For over 15 years Green Diamond Resource Company (and formerly Simpson Timber Company) have been intensively clearcutting in the Little River Watershed. That trend is continuing into 2010. This year, the focus of Green Diamond’s logging operations in the Little River Watershed appears to be squared in the Headwaters.
There are currently three more logging operations filed for the Headwaters Little River Planning Watershed. Three Timber Harvest Plans (1-10-011, 1-10-014, & 1-10-015) will combine to operate on 380 acres in the Headwaters Little River Planning Watershed, which totals 8,988 acres in size. Of this, a total of 291 acres combine will be clearcut. The rest is selection near watercourses, road construction, and small habitat retention areas.
Clearcutting has been the prefered method of logging in the Little River Watershed over the last 10 years. Within the 27,703 acre Little River Watershed, of which Green Diamond owns 26,041 acres, approximately 2,015.5 acres have been clearcut over the last ten years. This does not include any other type of logging that has been conducted in the last 10 years. A view of the ten-year cumulative impacts analysis map reveals a patchwork of clearcuts dominating the landscape.
This trend is not set to change any time soon. According to THP 1-10-1015, Green Diamond plans to cut another 1,482 acres over the next 10 years, 1,277 acres by clearcut. Green Diamond claims that clearcutting is the best way to ‘manage’ for homogenous, even-aged stands. It also happens to be the best way to fragment the landscape, displace resident species, and reduce the quality and quantity of habitat for species utilizing the watershed.
Little River is home to Steelhead trout, Cutthroat trout, and Coho salmon. The biological assessment area for these plans also includes Northern Spotted Owls (NSO), Pacific Fisher, and Tailed Frogs. While Green Diamond does have an NSO Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), and an Aquatics HCP, they currently do not have coverage for Pacific Fisher, which is now a California Candidate Species for listing.
These three THP’s are all still open to public comment. All of these plans are posted online, at Cal Fire’s THP library website.
Please let Cal Fire know what you think of Green Diamond’s intensive clearcutting in Little River by submitting comments to santarosapubliccomment@fire.ca.gov.