Sequoias, in large part by prohibiting timber cutting and restoring the lands to their primeval condition. The sale is called the Saddle Fuels Reduction Project, and as in so many recent cases timber extraction is occurring under the ruse of fire suppression. Forest activists have documented many cases of large trees being marked for removal in open areas of forest with smaller nearby trees left behind. Timber outfits like SFP are in the timber business not the forest thinning business, and the Forest Service is giving them what they want--Big Trees, the kind that survive fires. In fact the Saddle Project alone will result in the extraction of FIVE MILLION board feet of timber from supposedly protected Sierra Forests.

So, what is going on here? At the time of the Monument’s creation, several existing timber projects were grandfathered in, the Saddle Fuels Projects among them. But the termination date for the project was March 2004, meaning that the legal deadline for completing the project was November 2003--the seasonal date for closing the forest to logging during winter. In what the Sierra Club is calling a “quite” and “backroom” deal the Forest Service granted extensions for these plans without providing legal explanation or public comment. What is more, the forest service appears to have added additional units for timber cutting not originally provided for in the Saddle Fuels Reduction Project, again without following legal guidelines or allowing public comment. A National Monument designed to restore public land is converted into a killing field for timber interests. This Alice in Wonderland, now you see it, now you don’t version of public policy is becoming an all too familiar scene in the age of Bush!

Carla Cloer, chair of the Sequoia Task Force for the Sierra Club, notes that activists have found stumps of trees well over 30 inches in diameter, with ten or more annual tree rings per inch. Taking out these old trees has significant long-term effects; it delays for centuries the restoration of the old growth characteristics of the forests, in perfect contradiction of the Monument’s declaration language. Species like the Pacific fisher that rely on such old growth characteristics are being pushed to the brink of extinction by such destructive practices. But the Forest Service’s dismissal of requirements under the National Environmental Protection Act means that these environmental impacts are not even a part of the record. And the distortion of the record goes further. Earth First! activists from Fresno and from Orange County recently hiked several of the units and discovered mature Sequoias marked out for felling. This is despite the Forest Service and the company’s claim that no Sequoias were slated to be cut. In fact one ancient Sequoia was at least five feet in diameter; three activists with arms fully extended could barely link hands around the trunk of this majestic tree.

Death by a thousand timber cuts is continuing in these majestic forests despite a temporary restraining order on the Saddle Fuels Project and an injunction against the Forest Service’s “Healthy Forest Initiative” Timber Plan handed down on July 11th by US District Court Judge Charles Breyer. Forest activists are urging supporters to contact their Congressional Representatives as well as the Supervisor of Sequoia National Forest, 1500 West Grand Avenue, Porterville CA 93257. A grass roots campaign to stop the destruction of these forests is currently being organized; supporters are encouraged to check the Sierra Club website and http://www.sierranevadaearthfirst.org for more information.