Green Giant: Redwoods and Simpson Timber

A note from EPIC staff:

For several years, EPIC staff and volunteers have spent countless hours researching Kamilche Group’s Simpson Timber, Green Diamond Resource Company and California Redwood Company. With a 120 year history of logging in the redwood region, subsidiaries of Simpson (the parent company for Green Diamond and California Redwood Company) own over 400,000 acres of forests. Their logging practices include widespread use of clearcut logging and herbicide applications across sensitive and imperiled coastal watersheds. Their manufacturing sector includes the operation of several mills in the region, including the behemoth operation right on Humboldt Bay.  By conducting extensive research and analysis of the conglomerate’s operations and marketing schemes, EPIC can now help educate the public about their bad logging practices and demand that the company end the use of clearcut logging. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support the campaign.

To begin this public education campaign, we offer Eye on Green Diamond: A Weekly Report for people to learn about current events within Green Diamond’s property boundaries, their residential development plans in Humboldt County, and their aggressive (and dishonest) redwood marketing campaign across the US. We look forward to continuing to expand this information resource on wildcalifornia.org.  Thanks for reading!

~Kerul Dyer, Green Diamond Campaign Coordinator

Green Giant: Redwoods and the Kamilche Group

This industrial timber giant deceives the public by marketing their lumber as environmentally benign, has proposals on the table to develop thousands of acres of Humboldt County forests into subdivisions and they systematically destroy habitat by converting forests to plantations and jumping (with great skill) through the regulatory hoops of the California regulatory system.  Born from prospectors near Kamilche Washington, Simpson Timber acquired hundreds of thousands of acres of land across the redwood region. Unlike other prospectors, Simpson didn’t sell their land off after logging, they kept the land and planted trees after logging. At one time, this plantation-conversion, “even-aged” management style was accepted as achieving the highest conservation values, while still achieving financial success. Unfortunately, as times have changed, Simpson and its sister corporations have not.

Korbel, California millsite.

In 2004, Simpson’s parent company, the Kamilche Group, re-organized their assets and created “Green Diamond Resource Company” to hold deed to their land in California and parts of Oregon. They coordinate logging and roadbuilding operations, and California Redwood Company became their lumber manufacturer. Now, CRC boasts a smooth new look to retailers across the US, claiming high environmental stewardship and quality lumber,  both points which are simply untrue.

We invite you to check out California Redwood Company’s website for yourself, and then take a look at the images of their ownership, to make your own decision on whether they are truly “building the future” for redwood forests.

This profit-driven conglomerate has been destroying the forests of the North Coast for as long as they’ve owned land here.  It’s time for the people to hold them to a higher standard and stop clearcutting the redwoods.

Help our campaign by getting involved or  making an online donation.

The Big Picture: Playing Make Believe in Green Diamond Land