Appeals to the Fisher family result in "green-washing" campaign... On September 28, several watershed and environmental groups in Mendocino County, along with wildlife, fisheries and toxics experts--some 40 people in all--met with John Fisher, who is in charge of the Fisher family logging investment. We gave Mr. Fisher a four-hour presentation on the condition of the forests that his family had purchased from Louisiana Pacific, and the reasons for our strenuous objections to clearcutting, herbicide spraying, logging the last big trees in these cut-over forest lands, and winter operations (high impact on endangered fisheries). We also objected to the behavior of the Fishers' logging company, Mendocino Redwoods, in regard to a public interest lawsuit that the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance had filed against four of Louisiana Pacific's worst logging plans--plans that Mendocino Redwood Company is aggressively defending and seeking to implement. One of the presenters, the Kaisen Gulch group, asked for a small conservation land trust to protect some of the very last big trees in the Albion River watershed. Mr. Fisher's response was, "Who's going to pay for it?" That answer pretty much sums up the Fisher family response to our appeals. (Note: The Fishers possess a fortune from Gap clothings stores reported to be over eleven billion dollars, and are the primary investors in this logging venture.) Our positions on these issues are detailed in the letter to the Fisher family that appears below. The letter was presented to John Fisher at the meeting. There has been no response from the Fishers or their logging company, except for an aggressive public relations campaign in defense of clearcutting, herbicide spraying, logging the last big trees and winter operations.

tel (707) 877-3405, fax 877-3887

P.O. Box 90, Elk, CA 95432

E-mail: pirohuck@mcn.org

September 28, 1998

To: Fisher family, Sansome Forest Partners and Mendocino Redwood Company

Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC), on behalf of its investors, the Fisher family, founders of the Gap clothing stores, has made the following settlement offer to petitioners in the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance lawsuit involving four Louisiana Pacific (now MRC) logging plans: 1) MRC will abandon the 1989 Enchanted Meadow logging plans in the Albion River; 2) MRC will proceed with the clearcutting plan in Greenwood Creek; 3) MRC will proceed with the current CDF re-circulation of the clearcutting plan in Elk Creek, which is occurring during litigation; 4) MRC will contribute an amount of $7,500 to $10,000 to RCWA's legal costs; 5) MRC will contribute $5,000 to restoration work.

The petitioners in the RCWA lawsuit wish to inform MRC that they reject this settlement offer and will not consider any settlement offer that involves a "trade" of Enchanted Meadow for clearcutting in Greenwood Creek, nor any proposed trade of one watershed for another.

The signators to this letter stand solidly in support of petitioners' rejection of this or any similar settlement offer. We furthermore endorse the following statement of facts with regard to L-P forest lands:

Statement of Facts:

• Over the last two decades, Louisiana Pacific has engaged in a policy of "liquidation logging" in Mendocino County. This phrase was used by Harold Walt, Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) to describe L-P logging in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and has since been re-confirmed by current CDF Director Richard Wilson, who said the following, when L-P announced that it was selling its Redwood forests last November: "It's sad, but it really should be no surprise. Everybody knew they were cutting themselves out of business."
  
  
• As a result of L-P's "liquidation logging," L-P's Mendocino County Redwood forests - some 230,000 acres that are now owned by the Fisher family investment group, Sansome Forest Partners--currently contain a vast landscape of very young trees, a serious lack of true Redwood forest, only a few scattered old growth trees (of relatively young age), areas where no trees or only hardwood trees will grow, and serious road erosion and stream sedimentation problems. All of the wildlife and fish species that are dependent on the Redwood forest are threatened with extinction. The Coho salmon is so depleted that it may never recover.
  
  
• Documentation for these facts is solid and undisputed. It includes a decade's worth of news articles, the records of official County and State deliberations, and the internal memos of L-P's own foresters in the early 1990s. More recently, L-P's own 1995 "Sustained Yield" Plan, in the "Wildlife Habitat Relationship" tables, reveals figures for the condition of L-P forests as follows: Ninety-seven percent of L-P's forest acreage is in 1 to 21 inch diameter trees, with the bulk of that percentage, 51%, in 11-16 inch diameter; 20% in 16-21 inch, and 25% in saplings and pole trees. There are apparently no trees on L-P lands in the 21-24 inch diameter class-the crucial link to future old growth. Only 3% of L-P forest contains adequate wildlife habitat (trees of 24 to 32 inch diameter or larger). That was 1995. Since that time, L-P and MRC has undoubtedly reduced this meager portion of wildlife habitat. The potential of the magnificent Coast Redwood tree--16-20 feet diameter, 300+ feet tall, 2,000 years of age--has been foresaken for tree farming, with all of the devastating consequences of that transformation.
  
  
• Studies by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on threatened and endangered species, such as the Coho salmon, the Marbled Murrelet, the Northern Spotted Owl and the Point Arena Mountain Beaver, indicate an alarming loss of wildlife and fish habitat.
  
  
• Both L-P and MRC timber harvest plans routinely report that no threatened or endangered wildlife or fish species have been sighted in the THP areas. The absence of wildlife and fish is then used to justify high-impact logging plans that will degrade or eliminate more habitat.
  
  
• The Mendocino Redwood forest is clearly in serious danger of ecological collapse. If these lands are to recover from decades of "liquidation logging," the forest needs to rest and to grow for a very long time, and it needs considerable restoration work.
  
  
• Mendocino Redwood Company has adopted all of L-P's unfinished logging plans, and is continuing L-P policies, including clearcutting, herbicide use, logging of rare old growth trees, high-grading (taking all the bigger trees), extensive road construction, tractor operations in steep and unstable areas, haul roads in the stream zones, winter operations (maximum impact on fisheries) and inadequate cumulative effects information. Clearcutting and the logging of old growth are occurring right now in Elk Creek, the Albion River, Big River, the Navarro River and elsewhere.
  
  
• As with L-P's proposed Sustained Yield Plan (SYP 95-003), MRC's timber harvest plans contain no plans to monitor water quality, fish or wildlife, and contain almost no information about these imperiled resources--yet these logging plans routinely assert that they will have no cumulative effect on any resource. The National Marine Fisheries Services, which is in charge of protecting the Coho salmon, has issued a list of information requirements for timber harvest plans. MRC plans meet none of these requirements.
  
  
• In addition, MRC is fighting a court battle for the right to implement some of the worst of the L-P plans: a large clearcutting plan in Elk Creek directly upstream from the only known coho salmon in the entire watershed; a clearcutting plan in the headwaters of Greenwood Creek, currently the sole source of water for the town of Elk; and two 1989 logging plans in the Enchanted Meadow area of the Albion River that the community has been fighting for ten years.
  
  
• Over the last three months, MRC President Sandy Dean has met with many environmental groups and individuals and has promised change. He has said, "Come back and take a look in six months." He has asked for time. The L-P forest lands that now belong to MRC are in a critical state of depletion. These forests cannot afford a period of depletion logging while MRC claims to be learning new forestry. There has been no indication--in on-the-ground operations or logging plan amendments--that MRC intends anything new. Indeed, the many disussions that have occurred with Mr. Dean have resulted in not one single change of a logging plan.
  
  

Conditions for negotiations and discussions:

The lawsuit petitioners in Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance v. CDF, and the north coast environmental community, would like to begin discussions with MRC regarding the fate of the coast Redwood forest.

These discussions cannot begin while MRC is clearcutting Redwood forests, and logging old growth, and while MRC is actively seeking to implement logging plans that local groups and communities consider to be particularly illegal and damaging.

If MRC wishes to enter good faith discussions with environmental groups and affected communities, MRC must make the following good faith gestures: 1) withdraw THPs 445, 352 and 100 & 145, and pay petitioners' attorney's fees; 2) suspend operations on the Kaisen Gulch plan and begin assessment for a conservation easement; 3) stop all clearcutting operations; 4) stop all winter operations; 5) stop logging the Mendocino coast's meager portion of old growth trees; and 6) stop herbicide spraying.

"Mendocino Old Growth," as it is called, means trees of approximately 150 years of age, that began growing just before the era of logging began. There are precious few trees left in this age group on L-P forest lands. There may be a few scattered old growth trees between 150 and 250 years of age, which must also be protected. As for the once magnificent coast Redwoods that could grow to 2,000 years of age and older, there are none left.

MRC has stated that it needs to remove 40 million board feet per year from its forest lands. Many independent foresters and other experts maintain that MRC forest lands can only be feasibly and sustainably logged at a rate of 20 million board feet per year, considering their depleted condition. These forests and their associated resources cannot take the level of logging that MRC proposes. They will cease to be forests, and will become (and are becoming) tree farms with no wildife and no fish.

Attached you will find a Petition that has been signed by over a thousand people during its first two weeks of circulation. The Petition continues in circulation and is spreading nationwide and worldwide, including signatores from as far away as the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Mexico and Finland. The Petition asks you to place all of these depleted Redwood forests into a conservation land trust, and to employ loggers, fisherfolk and other displaced workers in restoring forests and fisheries. Many watershed group members and concerned citizens feel that this is the best solution.

If you would like to begin discussions with environmental groups and affected north coast communities, we would be glad to facilitate such discussions provided that you agree to the six good faith gestures stated above.

Sincerely,

Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance
The Mendocino Environmental Center
Forests Forever
Bay Area Action
Sierra Club Regional Conservation Committee
The Kaisen Gulch group
Save The Redwoods/Boycott The Gap
Guardians of Elk Creek Old Growth
Friends of Enchanted Meadow
Friends of Ten Mile
Big River Watershed Council
RCWA Forest Practice Committee