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Voice of the Environment | Campaigns | Saving Old Growth

Saving Old Growth


	Voice of the Environment's mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands.
	Ukiah office: 1330 Boonville Rd Ukiah, CA 95482 707-467-0329
	Marin office: 270 Beach Rd Belvedere, CA 94920 415-435-2007
	For more than a decade, Voice of the Environment has stood up for the people and our communities against the avarice of corporations and the misguided policies of the corporate-dominated state.

Article Archive

June 27, 2005
When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship
Senior North Coast attorney Jared Carter's insider influence has left grimy fingerprints all over the recent Humboldt County Superior Court decision to dismiss the Humboldt County DA's fraud case against Pacific Lumber.
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June 17, 2005
Pacific Lumber logging blocked
The State Water Resources Board, in a unanimous decision, blocked the Pacific Lumber Co. from starting to log in two silt-damaged watersheds in Humboldt County.
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June 10, 2005
Logging plans at issue
The North Coast regional water board’s handling of highly controversial timber harvest plan (THP) approvals for the Pacific Lumber Co. (PACLO) could cost some members their seats on the board, as the polarizing issue continues to grate both the logging company and environmentalists.
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June 6, 2005
In the Northwest: Conservation icon plans a final campaign: Sequoia
The Grande Ronde rocks, and so does 88-year-old boatman Martin Litton as his dory plunges through waves on the remote river where three Northwest states come together.
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May 9, 2005
State water board: PL's peril its own making
A state regulatory agency's geologist and economist claims that Pacific Lumber Co. parent Maxxam Inc. has sucked more than $724 million from its subsidiary by cutting trees at unsustainable rates while keeping Palco running with a precarious strategy.
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April 7, 2005
State water official halts logging plan
In a major setback for Pacific Lumber Co., a state water official Wednesday temporarily banned additional logging in two Humboldt County watersheds.
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March 17, 2005
Board lets Pacific Lumber log more
A state water board Wednesday overruled its own staff and gave Pacific Lumber Co. approval to log even more in two impaired North Coast watersheds.
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March 14, 2005
Big timber's last stand
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February 14, 2005
Palco's bad deal is everyone's bad deal
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February 13, 2005
Logging push a dilemma for Schwarzenegger
Hurwitz's Maxxam Corp. had grabbed control of Pacific Lumber Co. and its immense stands of redwood trees on California's North Coast in 1986, using junk bonds brokered by Michael Milken and financed by Executive Life, a company later seized by the state Department of Insurance.
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February 13, 2005
Headwaters Headache
One of California's biggest environmental deals is near a breaking point. A giant redwood lumber company wants speeded-up timber-cutting approvals -- or it may go out of business.
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January 25, 2005
Bankruptcy Warning Wields an Ax
Pacific Lumber seeks new logging, warns that safeguards for redwoods may topple.
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December 23, 2004
Administration Overhauls Rules for U.S. Forests
The Bush administration issued broad new rules Wednesday overhauling the guidelines for managing the nation's 155 national forests and making it easier for regional forest managers to decide whether to allow logging, drilling or off-road vehicles.
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December 23, 2004
New Rules Issued for National Forests
The Bush administration issued comprehensive new rules yesterday for managing the national forests, jettisoning some environmental protections that date to Ronald Reagan's administration and putting in place the biggest change in forest-use policies in nearly three decades.
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November 2, 2004
Pacific Lumber Poised to Log Ancient Redwoods Adjacent to Avenue of the Giants
Humboldt County, CA - Signs dotting Northern California's stretch of Highway 101 near the town of Red Crest declare the scenic passage the "Redwood Highway", named for ancient redwoods that tower over its flanks. Passing through Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which contains one of the largest remaining contiguous stands of ancient coast redwoods in the world, lengths of the famous thoroughfare are just a stone's throw to ancient forest owned by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber-redwoods they plan to cut down in the coming weeks.
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October 29, 2004
Vigil for the Ancient Trees Held in Front of Courthouse
A crowd of activists and supporters of a ban on the cutting of old growth trees in California gathered in front of the Eureka Courthouse today for a pre-Halloween demonstration to commemorate the ancient trees lost to Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's illegal and unsustainable cutting.
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September 10, 2004
Torture in the Redwoods
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August 23, 2004
Pepper Spray By Q-Tip on Protesters Trial Nears
San Francisco, Calif.- The question of whether direct application into the eyes of liquid pepper spray is an appropriate police tactic against passive protesters will come to trial on Sept. 7.
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August 22, 2004
Old-growth trees deserve protection as our heritage
News of the demise of the California Heritage Tree Preservation Act (SB 754/Perata), recently reported in the Times-Standard, was, as Will Rogers once said about his death, "greatly exaggerated." And one of the reasons the bill is still very much alive is the courage and foresight of our own assemblywoman, Patty Berg.
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August 16, 2004
Proposals would fast-track approval of logging, oil refinery construction
Logging of California's forests and construction of new oil refineries could proceed more swiftly under two new recommendations growing out of a five-month review of cost and efficiency initiated by the governor.
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August 4, 2004
Log Trucks Blockaded in Downtown Eureka
A large demonstration for the protection of Old Growth and an end to Maxxam corporation's destructive logging practices in Humboldt County at noon today included nonviolent civil disobedience.
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August 1, 2004
Forest for the Trees
THERE are several ways to measure the effectiveness of a democracy. One is to look at how much the public is included in community decision-making. Another is to evaluate access to justice. The most telling aspect of a government, however, is how it distributes the goods of the land.
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July 27, 2004
Activists Block Logging Road in Defense of the Mattole Wilderness
Forest activists staged a pre-dawn roadblock this morning at a gate that leads to old-growth forest in the Mattole wilderness.
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July 20, 2004
Pass the Heritage Tree Preservation Act Now!
On June 14, the California Heritage Tree Preservation Act (SB 754) received a big boost when the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources approved the bill on a 7-3 vote. The next scheduled stop is the Assembly Appropriations Committee on August 4. The bill has already passed the full Senate, 25-13.
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July 16, 2004
Wild places worth protecting
When the Clinton administration adopted the roadless rule in January 2001 after three years of public input, it did so with one goal in mind -- to preserve the United States' last wild places for all Americans.
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July 7, 2004
Ecotourism draws visitors to Oregon's old-growth forests
MOUNT HOOD NATIONAL FOREST, Ore. (AP) — As they hiked into the old-growth forest, the tourists fell silent. They looked at the ancient trees sweeping skyward — the massive Douglas firs with their rutted bark, the smoother and redder cedars and the scaly hemlocks.
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June 15, 2004
Brosnan backs bill to stop logging of old growth
SACRAMENTO - After actor Pierce Brosnan became the latest celebrity to back a ban on logging California's oldest trees, an Assembly committee Monday passed a bill it had stymied last year.
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May 28, 2004
Writer disagrees with logic of quoted lumberman’s remarks
The recent editorial by syndicated columnist Thomas D. Elias titled “Peace in the woods is a possibility” offers a good perspective on the current politics of old-growth preservation in California.
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May 27, 2004
letter in response to Tom Elias's column "Peace in the woods is a possibility"
The recent editorial by syndicated columnist Thomas D. Elias titled “Peace in the woods is a possibility” offers a good perspective on the current politics of old-growth preservation in California. Mr. Elias is right on the mark in suggesting that the passage of the Heritage Tree Preservation Act (SB 754/Perata), could go a long way toward “softening” the current conflict over saving the last of California’s big, old trees.
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May 26, 2004
New Report Details Maxxam/PL's Wholesale Noncompliance with Environmental Protection Standards
Garberville, CA - The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) today released a report analyzing Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company's (PL's) compliance record under its controversial "Habitat Conservation Plan," documenting more 325 violations issued to the company since 1999.
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May 21, 2004
PEACE IN THE WOODS A POSSIBILITY
Old-growth trees: They've had California lumber mills and environmentalists at loggerheads for decades. The conflict regularly produces tree-sitting spectacles and civil disobedience, even spurring the occasionally lethal tactic of "spiking" trees.
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May 5, 2004
Scientists predict gloomy future for coastal marbled murrelets
Leading scientists say the marbled murrelet, a seabird nesting in coastal forests, is sliding toward extinction in the Northwest, dealing a setback to a timber industry anxious to strip it of federal protections that block logging.
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April 12, 2004
Bush accord could revive timber wars
Recent Bush administration changes to a management plan for the national forests of the Pacific Northwest threaten to rekindle the timber wars of the 1990s by doubling the timber harvest on federal lands in Northern California, Oregon and Washington.
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August 24, 2003
P-I Focus: Declare harvest of old-growth forests off-limits and move on
We write as former chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service with combined experience of more than a half-century dealing with national forest issues. For three decades, an increasingly acrimonious debate over old-growth forests has raged. It is time to declare old growth off-limits to logging and move on. Why?
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Voice of the Environment is a 501 (c-3) not-for-profit Montana-based corporation formed in 1991.