October 27, 2000
Dear Concerned Citizen,
Your October 1st letter to GAP, Inc. was forwarded to me due to your concern over the harvesting of redwood forestland. There is a lot of incorrect information being circulated about MRC, so I would like you to know the facts about what we are doing to address the specific issues you discussed in your letter, namely, clearcutting, old growth redwood, and herbicides.
Mendocino Redwood Company was formed in 1998 with the purchase of approximately 232,500 acres of forestland in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. It is MRC's philosophy that, by using a long term horizon, we can build a model of a new kind of forest products company. Our goals are to manage a large block of forestland utilizing high standards of environmental stewardship and show how at the same time we can operate as a successful business. Our goals are to achieve restoration and sustainability by:
- Improving the inventory of redwood and Douglas-fir trees on the lands.
- Improving the habitat available to terrestrial-based species.
- Improving the habitat available to aquatic-based species.
- Enabling the species composition present on the lands to more closely resemble the composition of forestlands and wildlife pre-commercial exploitation.
- Being an organization that people want to work for.
- 6. Being an organization that the community is proud of.
- Being an organization that is known for producing quality products and keeping its word.
- Being a business that earns a return on the capital invested over time.
In an effort to make these goals credible, we are actively pursuing third party certification of our land stewardship practices. This is a new conservation tool that takes a voluntary, market-based approach to encouraging responsible forestry practices. Certification involves an independent evaluation of a landowner's forestry practices according to strict environmental and socio-economic standards. It is a monitoring system that ensures the product, from the raw resource to the final product, has been produced using sustainable, environmentally sensitive practices. To our knowledge, we are the largest timberland owner pursuing this type of certification.
Clearcutting is the most traditional form of even-aged management. MRC has abandoned it in favor of an alternative form of even-aged management called ³variable retention" harvesting. Four months after we started in business, on the advice of Dr. Jerry Franklin (Professor of Ecosystem Analysis, University of Washington, Seattle, WA) and the Pacific Forest Trust (a regional educational and land-trust organization located in Boonville, CA), we adopted this
harvesting method. In addition, MRC has restricted the use of variable retention silviculture to only our poorly stocked, tanoak-dominated stands. Variable retention harvesting typically retains between 10% and 40% of the original stand (in some cases, more) in both rolling and permanent pockets of untouched trees. The 10-40% of the forest that is retained is composed of tanoaks, Douglas-fir and redwood, as well as other hardwood and conifer species specific to the site. This silviculture regime provides post-harvest ecological structure while creating sufficient opportunity to plant and naturally regenerate redwood and Douglas-fir, as well as restore historical conifer dominance to the forestland. This silviculture is never used in the conifer-dominated stands.
The use of variable retention harvesting systems on our land is viewed as a transitional strategy that will give way to uneven-aged management across MRC's property, once tanoak-dominated stands are restored to redwood and Douglas-fir dominated stands.
Your concern over the protection of old growth is shared by both the owners and the foresters at MRC. We have identified approximately 130 acres of 14 distinct ³never-harvested" old growth stands. These acres will be permanently protected by MRC from any kind of harvesting. MRC has approximately 1,250 acres of previously harvested old growth stands where significant old growth characteristics are still present. The residual old growth trees and late successional characteristics of these stands are protected and only silviculture, such as thinning from below, is allowed to enhance or extend these stands. The remaining previously logged second-growth forests on MRC lands are estimated to contain up to 50,000 scattered residual old growth trees in very low densities. These old trees are being preserved based on a policy that protects them by age, size, function and characteristics specific to particular species. Trees preserved from harvesting include:
- Any redwood tree, 48" dbh and larger, established prior to 1800.
- Any Douglas-fir tree, 36" dbh and larger, established prior to 1800.
- Any tree established prior to 1800 (conifer or hardwood), regardless of diameter size, with a preponderance of species-specific old growth characteristics.
- Any tree (conifer or hardwood) established before 1800, that cannot be replaced in size and ecological function within 80-130 years, regardless of diameter or presence of old growth characteristics.
As far as we know, MRC is the only large industrial forestland owner known to have such a comprehensive old growth protection policy.
Restoration of original forest types without the use of chemicals over landscapes that are over-run by competing vegetation is recognized as one of the most technically challenging obstacles in forestry. As you may know, the redwood forest has a lot of very aggressive hardwood and brush species. These hardwood and brush species will usually out-compete the redwood and Douglas-fir seedlings, if not controlled. Over the past 100-150 years, the hardwoods and brush species have been allowed to take over a site, not allowing or seriously limiting the conifer occupancy in an area. As part of its restoration and vegetation management work, MRC uses herbicides applied by hand, on a plant-by-plant basis to reduce competition from tanoak stump sprouts (No aerial spraying is ever done Mendocino County). MRC is committed to reducing and phasing out the use of traditional herbicides to achieve site restoration goals, in favor of using viable non-chemical suppression alternatives, such as vinegar, corn gluten, eucalyptus oil, neem tree oil, and a variety of application strategies. MRC will continue to increase use of manual removal, and to experiment with a variety of alternatives. Over the past 12 months, MRC has completed three major alternative treatment sites, as well as over 300 acres of manual removal in lieu of herbicides. Over the next four years, the quantities of herbicides used across the property will be reduced by at least 60%. Pending results of testing done this summer, this phase out could occur as soon as the end of the year 2000. Note: The overall amount and frequency of application of chemicals in forestry pales by comparison to agriculture. In MRC's case, the majority of the acres will never be treated with any chemicals, but for those acres that are treated, the application on an acre will occur only once or twice in the lifetime of the management of the forest, rather than annually as occurs in agriculture. MRC is fully committed to improving its ability to restore the forest with less use of herbicides by being a leader in identifying, testing and implementing viable alternatives that will help reduce and phase out the need for chemicals in forestry entirely.
I hope I have been able to shed some light on the issues you are most concerned about. If you would like to learn more about MRC, please visit our website (www.mrc.com). If you have any questions about anything you read on the website, you can contact me through my email (ellenpotter@mendoco.com) or through the website contact form.
Sincerely,
Ellen Potter
Registered Professional Forester
Mendocino Redwood Company
Letter from concerned citizen
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