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North to South: A Pacific Northwest Travel Guide
for Forest Activists
California
Forests, Santa Cruz:
As the backyard of San
Francisco these mountains saw the earliest of western exploitation and
innovation, On this peninsula between the southern half of San Francisco Bay
and the Pacific Ocean the Santa Cruz Mountains were once an island of temperate
rainforest in a Mediterranean climate.
On the east-facing slopes are streams that today have been buried in
concrete as they reach down into the bay. That's where the wetlands were
drained for pasture, then farming, then orchards, and then it was paved and
became Silicon Valley. The hills above this land were first clear-cut with ox
and ax during the gold rush era of the 1850's
To the west and South
is the Ocean where Spaniards began cutting near Santa Cruz in the early 1800's.
To the North of this peninsula it comes to a point known “the City,” aka: San
Francisco. Further to the South is Stienbeck's Salinas valley. In the center of
these outer lying arid edges there was a fog-bathed temperate rainforest, a
wet, cool climate in the territory of a Mediterranean climate. Deep in the
heart of this temperate landscape Big Basin State Park
sees over a million tourists a year. This park is the first ever old growth
Redwood forest to be saved. It was saved in 1902 by the Semperviren’s Fund and spearheaded by Josephine
McKrackin. Because this is a land where arid intersects with wet, the
Biodiversity and variety of microclimates on this tiny peninsula draws an
amazing diversity of researchers.
Many, many different types of botanists and biologists study this heavily
populated California landscape.
These mountains are not
much as mountains go, but there is one river, which today is called San
Lorenzo. All the other watersheds on this peninsula are more often referred to
as creeks and streams. The landscape's highest peak is Loma Prieta at a bit
above 2000 feet. Its steep and hilly land but its seems a bonsai landscape in
comparisons to the lands further North. The creeks go by names like Butano,
Pescadero, San Vincente, Coralitos, San Francisquito, Aptos, Soquel. Sine the
logging during the gold rush days the beauty of this land has grown back. In
some rare places 160 year old stands of redwood and fir have replaced the
clearcuts. In even more rare places, such as state parks, the original ancient
redwoods still survive.
Tree Farming
Begins
Once all the easy to
reach forests had been cut the logging boom went bust and the loggers headed
north. The land was no longer a moneymaker. The only profitable forests that
remained were in ultra steep slope areas that were not accessible until the
advent of the Bulldozer in the 1940's. During this logging lull in the early 1900's
the businessmen from the city turned this logged forest into real estate
parcels. Up on the tip of the peninsula in San Francisco they bought up and
sub-divided the San Lorenzo Valley. The parcels were so small that every
businessman in the city could suddenly afford a piece of land to build a summer
home. Fortunately many of them never had the time to even visit their lots, let
alone build a cottage. So over the years the forest regrew across the
landscape. Of course the Mediterranean climate made the land too arid and the
lack of big trees meant the fog was not gathered up as precipitation. The
furthest southern reach of the temperate rainforest was drying up. So on the
outer edges of this region most all the forest was transformed to scrubland with
only a scattering of small slow growing trees. Hardest hit were the eastern
slopes. It regrew in shrub oak and manzanita. Without the moist shade canopy of
Redwood and Fir the land could not regrow forests in the upslopes, or in the
shallow soils and wind prone places. Additionally fire suppression tactics
prevented non-forested ecological niches from regenerating and brush and trees
took over the areas that were historically fire prone and non-forested.
The only forests that
recovered quickly were along the silted streams. The trees grew to five feet in
diameter in 75 years along the streams. So loggers began cutting the
fast-growing redwoods along the streams and by the mid 1950's loggers were
getting excited about how "they" can regrow sizeable saw logs so
rapidly. The practice of "sustainable forestry" in the Santa Cruz
Mountains was born.
The debate of what
sustainable forestry is, and is not, has progressed further in this region then
anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. The local resident populations of
suburban dwellers who were wealthy enough to hire lawyers and organize
preservation campaigns caused this. The result was included in the California's Z'Berg-Nejedly
Forest Practice Act of 1973 which banned clearcutting on the San Francisco
peninsula. It resulted in a 60-40 cut requirement, which allowed for 60% of the
biggest trees to be cut every 10 years.
While this initially was a big boost to protecting against the harms of
clearcuting, ultimately the 10-year re-entry allowance exacerbated erosion and
aridification issues in the forest. So to this day neighbors who can afford to
hire attorneys and organize campaigns have kept the pressure up.
Current
Activism:
With the listing of the
Salmon, under the Endangered Species Act, forest activists
lobbied the county of Santa Cruz to set a precedent by adopting stream
protection buffers. The timber industry threat of major litigation was
successful at forcing the county to back down. The industry also re-doubled
their state lobbying efforts to ensure that all regulatory power over their
industry comes from the only the state and the feds, not the counties and
cities. In other words local regulators who often have greater knowledge of the
land must not be allowed to participate in regulating the logging. In this
industry the more biologic information you have about the land the less the
land is able to steer clear of the profit-chomping regulations. This is a standard
industry strategy that will eventually be altered by community based forest
activism.
Earth First! Santa Cruz and the
Ventana Chapter of the Sierra Club's forestry task force have been the main movers
and shakers at affecting forest issues in the late eighties and nineties in
this region. Also the forest defenders who are known as treesitters initiated a
successful campaign in 2000. It saved 2
acres of remaining unlogged second-growth
forest in Ramsey Gulch, a tributary of Corralitos creek. This eighteen
month campaign branched off into several other forest defense campaigns that
included more then a half dozen treesits in active harvest areas over the past
couple years. Tragically this movement recently came to an indefinite end when
Robert “Nya” Brian died do to injuries from a fall from a tree he was sitting
in. When the treesitters took a timeout to consider his death all of the other
trees they were defending were cut down, including the original 2 acre grove
that was first saved in 2000.
Timberland ownership in
this area has been shaped by three major players. Big Creek Lumber, Eel River
Sawmills and Redwood Empire. There are also other large landowners like RMC
Lonestar, the City of Santa Cruz and various land investment firms. There is an
extensive history of corruption among these large landowners. Most notorious of
all is Redwood Empire, who has almost always been the winner in the real estate
deals that the loggers and preservationists compete for. To add insult to
injury Roger Birch of Redwood Empire trucks his spoils of raw logs over the
Golden Gate Bridge and out of the bay area, to his Cloverdale sawmill.
While the Santa Cruz
forest Defense community is very beaten these days. They will rise again.
Though there is little forest left to defend, in the nooks and crannies big
trees continue to survive. The communities of defenders in this area are
die-hards. Surely over time they will again offer more inspiration. If you want
to learn about the cutting edge battles in "sustainable forestry" go
to Santa Cruz and get to know these folks. The first step is in going to a
Sierra Club forestry task force meeting: (831) 426-HIKE.
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