3/26/08

LIMIT CLEARCUTTING IN CALIFORNIA

Legislation that would sharply curtail the highly destructive– and increasingly popular– practice of clearcutting has just entered the stage.

Forests Forever has sponsored Assembly Bill 2926, introduced on Feb. 22 by Assemblymember Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View). This bill would significantly restrict the practice of clearcutting and encourage safer, more responsible methods of timber harvesting such as selective cutting.

Current California law allows the timber industry to clearcut acres of forest at a time. Loggers can clearcut a forest immediately next to another clearcut if the two parcels are under different ownerships.

A.B. 2926 would prohibit adjacent clearcuts unless the older cut has grown back at least a 50 percent canopy cover. Also prohibited by the bill are clearcuts immediately next to each other unless their combined total acreage is less than ten acres, regardless of ownership.

California’s forests are being clearcut at an increasingly rapid pace. Since 1990 nearly 687 square miles of California forests have been clearcut– more than three and a half times the surface area of Lake Tahoe. One company alone (Sierra Pacific Industries, based in Anderson) has been authorized to clearcut more than 250,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada in the past two decades.

Clearcutting is highly destructive of the natural environment, destroying wildlife habitat, degrading water quality, increasing the likelihood of wildfire, and damaging the state’s scenic beauty.

Clearcutting also contributes to global warming by removing carbon-sequestering trees and disturbing forest soils which then release CO2 into the atmosphere.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

A.B. 2926 faces its first do-or-die legislative hurdle on April 14th. Write to your assemblymember and urge him or her to support A.B. 2926 when it reaches the floor. Also ask your assemblymember to urge his or her colleagues on the Assembly Natural Resources Committee to support the bill when it comes up for hearing.

For your assemblymember’s contact information, visit http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html.
Also write to Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, and Vice Chair Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield) and ask them to support the bill.

Loni Hancock, Chair
Assembly Natural Resources Committee
State Capitol P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0014
Assemblymember.hancock@assembly.ca.gov
Fax: (916) 319-2114

Jean Fuller, Vice Chair
Assembly Natural Resources Committee
State Capitol Room 3098
Sacramento, CA 95814
Assemblymember.Fuller@assembly.ca.gov
Fax: (916) 319-2132

And please write a thank-you letter to Assemblymember Lieber!

Assemblymember Sally Lieber
State Capitol P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0022
Fax: (916) 319-2122

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Assemblymember _____________ :

Since 1990 nearly 687 square miles of California forests have been clearcut– more than three and a half times the area of Lake Tahoe.

The health of California’s environment and economy is being jeopardized by clearcutting. Clearcutting harms native plants and animals, contaminates water supplies, increases the risk of forest fires, destroys California’s natural beauty, and contributes to global warming. It also damages recreation and tourism, hurting the rural counties that depend on these industries.

To restrict this ecologically devastating practice and encourage safer, more responsible methods of timber harvesting, I am asking you to support A.B. 2926. Also please urge members of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee to vote for the bill when it comes up on Apr. 14. Please help protect California’s remaining forests for future generations.

Sincerely,

(Your name and address here)>