July 3, 2002

CDF Director Andrea Tuttle Receives Private Forest Conservation Award

Santa Rosa, CA - At a Bay Area gathering of its supporters, the Pacific Forest Trust (PFT), a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of private forestlands, presented California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) Director Andrea Tuttle with its first annual Outside the Box award. The award was established to recognize outstanding individual efforts to find innovative approaches to halting private forest loss and increasing forest stewardship.

Half of all forests in California are privately owned. These forests are being lost at an alarming rate. As metropolitan areas expand and residential development sprawls into formerly rural areas, California is losing over 60,000 acres of forest each year, the highest loss of forests per year in the country.

"California's private forests are the most ecologically diverse in the country, and also the most valuable for both timber and real estate. Finding ways to promote sustainable forest management and protection has long been the subject of intense controversy," said Laurie A. Wayburn, President of The Pacific Forest Trust. "This award recognizes Andrea's initiative and determination to find new ways to resolve these longstanding conflicts in forestry and keep forestland as forest."

Examples of Director Tuttle's initiative include her advocacy for the Forest Legacy program, which provides funding for conservation easements or land purchase to conserve forests that would otherwise be lost to development or degradation. Ms. Tuttle has also championed the development of a forest carbon market to provide financial incentives to landowners in return for increased conservation, restoration and stewardship.

"I am very honored to receive this special award from PFT," said CDF Director Tuttle. "The Davis Administration values the productive relationship we have developed with the Pacific Forest Trust working collaboratively to create incentives that encourage landowners to conserve and protect their working forests."