Redwood Reader

We have stayed away from most of the stories that seem to illustrate global warming in the news, glaciers melting, Arctic sea ice disappearing, comparisons to other geologic ages, changing seasons and plant and animal apparent responses. Our issue has been the discovery of a mechanism that nature has used for as long as life has existed to regulate climate so that it will support life. This knowledge may give us an opportunity to correct a serious situation before it explodes out of control and we find ourselves in real trouble as a species, let alone the economy. It is difficult to believe such well researched and publicly available knowledge is barely trickling into the discussion. It must be a sign of the times to ignore the science and stay the course, while the munincipalities struggle with local environmental issues rather than establishing a national deterrance for a probably man made problem. More evidence of the soils ability to store carbon comes from the current issue of CO2 Science Magazine (www.co2science.org).
Meanwhile, in Humboldt, the face of the timber industry is changing. Palco closed most of its facilities and sold off some of their lands. They sued the State over the right of the Water Quality Boards to regulate operations agreed to in the Headwaters deal, claiming the Water Boards have no authority since they were not signatories to it. The State says the company was not exempted from any regulations. The Water Quality Boards are restricting the amount of harvest in Elk River and Freshwater Creeks, and Palco has said it needs those rates to continue profitable operations.
Meanwhile, final issues are being settled as the Eel River sawmills Employee Stock Option Plan case was resolved with a relatively small payout for the ex-employees. Both companies blame difficulties in getting logs and a lack of demand for timber products due to softness in the housing industry.
Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos, surprisingly, filed an appeal of the judges decision regarding the fraud suit concerning timber harvest rates in the Jordan Creek area, which he claims were made purposely misleading to allow higher rates of cut in unstable drainages. In this area, too, Palco claimed the need for higher harvest rates to stay economically viable.
Meanwhile, Green Diamond, Simpsons land use division, released their HCP for 400,000 acres of California lands and had it published in the federal register. They seem to be taking the current trends into consideration by tackling resource issues from the start. I recommend browsing their website at www.greendiamond.com.
Sudden Oak Death has arrived in Southern Humboldt. Several eradication projects were completed this year. We doubt they "got it all"and that this is just the beginning. We fear the loss of good usable wood, especially black oak, may instigate a cut to get it before it rots on the stump, as in the case of the chestnut blight earlier last century.
The first carbon credits I know of were bought by the top pollution control officer and her deputy to offset traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for a conference on the Kyoto Protocol..(http://times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_4837797) It amounted to $140 dollars. A San Francisco based outfit called Pacific Forest Trust (www.urbanforestrysouth.org) manages the 2100 acre Fred M. van Eck Forest Foundation through an easement agreement dating to 2001. They just began selling the credits in November but it promises to bring long term income to well managed forests well into the future.
Finally, an article about the tallest redwoods and two guys, Michael Taylor and Chris Atkins, who are measuring them appeared in Yahoo on January 4, 2007. They are in the process of finding the correct heights of all the tall trees, which tells us there aren't many left. Their descriptions of good locales are helpful to people looking for good redwood growing lands. They count 36 redwoods over 360 feet and four over 370 feet. Unfortunatly, their laser range finder only came available in 1995, after most of what was left had been cut or included in harvest plans. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_sc/tall_tree_hunters