Sierra Logger Swings an Axe at the Climate

International environmental organization ForestEthics (FE) will release Climate of Destruction: Sierra Pacific Industries' Impact on Global Warming [pdf], a scathing report on timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), exposing their stated intent to methodically convert to plantations up to one million acres in the next half century, potentially exacerbating climate crisis.

A media tele-conference will be held on Thursday, April 10 at 12 noon, to release the report. Media can participate by calling in to 866-360-6953. The conference ID# is  429 40493.

An electronic version of the Report is available at http://www.savethesierra.org/climateofdestruction.

See info on speakers, below. Simultaneous press events will take place in Redding, near SPI headquarters, and in Calaveras County.

As an alarm is sounded around the globe in recognition of the speed at which human-caused activities are bringing climate crisis closer, a lumbering giant in California has not progressed from the last century, raking in profits while the situation literally heats up. Deforestation is the second most significant cause of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate instability, second only to fossil fuel emissions.

ForestEthic's report compiled dramatic data from California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFIRE), the regulatory agency that oversees private lands logging in California to compare logging methods such as selection logging and clearcutting employed on SPI's 1.7 million acres. The data is publicly available, but has never been compiled and presented in this way. Figures show that from 1997-2006, SPI filed plans for clearcutting and plantation conversion on nearly a quarter of a million acres.

Despite their 2001 announced intention to reduce clearcutting on their land by 70%, the company has made a dramatic shift away from the more sustainable selection logging to an agenda that averaged seven times more clearcutting and plantation conversion between 1999 and 2006. Not only are plantations devoid of the biological diversity necessary for habitat for forest species, but clearcutting releases significant amounts of carbon dioxide.  Scientists have shown that logging-and clear-cutting in particular-removes more carbon from the forest than any other disturbance, including fire.

Clearly, at a time when ice shelves in Antarctica are melting much faster than predicted, and scientists worldwide are urging much stronger mitigation measures, SPI's trajectory toward plantations, sending vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, charges headlong in the opposite direction.

"As everyone from our Attorney General, Legislators, to respected scientists are adamant in advocating proactive, forward-looking ways to meet the climate challenge facing us, SPI has shifted its gears into reverse, offering only arguments to continue the status quo business as usual," said Josh Buswell-Charkow, ForestEthics Save the Sierra campaigner.

California's forward-looking policies are putting the state out in front as a leader in efforts to reduce CO 2 emissions, through landmark legislation like AB 32, California's carbon emission reduction goals, and Atty. General Jerry Brown's directive to local governments to account for climate change in their general plans. Additionally, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber's AB 2926 reforms standards for clearcutting with regards to size and rotation.

ForestEthics is calling on consumers, contractors and building professionals to steer clear of SPI products until their policies are reformed. ForestEthics has released the names of over 525 businesses that have signed a letter calling on SPI to end its destructive clearcutting, including many California-based wood products businesses (available upon request). ForestEthics also points out that becoming certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) would be a step toward corporate responsibility for the largest land owner in California, and the second largest private landowner in the U.S. FSC monitors logging practices in order to put sustainably harvested lumber on the market.

SPI's practices have been controversial in the past as well. But, despite SPI president Red Emmerson's 2001 claim that "We want to be good neighbors," when he pledged to reduce clearcutting, actual neighbors of SPI land see firsthand disastrous consequences from their practices.  Residents of the tiny town of Manton, (Tehama County) fear for their water source when an SPI 894-acre Timber Harvest Plan (THP) above their drinking water supply is cut, since with clearcutting comes a drenching of the land with toxic herbicides.

Speakers at the press conference will include some of those residents, including Marily Woodhouse from Manton, David Rink of Rink Construction, Adie Jacobsen from Arnold, who will discuss how SPI's trajectory compromises her county's carbon emissions goal, as well as ForestEthics Sierra campaign coordinator Josh Buswell-Charkow.

Available press packet materials:

• Business letter to Sierra Pacific Industries, list of businesses signed on
• Video footage at http://stopclearcuttingcalifornia.org/video/B-Roll/

• Mark Harmon, Richardson Chair and Professor, Forest Science, Oregon State University (541) 737-8455; email mark.harmon@oregonstate.edu to set up interview time.
• Dr. Olga Krankina, professor and researcher, Forest Science, Oregon State University, (541) 737-1780; krankinao@fsl.orst.edu.
• Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sally Lieber, author of AB 2926, currently in California Legislature, (916) 319-2022; chief of staff Corey Jasperson, cory.jasperson@asm.ca.gov.