The Movement to Stop Clearcutting CA: Reforming the Broken Forest Management System
Activists are building a movement to end clearcutting in California. Meet the passionate people dedicated to changing the broken forest management system — and discover why stopping clearcutting is so important for mitigating wildfires, addressing climate change, and stopping biodiversity loss.
Healthy forests are essential for the well-being of our communities. Healthy Californian forests give us clean air to breathe, storing just over 2 billion metric tons of carbon. In turn, this helps fight the global climate breakdown, which will be the focal struggle for future generations. They are more fire-resistant, slowing the winds that touch our homes and decreasing the chances of experiencing seasonal wildfires that are only increasing in severity. Californian forests provide 75 percent of California’s water supply, and maintain critical biodiversity — nearly one third of all the plant and vertebrate species in the United States live in California, even though the state accounts for just 3 percent of our nation’s total land area. They also sustain thousands of jobs in the recreation, boating, fishing, hunting and sustainable logging industries. We know just how important these ecosystems are. Yet we still let private timber companies routinely destroy large swaths of our native forest, cutting down every tree with little regard for how it affects local communities and all Californians.
What is Clearcutting?
This is clearcutting — an extreme form of logging in which resilient, fire-resistant natural forests are harvested, and replaced with man-made tree plantations that do not fulfill the same ecosystem services of a healthy forest. These plantations of young, same-species trees are highly flammable and significantly intensify wildfires. Clearcutting also removes all plantlife from the clearcut area, which also increases the wildfire vulnerability. They also lack the carbon storing abilities of a mature forest as they emit more carbon dioxide than they sequester for the next twenty years. Not only does this practice increase wildfire danger and leave us with polluted air, but it also degrades our waters, accelerates biodiversity loss, and magnifies environmental injustice. But despite how harmful this form of logging is for all Californians, private timber companies have still been allowed to continue using this method and reap the financial reward. Since 1997, over 1 million acres in California have been decimated by clearcutting and related logging practices.
The Sierra Club’s Stop Clearcutting CA campaign team is one of many allied activist groups from across the nation who believe it is time to stop this archaic, destructive practice. We are fighting to permanently protect our forests from clearcutting: educating the public and supporting local advocacy work in order to help landowners and local officials choose more sustainable forest management methods, and ultimately driving towards legislative change. The California Board of Forestry interprets current forestry law as allowing clearcutting, and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) will award carbon offset credits for clearcutting projects. This forest management system is broken — but with enough public support we know it can be fixed.
Activism at the Sierra Club centers around the power of people working together to make change happen. Our campaign embraces this spirit: with shared knowledge and community action, we can stop clearcutting and defend our forests. Together, we can make our voices heard and ensure future generations benefit from healthy Californian forests, and a healthier planet.
How Are We Changing the System to Protect Our Forests?
Since the Stop Clearcutting CA campaign’s inception in the early 2010s, our team has been dedicated to providing critical resources about the clearcutting problem, magnifying community and ally voices, and building towards a legislative ban on clearcutting.
Our “Letters to the Editor” initiative has led to dozens of letters published, including in the LA Times, the SF Chronicle, and the Wall Street Journal. Our social media accounts keep the public up-to-date on current clearcutting news and topics that are relevant for all environmental advocates. When our allies need help funding lawsuits against destructive Timber Harvest Plans or on other initiatives, we use our channels to drive support for their critical forest advocacy work. We are amplifying the voice of the Californian public: our petition calling for a government response to end clearcutting has nearly 10,000 signatures. In 11 cities throughout California, we have successfully passed the Forest Friendly Resolution, which calls for a ban on industrial clear-cut logging. Ally efforts towards passing a state law to ban clear-cut logging were nearly successful in 2000, and again in 2006. With all the destructive wildfires of this summer fresh in everyone’s mind, there is hope they can be successful in 2021.
We rely on support from everyone to create change that protects our forests — and that includes you! To learn more about clearcutting and our fight for healthy forests, we encourage you to visit our website and reach out to our team if you’d like to get more involved. In the meantime, see below how our members are effectively making change happen with our various initiatives.
Meet Our Team
Our work on the Stop Clearcutting CA campaign benefits from diverse perspectives brought by college students, working professionals, retirees and high schoolers from all across the country, each with unique backgrounds. One thing we all have in common is our passion: a shared dedication to protecting our forests.
MASON
“My name is Mason and I am an Organizer for this campaign. I am a part of this campaign because we are in a fight to stop climate change and the forests are on our side as well. Our mission is important because deforestation, especially with tactics as destructive as clearcutting, is one of the greatest accelerators of the climate crisis. We are also facing the threat of biodiversity collapse and we must protect the forests as they are the natural home for many species.
I am excited about this campaign because the movement has definitely been growing. Just a year ago we were a small campaign with a chair and a couple of volunteers and now we are a force to be reckoned with with over 20 excited volunteers. I hope that we can continue to organize this movement to create an impactful change to save our forests from clearcutting”
MEGHAN
”Clearcutting affects all of us, from the local communities facing increased wildfire danger and flooding, to the global community that needs healthy forests to fight biodiversity loss and the climate crisis. In recent months, we’ve been able to provide support for our allies fighting THPs and start new conversations around creating permanent legislative change to ban clearcutting — efforts I’m looking forward to continuing with the team. I’m from New Hampshire originally, and as a newcomer to California, I’m incredibly grateful to work with and learn from a team that is so passionate about protecting our forests and communities, and fighting for real change towards sustainable forest management.”
DEMITRI
“ I’m Demitri, a mentor with our social media team. A native Californian, I’ve always loved the outdoors and looked for ways to conserve it for years to come. Today, we are seeing challenges aimed at our forests like never before. Wildfires are recently running rampant throughout our state, degrading our soil and affecting our wildlifes’ ecosystems. What makes me so happy to be part of this team is that I am surrounded by like-minded people who are actively making change happen. With our weekly meetings, consistent letters being published in news outlets and constant growth, I am really looking forward to the impact we will continue to make each day!”
This is the first blog post of many! We’re planning to bring you vital information on clearcutting and Californian forests on a biweekly basis — so remember to check back here for the latest posts.
We believe that with knowledge comes inspiration, and with inspiration comes action. We’re happy to have you here and look forward to your support in helping us stop clearcutting and keeping our forests healthy.
