Eye on Green Diamond Dispatches

Eye on Green Diamond Dispatches:

EPIC’s Green Diamond Stop Clearcutting campaign staff compile weekly reports to provide current information on the comapany’s logging operations, marketing schemes and programmatic strategies. We also created a Green Diamond Campaign Fund, to make it easier for people to support this effort directly. Please feel free to participate! We encourage dialogue through open comments.

July 7, 2010 Since the fall of the Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company, Green Diamond Resource Company has become the king of clearcuts in Humboldt County. The famed timber giant is proud of their aggressive ‘even-aged’ i.e. clearcutting policy.

June 23, 2010 Last month, EPIC’s Green Diamond Stop Clearcutting Campaign staff and volunteers flew over the timber giant’s patchwork ownership in Humboldt County. This truth-telling mission included video documentation by the Klamath-Salmon Media Collaborative shown here on EPIC’s new Youtube Channel.

June 15, 2010 This week in our Eye on Green Diamond dispatch Rob Diperna has written about issues surrounding the vulnerable Pacific Fisher population within Green Diamond’s ownership boundaries. These small carnivores have become something of a mascot for our team at EPIC, as they have somehow survived a century of boom and bust logging.

May 19, 2010 Green Diamond has been extremely busy preparing and submitting logging plans in 2010. The timber giant is by far the most frequent logging plan submitter in 2010. So far in 2010, Green Diamond is responsible for 23 of the 43 plans filed in the North Coast Region. These 23 plans cover a total of 1,935 acres.

May 14, 2010 Many of us are aware of the dangers of herbicides and pesticides in our food and water. But can we trust Green Diamond to take precautionary measures when it comes to our health and the health of the fish, amphibians, and birds?  Green Diamond claims that these pesticides and herbicides are relatively harmless. With a little research, however, EPIC staff questions these conclusions. As one step in their controversial plantation forestry model, Green Diamond plans to use Triclopyr in combination with 2,4-D, Imazapyr, and Oust in 2010 in many sites along the Klamath River.

April 29, 2010 This week in EPIC’s Eye on Green Diamond dispatch, Amber Jamieson and Rob Diperna have combined efforts to look at both the proposed development Green Diamond has put on the table in Humboldt County, but also approved Timber Harvest Plans just east of Eureka, in the McKay Tract.

April 26, 2010 Green Diamond applied for a new Habitat Conservation Plan this week, in an effort to obtain a new 50 year Incidental Take Permit for Northern Spotted Owls that live in the forests owned by the company. Don’t be fooled! The Orwellian language used in this process can be confusing. An Incidental Take Permit is like a hunting permit for endangered species.

April 16, 2010 This week Green Diamond filed for start-up on five THP’s on its property. These plans are primarily set in drainages of the North Fork Mad River and Maple Creek. These plans are characterized by the usual Green Diamond trademark of large, and in many cases oversized, clearcuts. read more

April 9, 2010 Green Diamond Resource Company recently applied for a Master Agreement for Timber Operations and a programmatic Road Management Waste Discharge Requirements from the Department of Fish and Game and the Regional Water Quality Control Board. At present, the Department of Fish and Game has prepared a draft Mitigated Negative Declaration regarding this project. The MATO is designed to create a programmatic basin-level approach to road maintenance, construction, and decommissioning.  read more

April 2, 2010 Among the trends being borne out in Green Diamond’s 2010 Timber Harvest Plans so far, the use of the over sized clearcuts proves most glaring.  So far in 2010, Green Diamond has filed five THP’s containing seven oversized clearcut units.  The Forest Practice Rules restrict the size of clearcuts to 20 acres for ground-based yarding, and 30 acres for cable or other yarding system.  Green Diamond may however propose over-sized units if justified in the plan and approved by Cal Fire during  THP Review.  read more

March 25, 2010 For over 15 years Green Diamond Resource Company (and formerly Simpson Timber Company) have been intensively clearcutting in the Little River Watershed.  That trend is continuing into 2010.  This year, the focus of Green Diamond’s logging operations in the Little River Watershed appears to be squared in the Headwaters.  There are currently three more logging operations filed for the Headwaters Little River Planning Watershed. Three Timber Harvest Plans (1-10-011, 1-10-014, & 1-10-015) will combine to operate on 380 acres in the Headwaters Little River Planning Watershed, which totals 8,988 acres in size. Of this, a total of 291 acres combine will be clearcut.  read more