October 2nd 2000

By Mike A'Dair, Staff Writer
The Willits News
October 2, 2000

The Mendocino Redwood Company finds itself in the center of another controversy.

The latest one stems from a paid advertisement that appeared in the Aug. 15, 2000, west coast edition of the New York Times.

The ad was sponsored by the Mendocino County-based groups, Greenwood Watershed Association and Save the Redwoods/Boycott The Gap Campaign according to Mary Pjerrou, spokesperson.

The ad alleges that MRC is doing a lousy job of managing its forests.

"The Fisher family's Mendocino Redwood Company has been leveling the forest like there's no tomorrow. It's called liquidation logging," the ad says.

"The Fisher company aims to squeeze over 40 million board feet of timber a year out of forests already overlogged by previous owners, Louisiana-Pacific.

"They're logging without a sustained yield plan vital for these damaged watersheds. They "overlook" nesting owls and pools of native salmon.

They've speeded up 'winter operations' that can multiply mudslides and choke streams."

The ad also says, "You'd expect them [the Fishers and MRC management] to take a handsome tax deduction and conserve the habitat in this severely depleted forest for endangered species like coho salmon, steelhead trout, marbled murrelets and northern spotted owls."

MRC president Sandy Dean presented the Forest Council, a standing committee of the board of supervisors, with a company rebuttal, including:

  • MRC is harvesting at about 50 percent of the growth rate of the forest, so each year there is more volume of trees standing in the forest.
  • MRC reduced the harvest on these lands by 30 percent relative to the long term regulatory plans of the previous owner.
  • MRC has a 100-year Option A plan which has been approved by the state Department of Forestry which demonstrates that MRC's forest will become better stocked and healthier over the coming decades.
  • MRC has a healthy and substantial population of spotted owls, (109 sites on its property, 2.5 times the number of owl nesting sites found on Jackson Demonstrative State Forest.)
  • MRC has worked on more than 15 large, collaborative restoration projects on its lands. It has worked with the state Department of Fish and Game, the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District and other groups and agencies on the Navarro, Big River, Hollow Tree, Noyo, Garcia and the Albion River systems.
  • MRC has reduced winter operations dramatically.

Forest Council staff person Greg Giusti had received a letter from Nick Brown of the U.S. Forest Conservation department of the World Wildlife Fund requesting that the council "look seriously into these allegations and dispel any misinformation that has been raised."

"Due to public profile and serious nature of these allegations (in the ad) and given our knowledge of MRC's efforts to promote responsible stewardship, we feel a responsibility to encourage you to look closely into these charges," Brown wrote.

Giusti asked the Forest Council for its response. Dean said any support the council could give to MRC would be appreciated.

A majority of the council, (Henry Gundling, Duane Wells, Wendy Jones and Forrest Tilley) spoke in favor of sending a letter in support of MRC to the World Wildlife Fund.

Fifth District Supervisor David Colfax, one of two county supervisors on the Forest Council (Tom Lucier did not attend the meeting), tried to put the brakes on the process.

"If we go ahead and get involved in this, and try to separate fact from fiction, we'd only get involved in a pissing match." Colfax said. "I'm not so sure I want to endorse your presumably very commendable practices if it means that we have to go to this group, most of whom are my constituents and live in my district, and say to them, 'Hey you over there, be quiet. This is a good company. The work they are doing over the whole watershed outweighs what they are doing over on this particular watershed that you are concerned about.'"

"My feeling on this is, this is the climate you've inherited, these are the people you've inherited," Colfax told Dean.

"On the basis of my responsibility to my constituents, I would have to say that this is a group of people that is not very happy with the Mendocino Redwood Company," Colfax said.

Albion resident Linda Perkins, who has criticized MRC in the past and who is a member of the Greenwood Watershed Association as well as other groups, criticize the political process of the Forest Council.

Perkins pointed out that the council could not vote to send statement of support for MRC because no such item was mentioned in the council's agenda. The agenda item dealing with the topic said only "World Wildlife Fund letter regarding Mendocino Forest Council."

Perkins said that she could have brought more people to the meeting if she had known that MRC was going to be discussed.

"It is hardly democratic to have invited the timber company here but not to have invited the other side of this dispute. I object strenuously to this form of governance," Perkins said.

Colfax told the council that he would support a letter to the World Wildlife Fund stating that the Forest Council takes the matter very seriously and will look into it.

Mike Geni, head MRC forester, told the council that the company regularly goes out into the forest with members of the Greenwood Watershed Association and other groups to discuss upcoming timber harvest plans.

The Forest Council could attend the next site visit to see what MRC is really doing and why Geni offered.

The Forest Council welcomed the offer.

The council directed Giusti to write a letter advising the World Wildlife fund that it would look into the matter further.