101 REASONS

…to oppose 10-year-long chainsaw “thinning” & herbicides “treatments” in Tomales Bay State Park’s lush coastal forest.

 

 

A devastating industrial deforestation project is being proposed for over 1,500 acres of an approximately 2,500-acre dense, lush, moist and secluded coastal forest, at Tomales Bay State Park in west Marin county, CA.

This deforestation project is being pitched by California state agencies Cal Parks and Cal Fire to an unsuspecting, misled and trusting public as a “health initiative” to “restore” the forest, and for “wildfire resiliency” — using chainsaws, chippers, masticating machines and herbicides, which are known poisons, in a dense, wild forest.

• BACKGROUND and general info on the Tomales Bay State Park forest assault is HERE: https://www.TreeSpiritProject.com/CalFire

• AN ESSAY, “Orwell’s forest,” describes the misleading language used to misinform, mislead and spread fear of nature, the natural process of wildfire, and wild forests themselves. Fear of forests clears the way for “chainsaw management” of millions of acres of wild, dense, healthy public forest.  Why?  State agencies can win millions of dollars of state wildfire reduction funding by, in effect, yelling, “Wildfire danger!” in all California forests.  Government agencies entrusted with forest protection are now assaulting them. READ WHY & HOW: https://treespiritproject.com/deforestation/orwells-forest/

The rest of this page is a growing list of all that is egregiously wrong, and destructive, and patently false, about this multi-million dollar, forest-reducing assault — which describes chainsaws, chippers, masticating machines and herbicides as “treatments” to “improve” forest “health” and wildfire resilience.  These two agencies — which the general public mistakenly believes protect wild forests — would denude an unusually lush, dense, unmanaged coastal cloud forest in the name of wildfire safety and forest health.  The agencies seek to “manage” the forest, felling scores of trees and literally hundreds of plants — in order to “save” it.

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A biologist with the Western Watersheds Project analyzes — and criticizes — the Tomales Bay deforestation project.

READ biologist Laura Cunningham’s, California Director of the Western Watersheds Project, scoping letter. (CLICK ON IMAGE on the right). It painstakingly debunks, in detail, the project’s pseudoscientific underpinnings:

https://treespiritproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/WWP-et-al-1.19.23-Tomales-Bay-State-Park-draft-plan-COMMENTS-PWP.pdf

 

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The proposed “treatments” will damage the forest.

• The Tomales Bay forest is wild, dense and healthy because it is unmanaged.  The project’s so-called “treatments” with chainsaws, masticating machines, chipping machine and poisonous chemical herbicides which are advertised as “management’ techniques will only reduce, denude, trample, desiccate (dry out), and poison the forest’s complex, interdependent soil, groundwater, plants and animals.

• There is no such thing as an “overgrown” forest. This wild forest does not need “thinning” to be healthy; the term is non-scientific; a nonsense term weaponized to justify assaulting the healthy, dense Tomales Bay forest with industrial machines.

• Wild, unmanaged forests are healthier and less ignition-resistant than a managed forests. Logging — otherwise known as “thinning” — forests means cutting down both precious, living trees as well as essential, standing dead trees (called “snags”). The loss of either harms overall forest health. The project intends to open the forest canopy to allow in more sunlight, artificially overriding the forest’s natural evolution. As a result, it will be made sunnier, and thus hotter, drier and windier — and thus less healthy. And also more, not less, prone to wildfire ignition. (More about this in the wildfire section.)

• The complex science of forest ecology is denied and/or ignored. The project falsely claims that killing other nearby plants will benefit Bishop pines — disregarding modern science documenting the root and mycorrhizal interconnectedness of understory plants, trees and other organisms in the soil.  The project treats Bishop pines like tomatoes in a backyard garden and all other plants like garden “weeds” to be killed — without ecological importance or function — and targets them for destruction. This ignores decades of established modern science about complex, interdependent forest ecosystems.

• Herbicide toxicity, persistence and damage is ignored. The project, again, simply ignores the reality of how herbicides like triclopyr (e.g., Dow Garlon formulations) and glyphosate (Monsanto Roundup) cripple plant function. And damage the gut biome of animals including birds, raptors and mammals in the environment.  Behaving like a public relations agent for the chemical industry, the agencies simply ignore the known ecological damage that herbicides do to soil health, microbes, fungi, non-target plants and animals. And contaminate groundwater. (Of course, all plants in wild forest should properly be considered non-target plants.)

• Bishop pine stands are perfectly healthy and regenerating naturally. Older Bishop pine trees and dead standing trees (snags) should not be cut down or “cleared” or “removed.”  Forest regeneration occurs gradually, naturally — and more readily  —without industrial assaults such as poisoning the soil with herbicides. Bishop pine forest regeneration varies depending upon environmental factors such as soil, temperature, wind, waterways, fog and sun. Forests age, die and renew themselves in their own time, as they have evolved to do over literally millions of years — without any human interference or tending or help — not on an arbitrary human timetable imposed by humans onto a complex forest ecosystem modern, technological and scientific cultures are only beginning to understand.

• Contrary to the project’s claims, there are numerous young Bishop pines in the forest at Tomales Bay State Park. Bishop pines are regenerating just fine, thank you.  And this false claim is one of the principal justifications for assaulting the forest.

• Forests thrive without human interference.  Stating or even implying forests require “management” is patently false and intentionally misleading.  Native Americans did not tend all forests everywhere — and never tended forests with the industrial tools — chainsaws, masticating and chipping machines and bulldozers and herbicides.  The best, healthiest, most helpful and wisest actions humans can take — including agencies like Cal Parks and Cal Fire who propose forest “management” for ulterior motives like budget acquisitions — is to leave forests be.Global warming is one of the greatest ecological stressors on forests of the modern era.  Ironically and tragically, two key drivers of global warming are fossil fuels emission and deforestation — which are two of the major components of this project.

• Wild forests don’t need humans, but humans need forests.  Hands off, boots out, chainsaws down, never use herbicides which are biocides.  Instead, reduce global warming, which puts stress on forests, to most effectively protect forests.

 

Wildfire danger will be increased (not decreased as claimed).

• The project’s chainsaws will reduce tree canopy, felling both living and dead trees (both of which have valuable ecological function in a healthy, wild forest) thus allowing more sunlight onto the forest floor, thus reducing forest moisture, and drying out the forest.  This increases, not reduces, the likelihood of a wildfire ignition — which is the exact opposite of the project’s false claim. 

• Wildfires are natural, normal processes which benefit forest health.  West Marin County’s relatively recent Vision Fire (1995) and “4-5” Woodward Valley Fire (2020) were both natural, healthy, lightning-ignited wildfires. Neither “destroyed” forests or ecosystems.  Logging industry public relations compaigns today demonize wildfire, ignore its benefits, and exaggerate its destructiveness, all to justify logging and deforestation, which are described euphemistically as “thinning” and “management.”

• The project will increase the intensity of wildfire by felling both living and standing dead trees (snags), allowing greater winds to prevail in the event of a wildfre, which fuel wildfire and increase the speed of an advancing wildfire front.

• The project will denude, desiccate and damage the forest with its use of masticating machines and herbicides to destroy hundreds of smaller, moisture-collecting and carbon-capturing plants, so-called, “understory vegetation.”  The forest’s rich, moist soil floor, will be desiccated by the herbicides, thus increasing forest aridity and increasing the chances of wildfire ignitions — which is the exact opposite effect that the project’s proponents promote it with.

• The most effective, proven wildfire protection for houses and communities is to “treat” houses, not forests. Far less expensive, and more effective “home hardening” and creating “defensible space” no more than 100 ft. from houses is how city, state and federal agencies recommend preparing for wildfires.  LEARN MORE.

 

Thousands of animals will be driven from their forest homes.

• Chainsaws, chippers and masticating machines will be an ongoing, high-decibel sonic assault on the remote coastal forest along Tomales Bay, on the Point Reyes peninsula.  The precious quiet of a secluded forest will be shattered for thousands of human visitors.  And thousands of forest animals will be driven from their homes over the project’s 10-year duration. 

• The project contains no detailed, site-specific scientific studies of the forest, or on the impact of the industrial vegetation-destroying machines, and the dozens of worker boots-on-the-ground will have on wildlife who live in this quiet, dense forest.

• Destroying understory vegetation is a massive loss of precious animal habitat, for birds, mammals, fungi, lichens and countless other organisms  currently living in this healthy, wild, unmanaged forest. And for the animals that would migrate here if not for the planned decade of loud machine noise and vegetation destruction.

• The project contains no detailed assessment of the effect on dozens of animal species: songbirds, forest hawks, wood rats, mice, black-tailed deer, raccoons, rabbits, opossums, skunks, foxes, bats, coyotes, bobcats, chipmunks, squirrels and other mammals and birds who live in this dense forest.  The project description simply ignores their existence and the massive impact of machine noise and human boots on the ground.  They will flee their forest homes and may never return.  Many of their homes will be pointlessly destroyed even if they did eventually return.

• The project has no scientific assessment of ESA-listed (Endangered Species Act) Northern spotted owls who live in this forest. They live in this forest and will be driven from it by years of high-decibel, industrial machine noise.  Felling trees both living and dead also reduces their habitat.

• The quiet of the forest will be shattered and degraded for years. Not just for the countless thousands of animals, but also for human visitors too, who seek peace and quiet from the industrial noises of civilization — which will be introduced and ongoing here. This is a direct violation of the Cal Parks charter and purpose for the park in the first place.

 

Deceiving & scaring the public, for dollars

• Actual wildfire reduction measures and treatments are totally, even criminally absent from this project, despite the project requiring millions of dollars of public funding.  During the project, and upon completion, surrounding communities will be in greater wildfire danger than before — while believing they are in less danger.  And having spent money on “treatments” that increase wildfire danger rather than reduce it.

• State agencies Cal Parks (California State Parks) and Cal Fire (California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Prevention) want access to millions of dollars of state wildfire reduction funds — available by falsely claiming “thinning” forests reduces wildfire risk. Despite numerous studies proving that logging, aka, “thinning” forests are left drier and hotter and windier, thus more likely to ignite, and burn faster, and reach communities faster. Recent fast-burning California wildfires were in grasslands or logged forests.

• CalParks and CalFire exploit the public’s fear of wildfire, encourage the public to fear dense, wild, unmanaged forests by labeling them as, “fuel loads” — which must then be “reduced” via logging, called “thinning” and “managing.”  This common “false-problem-false-solution” mantra is repeated and exaggerated by media outlets, but not validated by wildfire science.  READ MORE about wildfire.

• Chainsaws, chippers, masticators and herbicides don’t “help” or “heal” or “restore” forests – they only and always denude and destroy them by killing valuable plants and trees and soil.

• “Vegetation management” and “thinning” and “treatments” and “management” and “fuel loads reduction” are all euphemisms for deforestation; for cutting down tens of thousands of trees and understory plants. All of which are desperately needed to cool the local environment, and the planet.

• Demonizing lush, dense forests to justify logging.  Up is down. War is peace. Forests are dangerous and flammable “fuel loads” that must be “thinned” in order to be saved, and for us to be safe. Wild forests are a threat to themselves, and us.

• Dense, unmanaged forests are healthier, damper, harbor more wild animals, and are less wildfire ignition-prone than managed forests.  Unlogged forests provide critical ecological services to a greater degree than logged forests, including greater carbon sequestration, cooler temperatures, more moisture retention, more fog generation, more oxygen production, and more wild animal habitat.

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This webpage is a beast in progress and will regularly updated. Because there are simply so many reasons this deforestation project is both non-scientifically based, pro-industrial logging (called, “thinning”), and even utter nonsense.

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– The project falsely assumes that all plants are in competition as opposed to in elaborate interdependent communities that are connected underground through root and fungal networks. Recent science about mychorizal networks allowing interspecies plant communication and cooperation is completely ignored.

– The logging project ignores the impact of toxic herbicides on all the non-target species of plants, animals, microbes and soil health.

– Dead and old trees targeted for destruction are essential to a healthy forest. Old and dead standing trees are precious insect food, bird and animal homes. They should not be felled, removed, thinned, poisoned or treated. A dense, wild, “unmanaged” forest is healthier than an industrially “managed’ forest.

 

DECEIVING THE PUBLIC

 

• Pseudo-science is used to fool the public into thinking humans must manage forests; inferring that humans know better how to promote forest health than forests which have evolved over millions of years to be healthy without humans. 

 

• The project cynically exploits human fear of wildfire to frighten people into believing that forests are dangerous – – and 2) peddles the false remedy of assaulting forests with chainsaws and masticators

 

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