Ancient Redwoods Open to Public After Decade of Strife

Bureau of Land Management workers bustled about the trail head that leads to the Headwaters Forest Reserve on Friday, slapping rust-colored paint over the word “Private” scrawled on a metal gate that demonstrators once chained themselves to and pulling down a “No Trespassing” sign nailed to a redwood.

Today, for the first time, the public will be invited into the forest, home to ancient redwoods and, for more than a decade, battleground for environmentalists and the Pacific Lumber Co.

As a gentle rain fell, workers hauled garbage and erected a “Headwaters Forest Reserve” sign, installed a portable toilet and anchored a narrow wooden kiosk that will display a trail map and warnings about the fragility of the landscape.

For the next three months, however, only a hardy few will be able to enjoy the reserve, which lies about 250 miles north of San Francisco. Hikers will be able to enter only on its north end, via Elk River Road, off U.S. 101, just south of Eureka.

From the trail head, they will hike a steep, muddy, five-mile corridor purchased by the government to a cliff overlooking Headwaters grove, where 2,738 acres of old-growth redwoods stand at the headwaters of the south fork of Elk River. There is no trail from the northern access point that leads into the old-growth core of the government’s purchase, said BLM’s Arcata field manager, Lynda Roush.

But the corridor itself is scenic. It winds along the south fork of the Elk River, where salmon still run, and through second- and third-growth redwood and Douglas fir trees. The bureau, which will manage the reserve, hopes to have interpretive signs up soon that will tell visitors about the salmon, the black bears and deer common to the area and about the endangered species, such as the marbled murrelet, which also make their home there.

Already, Roush said, her Arcata office has been getting phone calls from people asking whether they can hold weddings in Headwaters grove (yes, if the wedding party is small and willing to hike in and hike out the same day), ride all-terrain vehicles (no), hunt (no), or ride horses (no).

For the next several months at least, no overnight camping will be allowed, and hikers will be asked to pack out anything they pack in. Even tossed orange peels, Roush said, could attract ravens that prey on murrelets. The agency hopes to open the southern access to the park by mid-June. From that approach, near the logging town of Fortuna, visitors will be able to drive to within 1 1/2 miles of the Headwaters grove before they must park and hike, Roush said. For the time being, there will be no day-use fees for hikers.

A yearlong public planning process that will shape permanent guidelines for managing the reserve will begin sometime this fall, Roush said.

The state and federal government paid $480 million for the 7,400 acres less than two weeks ago, after more than two years of bitter negotiations with Maxxam Corp., Pacific Lumber’s parent company. The deal both transferred land to government ownership and imposed a habitat conservation plan on the more than 200,000 acres of Humboldt forest lands Pacific Lumber still owns. The conservation plan establishes 100-foot no-cut buffer zones around salmon streams on Pacific Lumber property, a 50-year logging ban on 12 “lesser cathedral” ancient redwood groves and other restrictions on cutting.

Few in Humboldt County believe the purchase of the reserve will end the conflict over the fate of old-growth redwood trees, the endangered species that live in them and the rivers that run through them.

“I woke up that morning, heard there was a deal and said to myself: OK, what’s next?” said Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis.

Over the years, Lewis’ department has arrested thousands of protesters who turned out for rallies, blocked logging roads and chained themselves to trees or buildings. Some activists are suing the department for swabbing pepper spray under their eyes to break up a demonstration.

Both Lewis’ deputies and activists have been injured in clashes. One Earth First! protester, David Chain, was killed by a falling tree last year on Pacific Lumber Co. property.

“Is it over?” asked Lewis, who was born in Eureka. “No. Are these the only trees we’re arguing about? No. I’ve got people living in trees miles from Headwaters.”

Earth First! activists have for years scaled redwoods marked for cutting and lived in them, sometimes for months, to protect them from being felled. At least three live in trees now, and none has decided to come down as a result of the Headwaters deal.

“The tensions that exist in Humboldt County are the result of an unsustainable, liquidation-oriented timber company,” said Kevin Bundy, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville. “That industry has not changed as a result of this deal, and I think that the tensions will remain.”

Over the years, Bundy’s group has filed suits against Pacific Lumber and various state and federal agencies, challenging company logging practices. Bundy said the nonprofit organization also is considering filing suit over the Headwaters agreement.

The agreement allows the company to fell about 180 million board feet of timber, including some old-growth Douglas fir, outside the reserve, and to harm or kill endangered species such as the marbled murrelet or spotted owl in those areas. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt rushed to Headwaters days after the deal was signed to declare the agreement historic and order the Bureau of Land Management, which will manage the reserve, to open it as quickly as possible to the public.

“It’s real important, after so many years of fighting and so much money,” Roush said. “It starts building ownership.”

On Friday, even before the reserve was officially opened, Humboldt residents were showing up at the site, or saying they planned to hike in over the weekend.

“Curiosity brought me here,” said a backpacker who would identify himself only as Michael. “I’m really not sure how I feel about the Headwaters deal yet. I wanted to see it. On the one hand, I felt, when it was private land, that people have a right to do what they want, but we need places like this.”

In two days of conversations here, few people said they believed the purchase would end the confrontations between environmentalists and the logging companies that still are the county’s largest private employers.

Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said he hopes what he calls “the most comprehensive environmental package ever placed on private timberland in the United States” will bring peace to Humboldt County.

“I think we have some indications of that already,” Campbell said a day after announcing that Pacific Lumber will lay off 400 of its 1,400 county workers and idle one of its two mills in the county for at least a month. Campbell said the layoffs were necessary as the company adjusts to the Headwaters deal and puts new logging plans in place.

“Secretary Babbitt brought a fairly large entourage into Headwaters the other day and there was not one protester,” Campbell said. The day after the agreement was announced, he noted, “there was a protest that brought out 50 people. It would have been 300 to 400 a year ago.”

In Garberville, Bundy acknowledged that it may be harder at first to rally mass support now that the “charismatic mega-flora,” the 2,000-year-old, 300-foot-tall redwoods, are saved.

But vigilance now, he said, is essential.

“We don’t want just a tree museum. There are a lot of prominent scientists who think this habitat conservation plan may cause the extinction of local fish and wildlife species. The question for me is: Is this good enough to provide for the recovery of endangered fish and wildlife. The answer may well be no,” Bundy said.

Even the act of opening Headwaters to the public causes anxiety for some activists.

“I know human beings,” said Josh Brown, with Earth First! “Once they have access to somewhere, they tend to ruin it. We don’t want another Avenue of the Giants,” in Southern Humboldt, where visitors can drive right under giant redwoods. “The understory at Headwaters is very special. I don’t want it to be easy for people to get there. You don’t need to have people trampling the forest floor to get in to see it.”

Roush said she is aware of both the sensitivity of the forest and the tremendous interest in it generated by the years of controversy and the hefty price paid. The key, she said, is working out a balance. “We are not going to limit the number of visitors at this point,” she said. “We’ll wait and see what the level of interest is. We want to encourage research, education. But it is also a place where you can come and eat a picnic lunch.”

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New Reserve

The Headwaters Forest Reserve opens to the public today. For the first time, hikers will be able to view an ancient redwood grove that was part of a recent $480-million government purchase to preserve the redwoods. But it will take more than three hours to hike the five miles to the grove from the single access point off Elk River Road, according to officials with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.