10-year-old Daniel Felix looks out from the top of a huge stump of old redwood on his tribe’s ancestral lands. Once upon a time, this forest on California’s northern coast was filled with ancient monsters that can live more than 2,000 years. <\/p>\n
Now only a fraction of it remains, which was destroyed by a logging company before the state acquired the forest in the 1940s. <\/p>\n
It is a unique public land, the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, which spans 50,000 acres. Trees are abundant here, but they may not live for a millennium. California’s 14 demonstration forests are required to produce and sell wood to show or “demonstrate” sustainable practices. The money derived from logging \u2013 about $8.5 million a year \u2013 is paid for by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, to manage the forests. <\/p>\n
Daniel’s tribe, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, has pushed for a halt to logging \u2014 led by his late great-grandmother Priscilla Hunter. They are part of a diverse coalition that includes environmental activists, local politicians and other tribes. <\/p>\n
Now they may finally get their wish. Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa) has introduced a bill that would end forests’ logging mandates, instead prioritizing values \u200b\u200bsuch as carbon storage, wildfire resiliency and biodiversity. <\/p>\n
The bill represents the latest chapter in a region famous for fierce battles over logging, and marks an unusual alliance between tribes and the environmental movement. <\/p>\n
under Assembly Bill 2494<\/a>There could still be logging, but it would have to support those new principles, and the forests would be funded separately. <\/p>\n And it proposes another important change. It would pave the way for tribes to have a say in land management for the first time since they were forcibly evicted more than a century ago, and integrate indigenous knowledge \u2013 such as cultural burning \u2013 into forests. <\/p>\n “This is what we dreamed of,” said Polly Girvin, Hunter’s former partner and a retired attorney who focuses on Native American issues. “And to make it true? I’m used to movements that sometimes take 30 years in Indian country to get the justice you’re looking for.”<\/p>\n Children play in the stump of an ancient redwood during a potluck held after the Spirit Run at the Jackson Demonstration State Forest last month.<\/p>\n (Paul Kuroda\/For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n Some supporters say the bill provides a new economic path for communities behind the so-called Redwood Curtain. With the decline of logging and cannabis, they see tourism driven by ultramarathons, mushroom foraging and other outdoor activities as a financial savior. <\/p>\n Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams estimated the increase in funding from the lodging tax, saying, “If there is a 10% increase in visitors to our county due to recreational opportunities, that will be more than the entire timber tax in our county.” <\/p>\n But the effort to redesign forest management has been strongly opposed by loggers and mill owners, who say their work is sustainable and provides blue-collar jobs in a region where they have been decimated. California already imports most of its lumber from Oregon, Washington and Canada. <\/p>\n Miles Anderson, owner of a logging company founded by his grandfather in Fort Bragg, said, “California has the most rules and regulations anywhere in the world, so they’re exporting the environmental impact somewhere else, still using the product.” “It’s really disgusting.”<\/p>\n Anderson believes this bill would greatly reduce logging, even stop it altogether. In his office, with photos of himself and his father at a logging site decades ago, he explains that it is sponsored by the Environmental Protection Information Center. \u201cWhy would they and other environmental groups support this if they didn’t see the same thing I’m seeing?\u201d <\/p>\n Last month, activists seeking to curb logging held their first large gathering in nearly four years in Jackson, inspired by the bill, which they see as an important step in the right direction. <\/p>\n (Paul Kuroda\/For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n About five years ago, community members became aware of a plan to cut down giant redwoods within Jackson, near the coastal town of Casper. “Priscilla Hunter would come into the woods and hear them crying \u2013 these were our ancestors,” said her daughter Melinda Hunter, the tribe’s vice chairwoman. \u201cThen he had to protect (the trees).\u201d<\/p>\n Environmental activists and Native Americans, who had not historically been allies in the region, united to fight it. “Forest guards” camped high in the canopy and blocked harvesting equipment with their bodies. Some were arrested.<\/p>\n This rebellion is reminiscent of the 1980s and 1990s, when distinguished environmentalist Judy Bari led Earth First! Campaign against logging in the area. Several of the old men who tend the trees \u2013 white-haired and full of Bari stories \u2013 have come out of the woodwork for the latest fight. <\/p>\n For him it was a victory. Cal Fire halted new timber sales and, citing public safety, halted much of what was going on \u2013 including what was expected to generate millions of dollars for Miles Anderson’s logging company. <\/p>\n “We had nothing left,” Anderson said.<\/p>\n Then, last year, Cal Fire approved the first harvest plan since that hiatus. This enraged the large, ecologically conscious community. <\/p>\n Jessica Curl, 47, remembers growing up nearby “in the trunk area,” when trucks hauled logs. Now the redwoods are growing again, “gorgeous” and swallowing carbon, he said.<\/p>\n “We’re so fortunate to live in an area where we have this amazing climate-change mitigation tool, that if we left it alone it would do the amazing work that we’re trying to do to think of all these brilliant, inventive things.” <\/p>\n Isidro Chavez encounters burning sedge, or smoke, after running in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Smudging is a ritual used to cleanse negative energy from places and persons, promoting peace and improving mood.<\/p>\n (Paul Kuroda\/For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n![\"Tribal](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/52ab386\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4000x3000+0+0\/resize\/320x240!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F73%2Fe7%2F21322de8430c82ec5c2184d5dc7a%2F1549619-enviro-anti-logging-bill-21.jpg)
<\/picture>\nA new but old battle<\/h2>\n
![\"Isidro](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c8c71b4\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4000x2873+0+0\/resize\/320x230!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F08%2Fd4%2F7648bd704061a8d73a7cee83fac3%2F1549619-enviro-anti-logging-bill-11.jpg)
<\/picture>\ntears of sorrow, resolution<\/h2>\n