Rainbow Ridge

January 30, 2001


In this issue, we take a close look at Rainbow Ridge and some of our Affiliate and fiscally sponsored groups that are working to protect that area, which is a critically important biological connector between the coast and Mattole River and South Fork Eel River watersheds.

Thirteen years ago, Mattole residents mapped the remaining ancient forests in their watershed. Of the 150,000 acres of deep woods that had blanketed the area in 1947, just 9 percent remained, scattered at the headwaters of tributaries ringing the basin. Mindful that creatures from goshawks to tailed frogs depend on old-growth forests, citizens banded together to protect these crucial refuges of wildlife habitat. Through more than a decade of hard work by hundreds of people, almost all of those tracts have won protection, from the Mattole Headwaters Ecological Reserve upstream of Whitethorn to Mill Creek Forest near the mouth; from Gilham Butte in the east to Honeydew Creek in the King Range.

Now, just one ancient forest in the Mattole remains unprotected, and the largest at that: three thousand acres of old-growth in the Mattole's north forks, in an area known as Rainbow Ridge. It is a unique landscape, where a mosaic of coastal prairie and ancient Douglas-fir trees overlooks sweeping vistas of the Pacific Ocean and the Eel River valley. As Maxxam's Pacific Lumber Company gears up to log there, Mattole residents are spearheading a campaign to purchase the area. They aim to dedicate the old-growth as an ancient forest reserve, practice ecologically responsible forestry on the second-growth forest, and continue the good stewardship of the rangelands for livestock. Meanwhile, others seek to stave off the logging and make sure the owners abide by forest practice rules on any areas that they cut.

Mattole Forest Defenders
Resistance continues on the rugged upper reaches of the North Fork of the Mattole River. Columbia and Maxxam/Pacific Lumber have come to cut three times. On the first day, activists talked to fallers and put their bodies in the way of logging. PL dispatched Humboldt County sheriffs to the scene. At the end of the day, the forest was standing (minus one tree), two activists were washing pepper spray from their faces, and cops were driving the long way home alone. The second day-with trees felled toward activists, cops standing by laughing, and activists free-climbing trees in the fall zone-again ended with the forest standing (minus seven trees) and tired cops driving home alone. On the last day, with more than twenty cop cars, sheriff trucks, and paddy wagons, they caught and arrested five people and dragged them to jail. About fifty trees were cut.

The activists changed tactics. The Mattole Forest Defenders moved almost two miles up Long Ridge to create the Mattole Free State, a blockade to keep the chainsaws out that's complete with lockdowns, a junked car, and pods hanging across the road. The near-constant presence of thirty nonviolent forest defenders has halted operations for nine weeks, a Humboldt County record. Forest defenders have spent holidays at the blockades, at times enduring freezing temperatures and a foot of snow. Area residents are blocking the outer gate, but they are ready to mobilize when the company goes back in. Seventy community members attended a rally on January 25 at the California Department of Forestry (CDF) offices in Fortuna and demanded a logging moratorium in the Mattole. PL's Sustained Yield Plan (SYP) shows plans to liquidate almost all old growth in the North Fork within eight years.

To help, contact P.O. Box 28, Arcata, CA 95518; (707) 441-3828 or (707) 825-6598; www.mattoledefense.org.

North Coast Timber Monitors
NCTM is a group of citizens living in the Mattole Valley who pick up the slack left by state and federal agencies. Here in northern California, logging plans must comply with regulations intended to protect fish and wildlife habitat as well as rivers and streams. Such regulations also safeguard downstream residents from flooding by avoiding sediment overflows that lead to muddy, shallow rivers, which widen and take out houses in the process. When a river widens and becomes shallower, water temperature increases, and, just as a pot of boiling water causes bubbles to rise and pop, a river loses oxygen as it warms. Lower levels of oxygen kill fish and other microorganisms. Then birds of prey decline, because their food base in the river is dying off.

State and federal regulations are intended to prevent landslides and other catastrophes, but agencies are understaffed and underfunded and cannot monitor all the logging plans that desperately need attention. NCTM, an all-volunteer group, goes out to timber harvest plans, documents potential and actual violations, and sends this evidence to state and federal agencies. As extra eyes, ears, and legs, they supply agencies with evidence to use to bring timber companies into compliance with California logging laws that protect habitat for fish, wildlife, and downstream residents. NCTM can be reached at (707) 629-3353 or by email at felony@joymail.com.

Middle Mattole Conservancy: From the Temperate Rainforest We Call Home
The Middle Mattole Conservancy is a group of Mattole watershed residents working to promote understanding as well as restoration and conservation of wildlife values. For this reason we are supporting the envisioned acquisition of the Rainbow Ridge temperate rainforests owned by Pacific Lumber.

We live in the Mattole; our lands neighbor Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Gilham Butte, and Rainbow Ridge. The last is an important linkage and the headwaters of the upper and lower North Fork Mattole River. It's home to the largest stand of unprotected low-elevation old-growth Douglas-fir in the coastal California range. This habitat supports vast biodiversity. It also forms part of an irreplaceable migratory pathway.

We have witnessed many changes during the past twenty years. We live on the junction of three major fault lines and have the highest annual rainfall in the continental U.S. These factors, combined with clearcuts, could result in human rights violations like those all too familiar around the world.

The Middle Mattole Conservancy has participated in successful conservation efforts in the Mattole watershed. The recent Redwoods to Sea acquisition of Gilham Butte and other Eel River Sawmill lands is a shining example of what people can accomplish. This project always seemed to be more than the saving of a mountain. It gave people hope and opened the door for an era of rejuvenated conservation efforts. That spirit of cooperation is what we wish to cultivate and extend to people on all sides of the issues.

With our salmon on the brink of extinction and eight percent old-growth retention, we invite Pacific Lumber to understand how much Rainbow Ridge means to our community and to explore viable alternatives. Preserving this precious last two percent of unprotected old growth in the Mattole watershed is an opportunity to join a growing trend.



This article can be found online at www.treesfoundation.org/publications/article-81

Forest & River News is produced by Trees Foundation.