Call To Action! Logging in Nanning Creek Grove ...Bonanza For Whom?
December 31, 2005
Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) has been moving forward with their plan to destroy the last remnants of the habitat of the threatened marbled murrelet in Northern California. It is not so much that they specifically have it out for the secretive and diminutive seabird, as it is the bird is in the way. But murrelets make their nests on the broad upper branches of old growth trees, which happen to be of high value in today's timber market. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) should protect species that are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, as the murrelet is. However, ESA protections on PL land were eclipsed by a part of the 1999 Headwaters Deal called the Habitat Conservation Plan that gives PL a special permit to "take" (kill) murrelets and hundreds of acres of their old growth habitat.
PL began logging operations in a Timber Harvest Plan (THP) in Nanning Creek Grove on Nov.11 that contains the highest quality murrelet habitat left unprotected on PL land, long seen by scientists as a crucial habitat area for the bird. PL cynically named the plan "Bonanza", and it is no coincidence that it is one of Maxxam/PL's last shot at a sizable chunk of old growth before a possible bankruptcy reorganization forces a change in ownership of the timberlands.
THP # 1-05-097, at 249 acres, is in the Eel River and Nanning Creek watershed and contains habitat for other sensitive and threatened species, including the northern spotted owl. Nanning is a tributary of the Eel River, which is already listed as impaired by sediment/siltation under the Clean Water Act Section 303(d). The THP is adjacent to recently clearcut forest and would unquestionably do permanent damage to an area whose recovery is crucial to the Nanning Creek ecosystem as a whole. This is part of Hurwitz's "end game" for Pacific Lumber.
After approval by Calif. Dept of Forestry (CDF) in September, a legal challenge mounted by the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) was dismissed, and EPIC and WELC appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court but relief from that court did not arrive.
The lawsuit claims the decision made by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to allow Pacific Lumber to log h undreds of acres of murrelet habitat was unjustified, given the alarming trend toward extinction of the murrelet on the north coast of California. Last year, in a common case of agency double-speak, the USFWS issued a Five Year Status Review that predicted the extirpation (localized extinction) of the marbled murrelet within 40-100 years, but in the more recent Biological Opinion (BiOp) issued in September, the agency found "No Jeopardy" for the murrelet which allowed operations in the Nanning Creek Plan. The agency is ostensibly responsible for monitoring impacts on wildlife and ensuring protection of federally listed species like the murrelet. USFWS's BiOp on THP 097 has been criticized for failing to use the "best available science" and failing to show that the murrelets could survive loss of this crucial habitat.
Forest activists have mobilized to stand witness at the logging plan gates numerous mornings at dawn, have occupied trees in the plan, and rallied at PL offices in the company town of Scotia. On November 28 two women locked themselves to a truck and gate on the access road, and four people were arrested.
Tree-sits remain high in the branches of the giant trees. For more info on the sits, and to view dramatic footage and photos, go to the site www.wesavetrees.org. More rallies and actions are planned in what is being called a "last stand for the last stands".
Call (707)825-6598 on the north coast or stay in contact with BACH here in the Bay Area at (510)548-3113, or
bach@headwaterspreserve.org.
