3-25-22PomoSacRallyRegular readers of our Northcoast forest updates will recall that many Native people from the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians in Mendocino County have been very involved in the campaign to stop the over-logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), from the beginning. The campaign is working toward a co-management agreement between the Tribes and the State of California–this is currently under discussion.

On March 2, State Sen. McGuire announced that the Jackson Demonstration State Forest management plan would be rewritten. This presents an opportunity to revisit a plan that now permits logging of large redwoods and has seen damage done to Native American Sacred Sites, and does not address the climate crisis in context.

A principal demand of the Jackson Forest Coalition is that until the new management plan is written, there be a moratorium on logging operations so that the forest health is not further compromised.

The letter below was written to that end, and includes excellent points you can use in your own letter to elected representatives. It is a key time to show decision-makers that there is broad support for significantly changing the existing management plan. Please take a few minutes and send a letter today, using the text below as a model.

Pomo Tribal Chair Michael Hunter will present thousands of signatures from Sen. McGuire’s district calling for a moratorium at a rally in Ukiah on March 14. That rally will be followed by the rally described above on March 25 in Sacramento. Both rallies will be attended by Native American dancers, environmental groups and the public. Please join us!

You can support the rallies at pomolandback.com or savejackson.org.

See Tribal Chair Michael Hunter’s facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/tribalchairman.michaelhunter
and PomoLandBack: https://www.pomolandback.com/_files/ugd/281447_048b6e6a70174625a9542e63f0ab1f34.pdf

To: Governor Gavin Newsom
Secretary of Resources Wade CrowfootRe: Moratorium on Logging and Co-management of JDSF

Dear Elected Officials,

I am writing to urge you to do everything in your power to achieve a moratorium on alllogging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), including existing THP areas. This moratorium should take effect immediately and last until there is a mutually agreed upon revision of JDSF’s management plan under a co-management process with the ancestral tribes of this area.

The existing THPs were illegitimately approved without adequate public review and without consideration of cumulative impacts, particularly impacts on the climate crisis. Further, the logging and road building in these THP areas are violating Native American sacred sites.

There are compelling reasons to stop the logging of this 50,000-acre forest owned by the citizens of California. According to John P. O’Brien, Ph.D. climate scientist:

Short of burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees is the single worst thing we can do for climate change. Not only do trees directly remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it for centuries to millennia, the very act of cutting them down results in immediate carbon releases via felling, hauling, milling, and processing machinery that represents a “double hit” to the climate.

In his detailed well-documented 26-page letter to you, Dr. O’Brien further states:

Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) stands out as a unique opportunity… bought with taxpayer funds in 1947… More importantly, JDSF is primarily second growth Redwood forest and has the potential to store far and away more carbon than any forest type in the world and is actually now rarer than old growth due to the absence of environmental protections. Moreover, the biodiversity in JDSF is one of the highest along the entire North Coast containing over 200 native animal species, and over 1,200 native plant species.

It is clear that the economic potential from protecting JDSF through recreation and carbon sequestration far outweighs that of timber extraction.

Bearing a huge burden of the climate crisis with accompanying catastrophic wildfires and drought, California must be a leader in mitigating and reducing this crisis. Protecting JDSF is one major step in that direction.

We must also be part of social justice for the Native American people whose lands were taken from them long ago and who continue to experience their sacred ancestral sites being destroyed. The Tribes, with their ecological wisdom and earth-honoring values, must be part of managing this public forest.

Sincerely,

For Gov. Newsom: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/
For Sec’y of Resources Wade Crowfoot: secretary@resources.ca.gov

Please add your state legislator and state senator and House Representative in Congress. See
https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member