Some Say Plan for Old Trees Is Full of Holes

Gov. Gray Davis’ newly unveiled proposal to protect old trees on private land is being buzz-sawed by some environmentalists who contend it is so riddled with exemptions that it fails to protect many of the state’s ancient forests.

“If you read it, you’ll see this person will be exempt and this person will be exempt, and this person will be exempt,” said Cynthia Elkins, program director of an environmental group that petitioned in 1999 to close loopholes in the state’s timber-cutting guidelines.

But state officials defend the plan to be voted on today by the state Board of Forestry, calling it a precedent-setting effort.

“This is the first time in California that we’ve specifically had a rule that addressed old-growth trees,” said Louis Blumberg, spokesman for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The proposal would require private landowners to conduct an environmental review before cutting a tree more than 200 years old. Sierra and Coastal redwoods must be 5 feet wide at stump level to require such a review, and a 4-foot rule applies to other tree species.

“This has been a very challenging issue, to define what old growth is,” Blumberg said. ‘It’s putting into some regulatory context what old growth is.”

While conceding that the regulation is not an outright ban on cutting down old trees, state forestry officials stress that they will exempt from environmental review only those proposed cuttings found not to harm the overall forest.

Davis announced the proposal in a taped message during a media conference call Sunday morning. His administration predicts that some private landowners may choose to leave those trees alone rather than having them undergo the proposed review, known as a timber harvest plan.

“If this change in rule has the desired effect, you may see people deciding not to cut trees,” said Maria Rea, assistant secretary for resources.

Davis’ Plan May Be Coming Too Late

But some environmentalists counter that the department routinely rubber-stamps most timber harvest plans. They called Davis’ move an effort to head off a planned 2002 statewide ballot initiative that would enforce stricter rules against old-growth cutting.

“He’s coming out with this now, because the initiative is about to be introduced,” said Carl Zichella, Sierra Club regional staff director for California, Nevada and Hawaii. The Sierra Club has not yet endorsed the initiative, but is likely to do so, he said. Efforts like the governor’s proposal may come too late, he said.

“We have already had our day of reckoning. For the large part, the large trees that don’t exist in state or national parks have been devastated,” Zichella said.

But a Wilderness Society leader was more supportive of the change.

“You can’t call this an over-arching policy or an old-growth protection policy,” said Jay Watson, the society’s California director. “But you’ve got to start somewhere, and this is where the state has chosen to start, and I’m sure they’ll be watched very carefully in the future to see if they take a more comprehensive approach.”

Environmentalists such as Elkins, program director at Environmental Protection Information Center in Humboldt County, criticized loopholes that exempt the cutting of certain old trees from the otherwise required timber harvest plans. For instance, trees on private land covered by certain environmental and timber plans--such as Habitat Conservation Plans--would not need such review.

Those exemptions, Elkins said, are “wide enough that a dump truck could go through--or a logging truck.”

Two of the state’s largest private timber holders, Pacific Lumber Co. and Simpson Timber, have Habitat Conservation Plans that could exempt them from the new rules. But those plans already studied and proposed mitigations for the cutting of big old trees, said Ross Johnson, deputy director of resource management at the state Department of Forestry.

“We’re after the ones that don’t have any environmental review,” Johnson said.

A Yale University expert in old-growth forests said the new protections certainly have some benefits.

“I think it’s a good start at actually looking at what is being done by private citizens in terms of protecting a resource, in terms of large trees. And that’s really all it’s doing,” said Ann Elizabeth Camp, lecturer in stand dynamics and forest health at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.