Timber Industry Presents Its Plan to Put Limits on Clear-Cutting Forests

The Timber Assn. of California, representing the state’s logging industry, has proposed a ban on clear-cutting old-growth forests, and a reduction by half of clear-cutting on all other timberland over the next five years, as part of a wide-ranging ballot initiative aimed at the November election.

Opponents derided the measure as a “special-interest smoke screen” designed to preempt other initiatives being put on the ballot by environmentalists.

“It’s a unique example of an industry taking a long-range look at its future,” said Kevin Eckery, vice president of industry affairs for the group. “We’re making some hard decisions about a range of very thorny issues, like clear-cutting and the export of logs overseas, which our initiative petitions Congress to ban.”

The industry proposal also calls for long-range timber and wildlife management planning on private timber lands, a bond issue to fund tree planting in urban areas, plus industry-sponsored research of the impact of commercial forestry on wildlife, global warming and even affordable housing. Areas adjacent to Grizzly Creek State Park and Humboldt Redwoods State Park would also be purchased by the state, under the plan.

But environmentalists and politicians sponsoring competing initiatives in the long-running battle over logging in Northern California pointed out that the industry plan contains a clause that would specifically invalidate their initiatives.

The proposal is also “designed to confuse the voter,” said Paula Carrell, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “They highlight what you could characterize as the environmentally positive sides of the initiative, all of which are either accomplished in other initiatives which will be on the ballot, or are proposed, or are existing law. . . . What they haven’t mentioned is that the bulk of the initiative is a massive deregulation of the timber industry on private lands in California.”

“It’s a special-interest smoke screen whose only purpose is to put more money in the timber industry’s pockets,” said Vicky Rideout, a spokesperson for state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s gubernatorial campaign. “It does next to nothing to protect California’s precious stands of old-growth redwoods, or to prevent global warming.”

Eckery denies that. “The fact is,” he maintained, “there would be no more cutting in old-growth forests the day after this initiative passes.”

Van de Kamp is a chief sponsor of Big Green, a proposed ballot initiative also backed by state Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), the Sierra Club, the California League of Conservation Voters, Campaign California, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pesticide Watch and the National Toxics Campaign.

Another initiative, called Forests Forever, is sponsored by the Environmental Protection Information Center, an environmental group based in Humboldt County.

Yet another initiative proposal is the Timber Bond Act of 1990, sponsored by independent entrepreneur Patrick Shannon, along with a committee of Pacific Lumber employees. It is specifically aimed at acquiring the holdings of Pacific Lumber Co., a subsidiary of Maxxam Corp. and target of much criticism for its stepped-up logging of a major old-growth redwood stand.

Backers of the timber industry initiative have until May 15 to raise enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.