• Teaming Up to Conserve a Sonoma Coast Treasure
• Sustaining the Roots of a Green Economy
• National Coalition Calls for Investment in Working Lands
• PFT Developing Carbon Projects Coast to Coast
• Convening Visionaries for the Klamath-Cascade
• PFT Assembling Local Stakeholder Advisory Council in Vital ‘Wood Basket’ Region
  
• Meyer Memorial Trust Funds New Acquisitions in CSNM

Thanks to a unique partnership with Save the Redwoods League forged at the height of the state’s financial crisis, the Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) will soon permanently conserve one of the most important, unprotected coastal redwood tracts along the Sonoma County coastline.

Stewarts Point Ranch is a stunning, 871-acre property situated along a full mile of scenic bluffs adjoining the Pacific Ocean. It contains a significant stretch of the South Fork of the Gualala River, considered critical for its salmon habitat. Its other outstanding features include 750 acres of well-managed, mature coastal redwood and Douglas-fir forest—with notable remaining old growth—sustained by its longtime owners, Arch and Jack Richardson, through a family trust.

In October 2008, a mutual friend of the Richardsons and Laurie Wayburn contacted PFT because she knew the family needed to sell the ranch, owned since 1870, to settle an estate. She suggested we meet to talk about buying the land.

“The family was specifically looking for people who understood that their longtime stewardship and management of the property was something special,” said PFT Co-CEO Connie Best. “And it most certainly is. The Richardsons have done a tremendous job managing this natural landscape and its ecological values. It’s rare to find a working forest with such a wealth of biodiversity. From the ocean to the river, this is a treasure cared for by generations of Richardsons. We are honored to have the opportunity to continue their legacy of stewardship.”

PFT plans to manage the ranch as a flagship educational center and a working model forest demonstrating the kind of stewardship forestry that sustains wood, water, wildlife and a well-balanced climate. We have been working closely with experts at LandPaths and Alta Planning + Design to examine options for granting limited public access to this heritage-filled coastal working landscape. This is part of a comprehensive management plan PFT is preparing for the property thanks to a generous grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

After having secured an option to purchase the property with a significant down payment in 2008, PFT turned to Save the Redwoods League for critical bridge financing. This ensured the acquisition closed on schedule during a time when state funding for conservation was a casualty of California’s fiscal crisis. Aided by a $1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a low-interest loan from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Save the Redwoods League will take title to the historic ranch in July, subject to PFT’s right to repurchase the land when state funding becomes available.

“We are so grateful to Save the Redwoods League for helping us complete this purchase during this time of economic upheaval. This is a conservation opportunity everyone agrees is a top priority,” Best said.

“It is truly an honor to be part of a group that worked tirelessly to protect a historical site for current and future generations to experience and enjoy,” said Ruskin Hartley, Executive Director of Save the Redwoods League.

PFT is working closely with the State Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, and other foundations and individuals committed to the conservation of these vital Sonoma Coast resources, to secure the $11 million needed to complete the acquisition.

Photos: Stewarts Point Ranch, Calif. (By Pacific Forest Trust)

Sustaining the Roots of a Green Economy

National Coalition Calls for Investment in Working Lands

When President Obama talks about his vision for a “green economy,” it can seem like a novel concept, dependent on high-tech clean energy from the sun or wind, or food transformed into fuel.

But green jobs mean something more traditional for more than 3 million people who depend on America’s working forest, farm and ranch lands for their livelihoods. Many can trace the roots of our green economy back through multiple generations of their family trees.

Productive, privately owned forests have long been an economic mainstay of many communities. Composing 60 percent of all U.S. forests, they provide wood products, renewable energy and employment that allow forest-related industries to funnel more than $100 billion dollars into the U.S. economy annually.

The natural, working landscapes that surround us make significant contributions to local, state, regional and national economies, while providing clean air, water, wildlife habitat and renewable biomass energy. Yet, privately owned U.S. forests increasingly are threatened by economic forces that drive owners to sell the land for conversion to other uses. The majority of family-owned forests will be sold and developed over the next 50 years, according to recent USDA projections.

In that scenario, our iconic, forested landscapes will look more like urban suburbs, their heritage and economic contributions lost.

“This originally was a lumber-based community,” recalls Gary Hendrix, spokesman for a seventh-generation forest- and mill-owning family in Shasta County, Calif. “Originally, there were 56 sawmills here—now there are three. We had 10 full-time employees. Now we’re down to two plus ourselves, just getting by with the bare minimum. Rural communities like ours are really hurting.”

Times are hard in forest communities all over the U.S.

The economic downturn and related drop in demand for wood products forced the Collins Companies—a fifth-generation, family-owned enterprise and one of the largest forest landowners in Pennsylvania—to lay off 300 people since the recession started in 2007.

“We’re trying to stay in these communities but it’s really tough out there. Quite frankly, we’re losing money,” said Collins’ Senior Vice President Wade Mosby. “If we were just intent on dollars and cents, we would have shut some of these facilities down. But we’re trying to keep the core employment going to maintain some of these rural communities. In a town like Lakeview, Oregon, we had 110 people on the payroll. Now we’re down to 68 and that’s still the largest private employer in a town of 2,700 people.”

Hendrix and Mosby are part of a PFT-led coalition of working lands supporters, including large and small forest landowners, mill owners, market makers, and conservation and environmental organizations. Coalition members have been asking lawmakers to secure the roots of our nation’s new “Green Economy” by ensuring climate and energy legislation contains funding allocations for land conservation.

“Here in the South, landowners need these new revenue streams to help sustain our productive open landscapes and the rural economies they support,” says coalition member Walter Sedgwick, a family-forest owner in Georgia. He noted that 3.6 million acres of forest, farm and ranch land in the Southeast will be converted and developed by 2030 according to recent USDA projections.

“Investment in forest conservation and stewardship can be a powerful stimulus for economic recovery and jobs while providing great climate benefits,” Wayburn added, citing a 2007 study by the University of Massachusetts’ PERI Institute. The study found investment in forest conservation and restoration yields the most jobs per dollar invested of any industry studied—including renewables and conventional energy sources like oil and nuclear.

Economic Bedrock in the Granite State

Coalition member Jameson French is president of New Hampshire- and Virginia-based Northland Forest Products, Inc., which owns 10,000 acres of working forestland. His family has been in the hardwood trade since the 1880s. He and fellow coalition member Peter Stein, a noted conservationist and managing director for the Lyme Timber Company, recently wrote an opinion piece urging New England lawmakers to remember the proud role of working forests in their local heritage and economy for the past 150 years. In New Hampshire alone, forestry based activities—including saw milling and paper manufacturing—generate almost $1.2 billion in gross revenues each year while providing more than 16,600 jobs.

In all, more than 25 percent of private sector employment in the Granite State is dependent on forestry, recreation, agriculture, and the natural and working landscapes that sustain all three industries.

“These same New Hampshire landscapes could play a key role in the shift to a low carbon, climate-friendly economy if new incentives are provided to encourage sustainable land management practices that capture and store the greenhouse gas pollution responsible for climate change,” French and Stein wrote in their editorial. “But they can’t do that if they disappear completely, plowed under for the next strip mall or big box store.”
New Hampshire once boasted more than 87 percent forest cover. It’s lost nearly 10 percent of that in one generation and continues to lose more than 17,500 acres every year—a trend that shows little sign of slowing.

“If Capitol Hill wants to talk seriously about investment in our economy, they need to start by investing a portion of those funds [generated by federal energy and climate legislation] in our working landscapes, the ‘natural infrastructure’ that supports more than a quarter of our employment and is a part of our Granite State heritage,” French and Stein wrote.

“Restoring America’s natural infrastructure can also help us restore our economic infrastructure,” Wayburn agreed. “This arena, properly invested in, will provide a tremendous economic return for the country, providing jobs, climate and energy benefits, as well as safeguarding water quality and wildlife habitat.”

See our other coalition members and what they’re asking for: www.pacificforest.org/policy/coalitionletter.html

Photos (from top): A serene valley in West Virginia; A Collins Companies’ Almanor forester measures tree growth; Forest and farm land in Maine.

PFT Developing Carbon Projects Coast to Coast

Two years ago, we sold the first verified emissions reductions (ERs) from the Pacific Forest Trust’s Van Eck Forest Project, creating the first forest ER project in the nation prepared under a standard recognized by a state government. Since then, the project has demonstrated how landowners can generate significant financial and ecological returns by committing to conserve their productive lands and sustainably managing them to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Today, landowners from coast to coast are working with PFT to develop their own carbon projects. These projects meet the rigorous standards we helped pioneer for California’s developing climate action program, which is seen as a model for U.S. law- and policymakers drafting climate and energy legislation.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase and diversification among landowners who want to capitalize on this opportunity to do well for the atmosphere by doing good forestry,” said PFT Co-CEO Connie Best, who leads our carbon project team.

Since launching the Van Eck Forest Project, PFT has signed on to manage or consult on 10 new carbon projects in California, Washington State, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Maine. Our partners range from family-forest owners like the Phillips Family Tree Farm in Oak Run, Calif., to the non-profit Appalachian Mountain Club in Maine, to Conservation Forestry, a timber investment management organization we are advising on the development of an 18,000-acre improved forest management project along the Emory River near Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Carbon Canopy, a coalition of corporate and non-profit stakeholders like Staples, Inc., Columbia Forest Products, the Dogwood Alliance and the World Resource Institute, asked PFT to lead the development of and provide technical advice to landowners for a suite of projects in the hardwood forests of the central Appalachian Cumberland Plateau area. Initially, we are producing several pilot projects in western Virginia and eastern Tennessee that will generate climate benefits to complement the production of sustainably harvested wood under the Forest Stewardship Council’s standard. In Georgia, we’ve teamed up with Emory University and the Jones Center for Ecological Research to study how improved forest management projects that sustain and restore the region’s threatened longleaf pine forests will work, in practice, for southeastern landowners considering the carbon market.

Other projects, like The Campbell Group’s 9,203-acre McCloud River Project near Mt. Shasta in northern California, demonstrate how major timber companies are recognizing the merits of conserving and managing forests for their climate benefits. The Campbell Group manages nearly three million acres for institutional investors representing over $5.5 billion in timberland assets. They are one of the largest timber investment managers in the world.

“Partnering with the Pacific Forest Trust to develop the McCloud River Project is a natural extension of our environmental stewardship program,” says Stephen Levesque, Project Manager for The Campbell Group. “Our management practices are designed to maintain or enhance the integrity of the forest assets we own. This often includes developing projects that benefit non-timber resources.”

Photos: Above Left: A view from the Tenn. and N.C. portion of the Appalachian Trail, near Roan Mountain, Tenn. Right: Mount Shasta, Calif.

Convening Visionaries for the Klamath-Cascade

PFT Assembling Local Stakeholder Advisory Council in Vital ‘Wood Basket’ Region

This summer, the Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) is launching a new chapter in our initiative to protect one of America’s great treasures, the Klamath-Cascade Region.

The Klamath-Cascade spans 9.8 million acres in an arc that sweeps from the headwaters of the Feather River across the slopes of majestic Mt. Shasta and up into the Klamath River basin in Oregon.

The Region contains some of the most diverse and productive coniferous forests in the world. It is home to more than 100 imperiled species of plants and animals, and is the source of drinking water for more than 22 million Californians. Its forestland base is a checkerboard of public and private lands that form the state’s primary “wood basket” and center of the forest products industry, producing nearly half the total timber volume harvested in California each year.

Often overlooked, conservation of the Region’s privately owned forests is critically important for a host of reasons, including protection of habitats and watersheds across ownerships, species diversity, water quality, aesthetics, timber production, biomass energy and forest-carbon storage.

Today, the Region’s forests are relatively intact—but the privately owned forests of the Klamath-Cascade are threatened by an array of forces, including the economic crisis, globalization and its impacts on the forest products industry, climate change, shifting demographics, legacies of past management and the increasing conversion of forests to other uses.

Recognizing these threats, the Pacific Forest Trust has been at work on a Klamath-Cascade Greenprint for the Future. Based on years of research and conversations with landowners, community leaders, land use experts and others, the report is intended to raise awareness of this remarkable landscape and create a collaborative road map that will support voluntary efforts to preserve a sustainable, resource-based future for the Region.

To complete the Greenprint and take its findings and recommendations to the next stage of dialogue and action in the region and beyond, PFT is in the process of forming an advisory council of local stakeholders

Megan WargoA familiar face, Megan Wargo, has returned to our conservation staff as our Klamath-Cascade Program Director. She is heading up efforts to connect with stakeholders across the Region, from Chester, Susanville, and Quincy to Burney, Mt. Shasta, Yreka and Redding. She and other PFT staffers are meeting with local landowners, state and federal agency staff, conservationists, biologists, foresters and others to discuss the future of Klamath-Cascade lands and livelihoods.

“The Klamath-Cascade is an amazing region with great resources and a lot of opportunity for cooperative conservation work now,” Wargo says. “It’s one of the areas in California where the opportunity still exists to conserve forestland in a way that has a positive impact at the broader landscape level. Working together with our partners in the Region, we want to help sustain forest-based communities and jobs for the 21st century.”

For more information about the Klamath-Cascade Initiative or its Advisory Council, contact Megan Wargo at 415-561-0700 ext. 18 or email mwargo@pacificforest.org.

Photos (From top): Butterfly (By the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council); Mt. Lassen, Calif. (By Connie Best); PFT’s Klamath-Cascade Program Director Megan Wargo

Meyer Memorial Trust Funds New Acquisitions in CSNM

The Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) will be making significant new acquisitions from willing sellers in the Cascade Siskiyou National Momument (CSNM), thanks to half a million dollars in new funding from the Meyer Memorial Trust.

The $450,000 in program-related investment funds and $50,000 in grant monies are the latest good news for our Campaign to Complete the Vision of the nation’s first national monument designated for its regional biodiversity.

CSNMWith critical support from the Meyer Memorial Trust, local conservation partners and others, PFT has been working to more fully conserve the lands located within the Monument’s Planning Area. We’ve already been able to convey nearly 1,700 acres to public ownership since January 2009, and hope to transfer an additional 3,035 acres with support from federal Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations from the FY 2011 and 2010 budgets.

These newly conserved parcels will help conserve important wildlife corridors for the region’s numerous threatened and endangered species, and expanding protection of the recently designated Soda Mountain Wilderness Area. Read more about our CSNM work at: http://bit.ly/1B3yXY.

Photos: The Soda Mountain Wilderness Council.