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   In the past, lumber companies in the region actually managed most of their timberlands in a responsible fashion that provided good habitat value for most wildlife species.  In the last decade, however, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) has bought out all its competitors in the region and is now aggressively logging its lands with widespread clearcutting, followed by bulldozing, herbicide treatments, and the creation of sterile tree plantations.

    CSERC is not opposed to widespread, aggressive logging by private companies on their private lands, but our Center is strongly opposed to widespread clearcutting.  SPI has softened the visual impact of clearcutting on some of their lands by leaving a scattering of small trees or leaving a few pockets of tree clumps.  Yet more than 95% of each of their 20-acre clearcut units is still totally cut over, bulldozed, sprayed with herbicides, and converted to sterile tree plantations.  The diverse and healthy forest that originally grew on those sites is mostly destroyed.  Many wildlife and plant species will never be able to survive in the midst of rows of planted pine trees.  CSERC continues to try to change California forest practice rules so that no more than a small percentage of land in any watershed can be clearcut in any decade.

  Clearcuts denude entire hillsides, leaving only stumps and bulldozed soil.  Bulldozing after clearcutting removes most of the natural plants that would normally remain, even if a fire burned through an area.  Clearcuts leave no habitat for species that need shelter from the sun or cold.  Habitat fragmentation is created by the huge openings, limiting which kinds of wildlife will even cross the areas.  Clearcuts also harm scenic values important to tourism, and they degrade recreation on both the logged lands and nearby public forest lands. 

CLEARCUTTING ON AN UNPRECEDENTED SCALE...

  Never in recent history has any private lumber company ever clearcut so many acres in the central part of the Sierra Nevada. In some watersheds, SPI has cleared as many as 3,000 acres within eight years. Then new timber harvest plans are proposed for adding hundreds of acres more of new clearcuts.  The sheer magnitude of clearcutting has profound effects on wildlife, water, and scenic resources. 

Blue Creek Watershed north of Highway 4

Photo courtesy of Bruse Castle - EPFW

South Fork of the Mokelumne watershed (Note: visual group retention patches)

Photo courtesy of Bruse Castle - EPFW

...Followed by Herbicides

  Herbicide treatments on SPI's clearcut lands routinely kill off the grasses, wildflowers, dogwoods, maples, oaks, bushes, and other plants that survive the logging.  One  chemical called hexazinone lasts over a year in the soil.  It also can wash into streams, contaminating the water at low, but detectable, levels. 

  Herbicides wipe out whatever manages to survive the clearcuts and bulldozing. Furthermore, studies have shown that certain herbicides – including hexazinone – have adverse impacts on amphibians, which are suffering global catastrophic crashes in their populations.

Thinning is Less Harmful

  Thinning the forest can produce high amounts of lumber, while still leaving trees of various ages behind.  Most species of wildlife depend upon a variety of habitat values that simply don't exist in tree plantations.  Large snags and large down logs are the "apartment houses" of a forest, as wildlife use the standing dead trees or the fallen tree trunks for homes or temporary shelter.  Tree farms also lack the fungi, lichens, ground covers, flowers, and diversity of natural forest areas.  Thinned forests are less likely than tree plantations to have crown fires that escape fire suppression efforts and threaten other resources.

Watersheds at Risk

   When all the trees are cut on a steep hillside, there are fewer roots to hold the soil.  When bulldozing follows, the soil is laid bare and easily washes down-slope during heavy rains.  Wherever gullies left from skid trails funnel water, the resulting erosion often pours sediment into streams.  If just a single clearcut is logged, it may not affect water quality.  When hundreds of large clearcuts are logged each summer and fall logging season within the local region, the widespread clearcuts create a cumulative effect than can pollute many forest streams with sediment.  The next time there are heavy rains, take a drive into the national forest and look at streams flowing off the private timberlands that are interspersed with national forest lands.  The streams flowing from recently cutover areas are consistently choked with sediment whenever heavy downpours flush sediment down the steep, denuded slopes.