New Treesit to Stop Timber Harvest Near Trinidad
View from a traverse that is connecting multiple redwood trees in the area. Members of the group are safely social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic while working to protect the forest.
Press release from the Redwood Forest Defense. (Please remember that this is not neutral reporting but a press release from one side of a situation):
Redwood Forest Defense (RFD) has raised another treesit in an active timber harvest area to stop Green Diamond Resource Company (Green Diamond) from clearcutting the redwood rainforest. The forest defenders are calling for a complete stop to industrial logging during the COVID-19 pandemic, declaring that the timber industry is not an essential business during this time.“Habitat destruction is not essential business,” stated Walter, one of the treesitters. “In the midst of COVID-19, Green Diamond should cease all operations and support their employees and contractors by allowing them to stay home with full pay.”The lumber mill owned by Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) in Scotia, CA where Green Diamond timber is sent to be milled, is currently shut down because of lack of demand for timber products.“It just didn’t make sense to keep the place running if there was no place to send the lumber,” said Steve Isherwood, a board feeder for the HRC mill, in an interview with Susanne Rust from the LA Times on April 16.The activist group, Redwood Forest Defense, announced that they have established another treesit and continue to deter clearcut logging by Green Diamond Resource Company. [All photos provided by the Redwood Forest Defense]
On April 1, RFD began protecting the area after a Green Diamond contractor, Lord’s Light Logging, clearcut several acres of forested habitat in Unit A. Green Diamond immediately halted logging operations in the unit. This renewed resistance by RFD comes after they defended the same area from 2012-2017 with treesits and road blockades, preventing logging under a former Timber Harvest Plan in the same area.
View from the first treesit that was raised on April 1, 2020 after Redwood Forest Defenders witnessed the aftermath of Green Diamond’s clearcut logging.
Those forest defense efforts led to the currently pending land sale between Green Diamond and the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust (TCLT) which will protect the area surrounding, and the trail leading to, Strawberry Rock. RFD says that the TCLT wants to buy more of the surrounding land, but Green Diamond refuses to sell.
“Green Diamond does every single one of us a disservice by continuing to clearcut redwood rainforests, decimating canopy connectivity and habitat for sensitive species,” says Meredith Dyer, a member of RFD. “The forested habitats that Green Diamond ‘owns’ have been disrupted since Europeans arrived in the area 250 years ago. Green Diamond needs to take responsibility for the land and for the younger generations who face a future of climate chaos and massive die offs. Green Diamond must stop clearcutting and other forestry practices that strip canopy connectivity and fragment wildlife habitat.”
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yeah he is totally going to need a mask way up there
Tell me, is tree sitting an essential industry? Seem’s to me you shouldn’t be telling someone not to violate a stay at home order while violating a stay at home order.
I am being facetious.
At any rate, they are being duplicitous with their argument, otherwise they would not have blocked logging in the same area from 2012 to 2017. As is the case here, if old growth isn’t being logged then they will defend second or third growth from clear cutting by saying they should select cut. If clear cutting is ended they will defend said second/third growth forest from select cutting.
This isn’t a zero sum game; how about all you tree sitters get real about finding a solution that works for all parties, even the land owners and hard working taxpayers who rely on timber to support themselves and their families? People may take you seriously at that point and try and work with you, instead of around you.
if you look on Google Earth it is easy to tell the 2nd growth from the 3rd, the 2nd is dark green. the 3rd won’t be ready for about 4 to 6 decades. Green Diamond won’t exist when the 3rd is ready. it will be an interesting transition to land trust’s then ?. land trusts aren’t exactly what i thought they were.
Why wouldn’t Green Diamond be here for 40-60 years
They will be. if not run out of this “Hole” called Humboldt County
I nether support Green Diamond in this instances nor the tree sitters; GD clear cuts where not appropriate as a standard practice IMO and the present tree sitters have romanticized their cause supplemented by an ever moving target.
There is already 3rd growth being cut in for instance the Mad River Tract. The thinning just above Blue Lake and the most recent clear cuts in that area are 3r growth.
Thirty years ago the then Simpson completed a Habitat Conservation Plan for the NSO with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. The plan called for various measures and preservation but also projected that most redwood would be have regeneration harvest on a 40 year rotation and Douglas-fir on a 50 year rotation. This is feasible but my opinion even at that time was that Simpson had taken the feds lunch money.
Land trusts have come to have their own agendas. As far as corporate land being purchased for public domain, usually the selling corporation makes out like a bandit as they sell their own workers and vendors (loggers, truckers, etc.) out and care little for harming the local economic base.
Unfortunately is is a zero sum game. At least the way it has always worked.
There is no viable solution that allows people to continue massive exploitation of the forests.
We must stop exporting lumber, at least internationally, until the forest have regenerated to at least half of their historic range.
The time for a balanced approach was many decades ago. Now in order to correct the imbalance, we have to side with the forests.
Far more timber burns every year than is logged. But ok. Perhaps if we logged more less would burn.
@well…, I don’t believe that is completely true. I agree much more should have been done in the past to save old growth forests, but if it truly were a zero sum game then there would be no remaining old growth.
One nice large chainsaw and the tree sitter won’t have to worry about catching the virus, just himself as the tree slams into the ground. Being up the tree is a good spot with the coming fire season. Smash or bake you’re choice goof ball!!!
Alf, use both saws. Happy to loan one if needed.
Kym-you are okay with these guys saying they want to kill the treesitter?
You do realize this is simply hyperbole, don’t you? Neither one of them is going to go out and cut down this tree in an attempt to kill or injure the tree sitter.
[edit]Get a real job and perhaps you will one day own property with your own trees on it. You never have to cut them down!
What they are doing is more important than most jobs.
Just hippies doing hippie things
Clear cutting and even aged tree farms should both be illegal.
The comment “forested habitats… have been disrupted since Europeans arrived in the area 250 years ago.” Who was logging in 1770? My recollection (from reading about it) is that logging didn’t really start around Humboldt Bay until about 1850.
I see that tree sitting in a small tree doesn’t give the sitter very much room. Not like building a large tree stand in an old growth tree, like in years past.
Sometimes I miss the good old days.
In efforts to make emotional appeals facts are often left by the wayside. After all, what’s a hundred years here or there?
“Ocean exploration of the northern coast of California included Spanish, Russian and British ships, with the first recorded Humboldt landing at Trinidad by the Spanish in 1775. The first entrance to Humboldt Bay was in 1806 by an American with Aleut hunters, all in the employ of the Russian-American Company out of Sitka. But it wasn’t until rediscovery by land by the Gregg-Wood Party in December 1849, that the region’s history was forever defined. Spring 1850 brought the first ships to Humboldt and Trinidad bays, where men, generally from the States, disembarked on their way to the gold mining districts on the Klamath, Salmon and Trinity rivers. First settled as a point of arrival and as a supply center for these interior mines, Eureka, Union (Arcata), and Trinidad were hubs of activity. But as the excitement and rush for gold subsided, the prospects for economic well-being, if not wealth, shifted to the region’s premiere resources – big trees, salmon, and land.”
https://library.humboldt.edu/nwcnews/history/briefhis.html
Bravo RFD! This finite resource is shipped to China to be milled for the homes and offices of rich people there.
most of the logs that were shipped to china this year were sticks we should have left for the next local generation to harvest. you can google the photos. 8-14 inch diameter. pretty weak planning and pure greed.
It’s Wonderful to Read that the Mill in Scotia is CLOSED… NO NEED FOR REDWOOD BOARDS…