Jackson Forest

Raise Your Voice! Jackson Forest meetings are now!

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CalFire is holding 8 Public Meetings starting NOW:              See below for schedule. Cal Fire is requesting “community insight” for the new Management Plan for Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Please attend and let Cal Fire know that they are in violation of California environmental review law and must wait until guidance on tribal co-management is provided by local Tribes and the California Natural Resources Agency. Information and registration for these meetings is provided below. Suggested Talking Points for the meetings can be found here.  Strong participation is crucial, so mark your calendars and plan to attend as many of these meetings as possible! If you pre-register, you will be …

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Dances With Caltrans–Here we go again

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RICHARDSON GROVE REDWOODS: Here we go again: Same ill-conceived project, same clueless agency, same beneficiaries (the trucking industry and big box stores) Richardson Grove State Park in southern Humboldt County, is one of the state’s oldest state parks and  and is  one of the last protected stands of old-growth redwood trees in the world. The park has essential habitat for protected species, and its creeks support runs of imperiled salmon and steelhead trout, in addition to being a revered and popular camping area, called “the gateway to the redwoods”. The state transportation agency Caltrans seeks to widen and straighten the …

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Raise Your Voice — Again — for Richardson Grove Redwoods!

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Here we go again. Caltrans is back with another attempt to push through their Richardson Grove Project: They seek to “realign” the curvy Hwy 101 through the ancient redwoods of this 99-year old State Park to provide access for more and bigger trucks through the redwoods. This is one of those issues it seems we have won over and over, and yet…here we are. In 2017, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) completed an Addendum to their Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the project. This addendum document, along with the 2010 EIR and other background material, is now open …

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Appeals Court Rules Against Richardson Grove Champions

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We are beyond disappointed at a decision handed down on Dec. 2 by the Ninth Circuit regarding a controversial highway project through a grove of ancient redwood trees, reversing a lower court ruling that halted planned construction. The trees are part of Richardson Grove State Park, established in 1922 to protect the ancient redwoods that are as high as 300 feet and can be as old as 3,000 years. A panel of three judges, one a Trump appointee, reversed a District Court’s previous ruling in favor of the environmental plaintiffs, pending further environmental impact assessment. Caltrans, the California state transportation …

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**Action Camps for Mattole Forests** **Celebration for and in Richardson Grove**

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There are two action camps coming up in the Mattole River area, to support the continuing activity in the all-out effort to protect the precious forests and habitat of Rainbow Ridge. Since the chronology we sent you in our June update, there has been another tree-sit, rallies, lock-downs, strategic work and pressure from the Lost Coast League’s challenge to Humboldt Redwood Co.’s dishonest sustainable certification and other work. You can listen to an interview with tree-sitter #1, Rook, (still aloft, at this writing) on KMUD. as they mark one month in the tree: https://soundcloud.com/kmudnews/forest-defender-celebrates-month-long-tree-sit-at-rainbow-ridge We got a brief update yesterday from the folks …

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Environmental Issues Prevail in Richardson Grove Redwoods vs. Caltrans in Federal Case

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Environmental Groups and individuals challenging Caltrans’ highway expansion plans through the ancient redwoods of Richardson Grove State Park got a favorable decision from a judge in federal court on May 3. You can see the decision by U.S. District Judge  William Alsup here. This is the third federal case brought against Caltrans, paralleling cases in state court, bringing potentially severe impacts to the redwoods by Caltrans. Richardson Grove contains redwoods up to 3000 years old, 18′ in diameter and up to 300′ tall that grow right up to the edge of Highway 101. Caltrans first proposed “realigning” the highway in 2006, …

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Mattole Action Camp; Richardson Grove Back in Court

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    GATHER FOR the MATTOLE ~ IN the MATTOLE! This Action Camp and skill sharing will be a great time to plug in with other forest defenders on the North Coast, find out what is on the horizon for this spring and summer, and hike in some beautiful forest. You can contact BACH at our email for details and car-pooling and we will try to help. Find out why people are so passionate about protecting the forests in the Mattole River Watershed! Info in Humboldt: efhum@riseup.net; Save the Mattole’s Ancient Forest on FB Richardson Grove in Court (again) March …

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Forest and Species Issues Making News in Northern California

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Forest and Species Issues Making News in Northern California Mattole Forests The intrepid Mattole Forest Defenders are organizing an action training camp in the Lost Coast area for mid-March. Stay tuned for more details as local activists gear up for the logging season.  Contact efhum@riseup.net, or us at bach@headwaterspreserve.org. In the same neighborhood, another hard-working group of local residents in the Mattole River Valley—the Lost Coast League—is in the midst of challenging Humboldt Redwood Company’s (HRC) heavy use of herbicides and their THPs (Timber Harvest Plans) filed in ” legacy forests” via a different avenue. That route is a formal challenge to the “certified as sustainably …

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Richardson Grove court report; Forests & Climate hearing this week!

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Update: Richardson Grove Court Date A number of us were in Federal Court last Wednesday to hear arguments from both defendants Caltrans, and environmental organization plaintiffs in the Richardson Grove court case, back before a judge once again. This has been a long saga. After extensive arguments and many questions from the court, Judge Alsup took those arguments under consideration, and will deliver a decision sometime in the foreseeable future. There was a post-court radio story with an interview with Karen Pickett on KMUD radio here: https://soundcloud.com/kmudnews/litigation-continues-for-richardson-grove-expansion and a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the case: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/richardson-grove-11-28-2018.php Courthouse News also …

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Actions in the Forest, plus Forests in Court

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New Tree-Sit and Forest Occupation in the Mattole Shuts SPI Down Humboldt County Forest Defenders have been occupying a Sierra Pacific Industries’ (SPI) logging plan in the Mattole River watershed, effectively shutting down operations there. A tree-sitter has been perched 100 ft. up, joined in the last couple days by more activists who turned back heavy equipment and trucks on site to haul the giant logs out. The area is deep in the forest, and the activists are calling attention to corporate logging of large, fire resistant trees, damage to water quality and other destructive environmental impacts. For more than six years, protestors have …

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