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North to South: A Pacific Northwest Travel Guide
for Forest Activists
California
forests, Marin, Sonoma and Napa:
Moving North of San
Francisco, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge is Muir Redwoods National Monument.
This small patch of what remains of the northern bay area’s ancient forest is
near the Marin Headlands. Back in the day the site of this landform told ships
at sea that they had not only arrived to San Francisco, but they had entered
"The Gateway to the Redwood Empire."
From this big city stretching North all the way up to Alaska was an
almost never-ending landscape of giant tree forests virtually free for the
cutting. Today in Marin, Sonoma and Santa Rosa counties the areas closest to
the big city, as well as all the main arterial roads that lead to the city,
that’s where the land was sub-divided. Areas closest to the city, the
surrounding hills of the city, their old redwoods were logged and the skid
trails that the ox dragged the logs on eventually became the winding roads of
affluent homes. These homes are an Architectural hodgepodge that keep the steep
slopes from sliding. Of course in the big picture the whole design is
vulnerable to fire, floods and Earthquakes.
Further North out past the
small towns there were farms that have since been taken over by wine makers,
grape growers. The forest issues in this region, the debate of
"sustainable forestry," it takes a backseat to the larger issue of
what happens when the forest has been over cut and, or never replanted. Around
these parts the big business is wine and conversion / grading permits work to
change productive timber harvest lands into vineyards. To make matters worse
the vineyards dry up the river and streams because grapes are water intensive
crops. So in this region it’s is an issue of policy makers learning the cause
and effect of how land grading equates to an increase in water being pumped out
of the creeks. As time goes by the regulations and activism around this issue
has grown increasingly intense.
Also in Cloverdale, the
northern reach of Sonoma County, is Redwood Empire's sawmill, It's where a
major percentage of all the logs cut down in Santa Cruz have been hauled to. Of
course this region is still in the southern extreme of the big tree Pacific
Northwest landscape. So most of the viable forestland is, like Santa Cruz, only
along the Coast. Out on the coast of Sonoma, Edward Tunheim, an old land
manager in Santa Cruz, has found lots of work in his retirement managing the lands
of private property owners who find him to be a great spokesman for the
alternative to clearcutting. Ed’s 50 years of professional expertise under the
special forest practices rules in the Santa Cruz Mountains has made him an
asset in the more wild unregulated lumbering operations north of Santa Cruz.
These forests out on the coast of Sonoma are a transition zone where the
climate is far less Mediterranean, even in the second growth forests Doug fir
and redwoods grow more prolifically, the moss grows thicker, the understory
vegetation grows more diverse and abundant.
Unfortunately because
environmental activists are concerned with urban sprawl and vineyards, because
the forestlands are sparsely populated, the forest landscape on the Sonoma
coast is largely unregulated. It is landscape that often uses non-clear cutting
forestry methods, yet no regulatory restrictions require this. To get more
involved in these issues the best please to start is in the city of Santa Rosa.
As always in the Pacific Northwest you can find the best resources by checking
local health food stores and local non-violence advocacy centers. In this case
it is the Peace and Justice
Center of Sonoma County. Also try this link to local groups