Californians, how to help in " Redwoods vs Red Wine" incident:

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

I posted this earlier: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1813737

This email came to me this morning:

PLEASE HELP ME ON THIS FORESTRY ISSUE

HELP CONSISTS OF COPYING THE MESSAGE (BELOW) AND SENDING IT TO THE
E-MAIL ADDRESSES - LISTED BLEOW

EXPLANATION:

As you probably know I (as director of Coast Action Group) am on the
advisory board for the management of the Garcia Forest Project and
other forest projects managed by the Conservation Fund. The
Conservation Fund now manages 40,000 acres in Mendocino County in the
Garcia River, Big River, and Salmon Creek watersheds. We have
recently been successful with a Wildlife Conservation Board approval
of Conservation Easement on a similar public ownership project -
60,000 acres in the USAL (southern end of the Lost Coast) - managed
by the Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. (RFFI).

These projects are public ownership forest projects - where we manage
in a protective way with the goal of rehabilitation of over-logged
lands to make them productive, recover old growth type
characteristics, and recover and protect water quality values.

The current situation where your help is needed is: Before the
Wildlife Conservation Board right now the opportunity to fund the
purchase of a Conservation Easement on 14,700 acres of distressed
forestlands in the Gualala River. This land is adjacent to the
CalPERs Preservation Ranch project - and is currently subdivided
into smaller parcels and will likely go to grapes unless a
Conservation Easement is purchased.

There is little opposition to the WCB approval - except - Sandy Dean
(CEO of Mendocino Redwood Co. and Humbolt Redwood Co. - with holdings
of about 400,000 acres and the only active mills on the north cost)
and his manager Mike Jani have been in Sacramento opposing this
Conservation Easement and other public ownership projects. .

To do: This is a good project. Please support this projects by
sending an e-mail message - to

Message and addresses - below - feel free to use your own words:

[e-mail]

[e-mail]




Subject: Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement


Dear Wildlife Conservation Board and Legislative Advisory Committee members:

Please approve funding for the Gualala River Forest Conservation
Easement (item 19 on the Wildlife Conservation Board's agenda for
September 13, 2011).

In addition to harboring numerous endangered and sensitive plant and
animal species, the Gualala River Forest includes the headwaters of
the North Fork of the Gualala River, which has been identified by the
California Department of Fish and Game and the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration as a very high priority for coho
salmon habitat protection and restoration.

However, as reported in the Los Angeles Times? August 25th story
?Redwoods versus red wine?, there is unprecedented pressure to
clear-cut redwood/Douglas fir forests and plant thousands of acres of
vineyard in the immediate vicinity of the Gualala River Forest. In
addition to the permanent conversion of forest habitat to intensive
agriculture, vineyard development and rural subdivision of forestland
degrades terrestrial habitat, increases sedimentation and diverts
surface and groundwater flows essential to the recovery of coho
salmon and steelhead trout.

The threat of conversion of the Gualala River Forest to incompatible
non-forest uses is very real. Protecting the Forest and the
headwaters of the North Fork of the Gualala River from subdivision
and conversion represents an important and cost-effective fulfillment
of the voters' intent in passing Proposition 84 that authorized funds
to "promote the ecological integrity and economic stability of
California's diverse native forests for all their public benefits
through forest conservation...of productive managed forest lands...."

This important project deserves your support and we respectfully urge
its approval at WCB?s upcoming meeting. Thank you very much.


Alan Levine
Coast Action Group
P.O. Box 215
Point Arena, CA 95468