6/11/08
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rhetoric versus Reality
A fact sheet about the
Bohemian Club’s
logging plan (1-06NTMP-011SON)
The Bohemian Club quotes are taken from Bohemian Club President
Jay Mancini and Grove Superintendent Joel Butler’s recent
letters
The Bohemian Club says:
The NTMP is designed to …protect life and property in the
event of a catastrophic fire. The fire hazard in the Grove is severe
due to the densely stocked second growth stands of redwood and Douglas
fir.
Scientists say:
Even if logging could possibly lead to some reduction in fire hazard,
I can find no evidence of an analysis capable of supporting this
conclusion...If the owners of the Bohemian Grove are concerned about
fire and fuel hazards, there are legitimate treatments that can be
taken to produce the intended effects. These treatments will generally
consist of surface fuel removal, removal of shrubs, and possible
trees with foliage that is low enough to ignite from a surface fire.
This plan is little more than a strategy for extracting commercially
valuable products from the forest.”
Mark A. Finney, Fire Sciences Laboratory, US Forest Service.
The Bohemian Club says:
We will reduce the fire danger by decreasing the high number of
redwoods and Douglas fir per acre and by creating gaps in the overall
canopy.
Scientists say:
It is only when these forests are thinned and light openings are
present in the canopy that flammable shrubs and tanbark oak can invade
these stands. As a result, fire intensity, the spread rate of fire,
and flame lengths will be much higher after timber harvest than if
these stands were left in their natural state. This is clearly a
logging project, not a project to reduce fire hazard.
Philip Rundel, Distinguished Professor of Biology, UCLA
The Bohemian Club says:
All of these prudent actions will serve to create greater biodiversity
and wildlife habitat and retain many of the larger second growth
trees throughout the property.
Scientists say:
The NTMP…creates a much younger forest in which smaller and
more widely spaced trees predominate. This is hardly a prescription
for creating a late seral, old growth forest. In fact, it retards
the achievement of such conditions...the NTMP’s removal of
most of the older, larger and denser stands will have a deleterious
effect on wildlife, and the proposed mitigations are not adequate
to compensate for the loss of this forest type.
Reginald H. Barrett, Goertz Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Management,
UC Berkeley and a certified Wildlife Biologist
The Bohemian Club says:
We have sought the advice of a number of outside forest and fire
experts.
Scientists say:
It strikes me that the advice being given to the landowner committee
and the forester is outdated, out of touch with current scientific
literature regarding coastal redwood ecology and will be responsible
for a shift in management direction that is completely out of sync
with the stated desired goals.” Gregory A. Guisti, forest advisor,
UC Cooperative extension
The only named “expert” the Bohemian Club has mentioned
(see Bohemian Club Library Notes, summer 2006: “Forest Management
at the Grove” by Ralph Osterling) is Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen,
who according to Osterling’s article, made a study of the Grove
in 2005. In the fall of 2006, Bonnicksen was the subject of an open
letter signed by several prominent academics. The letter stated,
in part:” Dr Bonnicksen’s unusual theories of forest
structure and stability, expressed many years ago, were never widely
accepted…Dr. Bonnicksen’s views and misrepresentations
of factual material, as well as his academic credentials, should
be labeled for the political views that they are and not presented
as serious science.”
The Bohemian Club says:
We have been good stewards of the grove for more than 100 years…As
in the past, we will continue to reinvest all proceeds in to maintenance
of our roads and forests.
Reality:
The plan for the Bohemian Grove timber harvest is a hard industrial
model – removal of slower growth trees, removal of “competing” non-conifer
trees, herbicide use to enforce stand composition changes, maximization
of growth and harvest and development of a heavy permanent road system.
Don Erman, Professor Emeritus of Ecology, UC Davis
Since the modern era of commercial logging at the Grove started
in the early 1980s at a rate of 500,000 board feet per year, some
eleven million board feet of redwood and Douglas fir have been removed
from the property, including significant old growth and involving
the occasional use of clearcutting. The road and logging skid trail
system has more than doubled in miles, has fragmented formerly contiguous
stands of forest and continues, to this day, to cause erosion problems
on the property.
The Bohemian Club says:
The amount of net acreage of forest clearly falls below 2500, the
threshold for the granting of an NTMP.
Reality:
The Director of the California Department of Forestry wrote to Assemblywoman
Patty Berg (in whose district the Grove is located) on November 2,
2007: “At this point, additional work is needed to determine
the gross ownership acreage before a determination can be made relative
to the larger question of whether or not the Bohemian Grove timberland
ownership is under the 2500 acre threshold.”
The Bohemian Club says:
We will be able to harvest up to approximately 1.1 million board
feet annually of our second growth conifer forest. Because we plan
to remove less timber than will grow back, our NTMP will meet a sustainable
objective…
Scientists say:
The Bohemian Club NTMP inflated its growth and yield tables by including
areas which will never be cut, including the 107-acre Main Grove
and now (although not originally disclosed by the Bohemian Club)
the Bull barn and Upper Hollow Tree (Grande Dame) old growth stands.
See Professor Philip Rundel, UCLA, letter
According to the California Department of Forestry, the Grove’s
forester will be resubmitting revised growth and yield tables to
meet a sustainable harvest level.
The Bohemian Club has stated (variously):
Original 2006 draft NTMP: “The property contains no unique
or special values.”
Revised 2007 draft NTMP: “The property contains no unique or
special values, with the exception of the 107 acre main old growth
grove.”
Jay Mancini’s October 23, 2007 letter to club members: “Approximately
143 acres constitutes areas with Old Growth Redwood trees. “
Joel Butler’s December 14, 2007 letter to local residents: “Approximately
163 acres constitutes areas of Old Growth Redwood trees.
Reality:
The above sequence of quotes summarizes the Bohemian Club’s
ongoing foot-dragging in disclosing important information about the
nature of the Bohemian Grove to the responsible agencies. More than
any other factor, this failure by the Bohemian Club to disclose important
information about the property has slowed down the review process.
At this point, the responsible agencies have identified nineteen
stands and patches of old growth conifers on the property.
The Bohemian Club says:
Large patches of tanoak are a fire danger.
Reality:
Removal or thinning of dense stands of tanoak, and possibly other
understory hardwoods or shrubs, is a legitimate fire hazard reduction
measure on several places on the property. No permit from the Department
of Forestry is needed to remove and process tanoak trees, and the
club has, in fact, been thinning tanoak along River Rd, above Forepeak
Camp and in other areas since 2005. So this issue is being addressed
without objection and is not related to whether or not the Bohemian
Club obtains a permit to cut redwood and fir trees. It is worth noting
that the club started spraying a herbicide called Arsenal at a rate
of 70 acres per year in 2005, and this activity may be aggravating
the problem of tanoak mortality and associated fire danger.
For more information, please call John Hooper, Coordinator,
Bohemian Redwoods Rescue Club 415-626-8880. |
