Lawsuit to Stop Pine Mountain Logging Project

Lawsuit Against CalFire and Private Timber Company for Failure to Comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) In Planning Logging of Redwoods in Sonoma County

JMP's Dr. Chad Hanson wrote an expert declaration in support of the lawsuit, filed by the Friends of the South Fork Gualala (Case No. SCV-268396), to halt the Bootleg 2 logging project targeting mature coast redwood trees on private land.

Debunking the baseless claims by CalFire and the logging company, Dr. Hanson's declaration presented an abundance of evidence showing that the logging would not curb wildfire behavior and, in fact, would only severely degrade coast redwood forests and would more likely increase wildfire intensity and threats to local communities.

The state court judge agreed and halted the logging, at least preliminarily.

ceqa

The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. … So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.

John Muir, "The National Parks and Forest Reservations" in a speech by John Muir
(Proceedings of the Meeting of the Sierra Club Held November 23, 1895.) Published in Sierra Club Bulletin, (1896)