Foundation Purchases 50,000-Acre "Usal Unit" Timber, Environmental Interests Join Forces to Prevent Fragmentation, Development

By Cristina Bauss
Independent Staff Writer
July 3, 2007

A private foundation that has purchased 50,635 acres of timberland in northern Mendocino County hopes its model of community-oriented forest ownership and management will be adopted by other communities traditionally dependent on the forest's bounty for their survival.

The Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI), in conjunction with Bank of America, announced the purchase on June 14. RFFI has secured a $65 million, 20-year loan to buy the property, which stretches, roughly, from Whitethorn to south of Leggett, and from Piercy to the Sinkyone wilderness. Combined with the adjoining Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness and Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, the purchase will ensure that a vast tract of wild North Coast lands will not fall prey to either clear-cutting or development.

The Usal Unit, as it is commonly known, was purchased from the Hawthorne Timber Company, which acquired it as part of 194,000 acres of Georgia Pacific timberlands purchased in December 1999. The land was heavily logged in the 1970’s and 1980's; Douglas fir and tanoak now dominate it, with only a few old-growth trees left standing. While RFFI plans to continue managing the forest, one of the terms of the purchase is that no more than 3 percent will be logged in a given year, in order to ensure a long-term supply of timber and accompanying jobs. Should a harvest exceed that, the property will revert back to the bank.

The idea behind the purchase is to "sustainably manage the once-great redwood forests surrounding the communities of the redwood region in northwestern California," reads the organization's mission statement. "This will be for the social, environmental, and economic benefit of all our citizens in perpetuity, by returning net profits directly back to the communities served."

The group expects harvests in the next five to seven years to be virtually nonexistent, due to the forest's need to recover from recent cutting. The land will continue to be managed by the Campbell Group, which, according to RFFI Executive Director Don Kemp, "had the idea that they wanted to change something, because the timber industry was changing."

The Conservation Fund has signed a letter of intent with RFFI to seek Proposition 84 (Clean Water, Parks and Coastal Protection) funding for a permanent conservation easement on the property. This, in turn, will enable RFFI to repay part of the loan, with grants and endowments also being actively sought. Once the loan is paid, "the net profit from the ongoing sustainable harvest will go back into the community," according to the organization's introductory booklet. A series of meetings is planned to determine the best ways to re-invest in communities where jobs have dried up, following what is euphemistically termed "resource liquidation."

Opposing Interests Find Common Ground

"The real genesis of RFFI came from the timber wars," explained Branscomb sawmill owner Art Harwood, president of the board of directors, on June 30. After describing the time leading up to Redwood Summer, during which loggers and protesters clashed on the ground, ideological divisions ripped communities apart, and Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax" was banned from Laytonville schools, Harwood recalled: "Judi Bari called me and said, ‘I think this is going to erupt. Can you get a group of people together, talk to them, try to prevent that?’ And that’s pretty much how the conversation got started."

At RFFI's annual meeting on June 22, longtime Petrolia resident David Simpson, an environmentalist renowned for his theater work with wife Jane Lapiner, spoke of his first meeting with Harwood. "When I met him about 20 years ago, at the height of the timber wars, I was suspicious," he said. "He was the scion of a timber family! Over the years those suspicions have been allayed, peeled away like an onion. This is a restoration of trust between environmental and timber interests. This is a celebration."

An early RFFI supporter, Simpson was part of the board that began scouting potential purchases. "When LP [Louisiana Pacific] announced it was selling 240,000 acres," Harwood recalled, "a group pulled together to look at buying it. We were too late for that, and for the GP [Georgia Pacific] sale as well. But we were together… We were involved with The Conservation Fund’s purchase of Big River and Salmon Creek, and got feedback and input from groups there over the years."

RFFI eventually turned its focus to the Usal Unit, now being referred to as the Usal Redwood Forest; its purchase is the culmination of ten years’ work. When asked why there was virtually no word about it prior to its finalization, Harwood responded: "We were under a confidentiality agreement with both Hawthorne and B of A. They were actually willing to work with us because we kept it confidential… As a matter of fact, another party came in and made an offer right after the announcement was made."

The mood was jubilant at RFFI’s annual meeting, attended by more than 100 people, including project planners, political representatives, timber interests, government agencies, and local environmentalists. "The Usal Forest is the backyard of the Mattole headwaters, Sanctuary Forest and the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park," said Eric Goldsmith, Executive Director of Sanctuary Forest. "It's a huge gift to the Lost Coast region that this property is now spared from the pressures of potential subdivision, and will remain as forestland in perpetuity."

A chief concern was the continuing explosion of vineyards all over California; the profit per acre for wine grapes is now higher than it is for timber. Keeping such a large portion of land undeveloped, what local "environmentalist emeritus" Richard Gienger calls "refugia," is critical to watershed health and movement of wildlife. "I’ve been a supporter of RFFI since its inception," said Gienger, who co-wrote large portions of the organization’s introductory booklet and serves as an advisor.

"We think this is just a beginning, just a model," said Harwood, "but a model for how forest lands will be owned and managed in the future."

The Future: Looking to Native, Other Interests

That model does indeed represent a new paradigm for the 21st century; the press release from Bank of America described the deal as "the country’s first forest acquisition by a nonprofit using 100 percent private capital… This transaction will stop the forest’s fragmentation, while also allowing the property’s coastal redwood trees to grow and be managed as a working sustainable forest." If one simply eliminates the money, though, the concept is much the same as that practiced by Native Americans for thousands of years before European colonization.

"There's this common notion that Indians lived in some sort of idyllic paradise that they never took part in shaping," said Hawk Rosales, Executive Director of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, on June 29. "The reality was that the landscape, and the direction ecosystems took, was largely due to active management of every part of their world, from prescriptive burning, to thinning of certain kinds of plants, to opening berms so salmon could spawn. They were not passive."

RFFI plans to work closely with both the Sinkyone Council and the Wailaki people to ensure cultural preservation and resource protection in the Usal Redwood Forest, which shares a 12-mile-long boundary with the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness. Although no relationship has been formalized yet, for Rosales that means, in part, closely guarding archeological resources, "understanding the connection to the land that they’re protecting," and allowing Native Americans access for traditional activities, such as the harvesting of tanoak acorns.

Looking back at more recent history, late in the June 22 meeting the conversation turned to the Pacific Lumber Company – and what the future might hold for its disenfranchised employees, the communities they live in, and the forest that had long sustained them. "We’re monitoring the bankruptcy and looking for opportunities to partner with the people affected," said Kathy Moxon, vice-president of the RFFI board and Chief Administrative Officer of the Humboldt Area Foundation.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Mark Lovelace of the Humboldt Watershed Council and Tracy Katelman of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, both of whom were present as part of a sizable Northern Humboldt contingent. "What it demonstrates, beyond this piece of property, is that it can be done on a larger scale," said former State Senator Wesley Chesbro.

For Harwood, it all comes down to community: "In the past, there were absentee landowners who liquidated the natural resources that God put here, and left nothing for local people, who have not had a say in how forests are managed. Loggers and environmentalists, who’ve been butting heads for years, both feel disenfranchised, and now the stars are finally lining up for us all. It’s exciting for the community, and hopefully it can be duplicated – by PL or someone else."

For more information about the purchase and plans for the Usal Redwood Forest, go to www.rffi.org.