USE THIS RELEASE : ‘Historic’ Pact Limits Logging in Sequoia National Forest

Logging will be limited in Sequoia National Forest and giant sequoias will be fully protected under an agreement among the state and federal governments, loggers, conservationists and others, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday.

The agreement, reached after nearly 17 months of talks, will ban logging in giant sequoia groves and reduce by 22% the annual average harvest in the rest of the forest. In return for these cutbacks, conservationists agreed to drop administrative appeals that were tying up logging this year elsewhere in the forest, officials said.

“This is truly an historic agreement,” said Paul F. Barker, regional forester for the Forest Service. California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp called the settlement “an important step toward saving our old-growth forests.”

The settlement stemmed from administrative appeals filed by the attorney general, conservation groups, loggers and others against a 1988 Forest Service land management plan for Sequoia National Forest. The state and the conservation groups wanted less logging; the loggers wanted more.

The forest, in the southern Sierra Nevada, contains the largest number of giant sequoias outside of protected parks. Giant sequoias are the world’s largest trees, and old-growth forests provide important habitat for a variety of wildlife.

Van de Kamp said the agreement will protect habitats for the Sierra Nevada red fox, pine martens, fishers, bald eagles, goshawks and condors. Clear-cutting will be reduced from 2,000 to 600 acres a year, and only 236,000 of the more than 1 million acres in the forest will be logged at all. Before the settlement, logging was permitted on 346,000 acres.

The agreement also establishes new cattle grazing standards, ensures protection of fisheries and provides for a new trail to accommodate off-road vehicles, Forest Service officials said.

“I think it is high time those trees have been saved, and I hope this agreement really preserves them,” said Mickey Dulas of Redwood Summer, a coalition of conservationists who are planning nationwide demonstrations this summer calling for protection of old-growth forests. Dulas said the coalition will have to study the settlement further before deciding whether to call off a planned demonstration at Sequoia National Forest later this month.

Julie Allen, a Forest Service planner, said the government agency has barred the cutting of giant sequoias in the past but allowed younger sequoias and pines and firs to be taken in a giant sequoia grove in the early 1980s.