Will Green Diamond Resource Company ever kick its addiction to managing forests for young, evenaged, industrial fiber-farm plantations? Sadly, the answer appears to be clearcut. Green Diamond Resource Company seems to be hooked on clearcutting redwoods, and the consequences for our forests, wildlife, watersheds, climate, economy and community will continue to be felt for decades if not centuries.
Green Diamond Resource Company THP 1-18-004HUM, “Van Cleave,” demonstrates just how addicted to clearcutting the company is, and just how callus its disregard for local communities and local safety and aesthetics can be. The “Van Cleave” THP totals 195 acres of proposed harvesting, with 113 acres of this total slated to be accomplished via multiple large clearcut units that will startle both sides of the Fickle Hill Road in the Lower Jacoby Creek watershed area, and just over the ridge and hydrologic divide onto the Powers Creek watershed, which drains into the Mad River. The “Van Cleave” THP also proposes to clearcut and destroy habitat for known northern spotted owls in the Fickle Hill Road vicinity; these owls are likely to use or be seen in and on adjacent properties, including the Arcata Community Forest.
The result of the “Van Cleave” THP, if approved would be as many as seven clearcut units on both sides of Fickle Hill Road, and an untold period where local neighbors will be forced to endure the industrial din of chainsaws, bulldozers, log trucks and other heavy machinery whizzing up and down tight and narrow local community roads and streets, and right through many otherwise quiet local neighborhoods. Why? Because Green Diamond just can’t seem to stop clearcutting the redwoods, in favor of making the bottom-line profit-margin demanded by its parent company, Kamilche Co. based in Seattle, Washington. And, the cold, hard, truth is that State forestry laws and regulations not only allow this, but greatly incentivize it, while, as we know, State regulators at the Department of Forestry have a long and shameful history of enabling and acting as accomplice to the destruction of our forests and future by a voracious and rampantly destructive private industrial timber industry.
The time has long-since come to stop the brutish and arcane practice of clearcutting redwoods on short, evenaged rotations to maximize private profits while setting back and damaging vital public resources for decades or even centuries. Other timberland owners, like Humboldt and Mendocino Redwood Companies, while clearly not perfect in some respects, have unequivocally shown that redwoods can be managed selectively and sustainably and still produce viable crops of commercial timber now and into the future. The balance contemplated in California’s Forest Practice Act between private profit and public benefit has been wildly skewed towards private profit for far too long, and with the climate crisis now constituting a clear and present danger to the survival of the human species, we must insist that Green Diamond Resource Company bring its forestry practices into line with the realities of the 21st century.
EPIC is dedicated to fighting against Green Diamond’s clear-cut addiction and industrial-profit-driven forest management. Please join us if you can!
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