...Or at least it seems like that sometimes to die-hard forest activists. Fish and forests are inextricably linked. The complex biology that is the old growth forest provides the conditions--cool, clear running streams rushing over gravel beds--that spawning fish need to carry on their genetic lines, and the exciting choreography of bright red fish propelled by powerful tails making their way to their ancestral home is part of the forest magic.
Many of the battles for the trees these days focus on regulations, laws or practices that have to do with fish: we cover in this issue the state listing of the endangered coho of the north coast rivers, action taken by wildlife agencies, and the placement of hope on the Water Board for improvements in overseeing practices by timber corporations--particularly Maxxam/Pacific Lumber. As PL's downstream neighbors suffer from logging-caused flooding and sedimentation, we all wait with anticipation for the effects of SB 810, giving greater power to the Water Quality Board to nix logging plans. And finally, Maxxam/PL is trying to come in the back door and renege on water course protection zones mandated in the much-ballyhooed Habitat Conservation Plan that was part and parcel of the Headwaters Deal that netted them half a billion greenbacks plus timberlands.
One of the reasons the focus is on the Water Board now is because the allowable rate of harvest is the issue of the day. The process defined by the 1999 Headwaters deal brought in watershed assessments, which were supposed to yield harvest rates that were watershed-specific. But predictably, only two watersheds into the concept, the process has been corrupted, and the rate of harvest in several watersheds was found by a panel of eminent scientists commissioned by the Regional Water Quality Control Board to be a barrier to recovery of impaired watersheds.
A watershed that has been a particular hotspot--Freshwater (see Bay Area Forest Activist summer 2003 for detailed chronology of the dozens of tree-sit actions in Freshwater)--still supports a healthy coho run, as well as remnants of Chinook, steelhead and chum salmon populations. But the densely forested 3-mile stretch of upper Freshwater Creek that still has good gravel spawning beds is exactly where Maxxam/PL is focusing its current assault on the 19,000 acre watershed. The fairly intact aquatic habitat, while not pristine, serves as a "control" for fisheries biologists--a baseline against which conditions elsewhere can be measured, increasing its value to scientific research as well as to the fish.
So the fish are the barometers and the indefatigable watershed activists in hip waders and at agency meetings are the monitors. And the tree sitters and letter writers and song writers and blockaders and brief writers are all essential players. As the salmon sniffs out her native stream, find your niche, whatever it is, and dive in. We hope this information helps that process.
-- Karen Pickett
