Logging the Sequoias.

[Spencer Windes]

Our Bioneers study hall this week involved a viewing of the short film Logging the Sequoias, produced by the group Sequoia Forest Keepers, about the Forest Service allowing logging the the Giant Sequoia National Monument. What are your thoughts about the film, or forest management in general?

[Jill]

I found it disheartening that the Forestry Service at the time of the video was being led by a former lobbyist for the timber industry. Apparently the Forest Keepers have a program to adopt a tree.

[TC]

It is a dicey subject. I live in a rural and wooded area. A few weeks ago, the forest service started a prescribed burn on the mesa close to my house. Now, i choose to live in a rural wooded desert area so I know the risks involved. The burn jumped the fireline and came down the valley just a ridge away from where I live. I think I would feel differently if the fire had been started by lightening, but knowing it was started by humans intentionally made it hard to watch the ponderosa pines burn.

[Miss Maia]

The Forest Service not only prescribes burns, but suppresses naturally occurring fires -- which are essential to the health of any forest ecosystem. Where is the logic in that?

[Susie-Q]

The US Forest Service is responsible for managing the US's natural resources; not only to protect our supply, but also to determine their best and most profitable use. The USFS Strategic Plan for 2004-2008 stated:

One definition of conservation is “to protect and enhance the Nation’s natural resource base and environment.” That’s the way it’s stated in the USDA Strategic Plan (Goal 5), and our Strategic Plan is tied to this conservation ideal.

The USFS is doing its job by logging these ancient forests. Until we move the Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument to the jurisdiction of the US National Park Service, it will continue to be used as natural resource. The National Park Service, in contrast to the USFS, "cares for national parks, a network of nearly 400 natural, cultural and recreational sites across the nation."

You can help! Join Save America's Forests and send an instant letter to congress. You can read up on the progress of the campaign at Save America's Forests. You can also read up on the Act to Save America's Forests.

[Jeffrey V.]

Julia Butterfly Hill spoke at the Bioneers Conference in 2000 and 2001- she's featured on one of the Bioneers Radio Programs- very inspirational. Here's a new website for Julia and her team - What's Your Tree. A good way to engage in this very crucial topic.

[Miss Maia]

As did former US Forest Supervisor, Gloria Flora (2005) and ForestEthics Strategic Director, Tzeporah Berman (2006). Two brilliant women fighting on behalf of our forests!

[Aaron Leventman]

Julia Butterfly Hill is also the subject of the film Butterfly. This highlights the achievements that herself and other tree sitters in the organization Earth First! made, especially in 1999 when they helped form a resolution with Pacific Lumber Company when they agreed to preserve all trees within a 3-acre (12,000 m2) buffer zone in Humboldt County, California.

[Jacquelyn Williams]

I thought it was interesting (and discouraging) that the film mentioned that the head of the National Forest Service was once a lobbyist for the loggers!

[Scott]

The video that we watched here at Bioneers HQ is also viewable on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIl1RrMZ7aU

Saving the Sequoia National Monument from logging is much more than saving trees. If we can save this ancient forest, we're also saving the habitat of owls, squirrels, spiders, foxes, bears, bobcats, and hundreds of other species that call this place their home. Some of these creatures are endangered or near endangerment themselves. For example, this unassuming little mustelidae called the Pacific Fisher. Pacific Fishers are related to minks and otters, and rely on old growth forests to provide them with shelter and food. Their dwindling numbers are just one of the side effects from the destruction of the sequoia forests.

[Spencer Windes]

Another reason to preserve these specific forests is their historical importance in the environmental movement. Modern preservation was born out of the efforts by John Muir and others to save the big trees of California before they were wiped out, which they almost were by the early 20th century. Someday the redwood groves of California might be considered the Jerusalem of environmentalism, the place where a whole new belief structure was born. They won us over because they are so magnificent, and with that realization a whole new way of thinking about nature started to come into being.

[TC]

not to mention the age of those giant beauties. They have have born witness to humanity's triumphs and tragedies. I often wonder what we (humans) would do if our life span was even 1/16th of theirs... 80 years is just a drop in the ocean....

[Esther]

I haven't seen the film, but I look forward to listening to Margi Maril's speech at the Bioneers Conference in October. Her talk is: Who Speaks for the Trees: Driving Nature's Rights into Law.