Redwood Reader

The Community Management Plan for Gilham Butte and the Scattered Parcels is available for public comment until April 30, 2005. It is available at www.mattole.org, Mattole restoration Council's website. It was written by Kate Crockett for the Middle Mattole Consevancy. She also wrote the Mill Creek Community Management Plan for Mill Creek Conservancy. MRC administered the project funded by BLM. It is the culmination of many peoples efforts over many years, and we humbly salute all those before us working to keep this area intact and functioning, and to restore the impacted lands to productivity. We thank all those who contributed time and knowledge in preparing this plan.
The purchase of Gilham Butte and the scattered parcels is an opportunity to maintain and study functioning forest land and use accelerated recovery techniques while reducing fire risk. These parcels comprise essential stepping stones in the Redwoods to the Sea Wildlife Coridor. The community has had a chance to make their voices heard through the inclusion of the Peoples Plan as one of the alternates BLM will choose to follow. BLM is making inclusion of a community managment plan alternative a major portion of many plans. The plan is for twenty years and closely coincides in timing with plans for Humboldt Redwwood State Park, Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and King Range National Conservation Area, all of the public lands in the Redwood to the Sea Wildlife Corridor.
Gilham Butte is a remnant of functioning coastal old growth Douglas fir forest with both precipitation interface and root storage areas intact. It is surrounded by recovering lands in public and provate ownership. It is an essential repository of old growth species and of restoration efforts in the area comprising the Redwoods to the Sea Wildlife Corridor. It is the first public lands to have incorporated glomalin in the thinking for alternate management regimes. BLM is becoming a repository of non-timber oriented forest management. It will become the home of many studies in the next few years. Its value as a functioning model is irreplaceable and should not be compromised. Studies should include carbon deposition and water fllows and sediment control through glomalin deposition and protection.
Gilham Butte is subiect to direct orographic events and is in the high rainfall area and provides water to three creeks. The scattered parcels include several more creeks. These streams should see a marked difference over the life of the plan although they run through or drain private lands. We expect to see increased summer flows since these areas are growing and more water should be delayed later into the year. We hope natural events or a future prrogram will allow more pools in these areas so hard hit by sediment. Local residents are stuck with lousy roads, a continuing problem in all these watersheds. Good Roads Clean Creeks will help enormously but understanding glomalin will benefit everyone, and can prevent harm done in the name of good. Recreational users must be educated on the fragility and critical purpose of the forest floor, and prevented from causing deterioration in one of the last old growth Dougla fir study areas left available. Wildlife habitat is a core driving force and wildlife viewing the major recreational opportunity.
Studies done by the m mycorhizzia research team at USDAFS PNW Research Station in Corvallis released a study identifying some of the many ectomycorhizzia found associated with Douglas fir. It seems likely there are many more species of fungi that were not counted due to the nature of the studies. It is necessary to preserve at least some natural old growth just for this reason. I am not aware of any major soil fungi surveys locally. Much emphasis both here and at Corvallis is concerned with commercially exploiting fungi. I believe there is too much unknown on the verge of disappearing to allow that, but it should eventually become a regular contributor to the economy on a sustainable basis once that has been determined and after discussion during the next planning period.
Fire planning nad vegetation management are of critical concern, including preserving the forest floor while implementing fuel reduction and stand improvemnt operations. The approach BLM uses fits nicely with maximum glomalin protection and production. The costs of glomalin destruction are evident and many restrictions are in place that try to mitigate damage without understandiing its cause with some success and a lot of misses. Sedimentation is no longer a mystery, nor road failure nor landslide. Armed with this and knowledge of using glomalin to grow watersheds and forests gives us a new vision of what is achievable with information already at hand. Our resource and chief material is CO2, our tools trees and fungi and our products water, wildlife, fish, cleaned air, aerosol contribution to cloud formation and a stable and profitable landscape. We gain sharp insight into the opportunity cost of poorly planned development.