August 25th 2000

Published on Friday, August 25, 2000

The recently announced Garcia River partnership between Trout Unlimited and Mendocino Redwood Co. is a positive reminder of what can happen when people are willing to move beyond rhetoric and into reality.

The rhetoric has been hot lately on the North Coast. Logging opponents have organized a series of protests against Mendocino Redwood, including a "GapSucks" campaign aimed specifically at the Fisher family that owns The Gap Corp. and are also major investors in the timber company.

Instead of joining the protesters, Trout Unlimited, a national organization with a strong record in fisheries restoration, decided to focus on reality.

Reality One: Protests may not be the most effective method of getting what you want, as evidenced by the fact that there's always a willing buyer when a timber company decides to sell.

Reality Two: Each timber company has its own corporate culture and goals. According to fisheries consultant Craig Bell, "They've (Mendocino Redwood) done more in the past six months than 10 years of talks with L-P."

Reality Three: Ending logging won't restore the watershed. Old logging roads need to be eliminated and degraded slopes repaired. This work takes money, equipment and labor -- of the type Mendocino Redwood promises in the agreement.

While there are many differences between the Garcia and Russian river watersheds, similar partnerships between large landowners and restoration groups locally could help in the recovery of our own threatened fish.