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RFFI in the News
Redwood Futures brings together forest stakeholders, working session in Redway this Saturday Residents of southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work on behalf of the redwood bioregion are invited to attend the Redwood Futures Working Session this Saturday, March 13, from 12:30 to 5 p.m., at the Redway School gymnasium.
Thousands of Baby Redwoods Find New Homes in Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino Counties On Saturday the Redwood Forest Foundation distributed thousands of young redwood trees in conjunction with the Redwood Futures Summit, featuring J. Michael Fay, held at Mendocino College in Ukiah, CA.
Redwood Transect - The Challenge and the Opportunity Mike Fay and Lindsey Holm's recent transect through the redwood region resulted in a front page cover story in the October issue of National Geographic: "Redwoods--The Super Trees" by Joel Bourne.
Good holiday shopping deal
Adopting baby redwoods
Anyone want to sponsor a baby tree? Thousands of foot-tall orphaned baby redwood trees sit in rows in a Humboldt County greenhouse, products of the ongoing economic slump and changes in forestry practices.
National Geographic explorer speaks at ISF fundraiser; old growth forest more productive, says Fay ...they also entered the Usal Forest, now owned by Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI), a non-profit corporation managing for sustainable timber. Fay had high praise for RFFI, describing their work as "awesome stuff," and urging the community to support them.
J. Michael Fay, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, packs the house at the Caspar Inn on October 26, 2009 More than 160 people packed into the Caspar Inn to engage in a conversation with J. Michael Fay, a Wildlife Conservation Society conservationist and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence.
From Redwood Summer to Redwood Summit More than 850 people took part in the Redwood Summit at Humboldt State University in Arcata on Saturday, Oct 3. The main presentation featured National Geographic photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols and Explorer-in-Residence, J. Michael Fay.
Mendocino County redwood forests featured in National Geographic documentary Art Harwood, Executive Director of the Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI), has just returned from Washington D.C. where he was featured on a National Geographic Society Panel in conjunction with the world premiere screening of their documentary "EXPLORER: Climbing Redwood Giants."
Timber beasts and tree huggers: Thinking outside the box Some local citizens who love redwoods began thinking outside the box more than a dozen years ago. Their mission: sustainability of this dwindling resource on the North Coast. Their plan: create a community forest that would be locally managed by community members for community members, as both an economic and ecological resource.
Forest Conservation Bill Introduced in the House The Community Forestry Conservation Act of 2009 was introduced by Congressman Mike Thompson and a bi-partisan group of Representatives and Senators... Supported by a broad coalition of environmentalists, private landowners and the timber industry, this bill was introduced to protect private forestland from development while keeping intact private property rights, and the jobs and businesses that are tied to the land.
Congressman Thompson Attends RFFI Annual Meeting More than eighty people attended the annual meeting of the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI), which was held on July 11 in Branscomb. Among those present was First District Rep. Mike Thompson, a longtime supporter of RFFI's efforts; following presentations by several board members, Thompson closed the meeting.
County supports easement to preserve Usal Forest timberland On June 23, 2009, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors passed a unanimous resolution supporting the Redwood Forest Foundation's (RFFI) effort to acquire state financial support to sell a Conservation Easement on their 51,000 acre Usal Redwood Forest.
Interview with Art Harwood and Richard Gienger on KMUD radio
Preserving Forests and Business As forest landowners shift their attention away from logging toward more lucrative - and destructive - uses such as suburban development, forest conservation is more crucial than ever. . .
Redwood Forest Foundation - A new approach to forest ownership The redwood region along California's north coast has a history of social conflict and community strife over the logging of its forests. The basis of the conflict has been due in part to the decisions affecting local communities being made by absentee, corporate landowners.
Community Forestry Conference The Community Forestry Conference is a three day dialog to exchange information and ideas about the concept of "community forestry" and "community forests." Community forests differ from other private or government-owned forests in that local residents play a part in the stewardship of the forestland.
RFFI names Art Harwood as Executive Director, adds board members On August 1, 2008, the Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI) held its 11th Annual Meeting in Fort Bragg. Board members, community partners, volunteers and friends convened at the Hawthorne Timber picnic grounds to review Foundation progress on forest management principles and the working community forest model.
Usal Redwood Forest group looks to state for forestry project funding A new kind of logging company has arrived on the Mendocino County scene, promising to help bring back goliath trees and king salmon, eventually providing jobs, food, good quality lumber and help with global warming.
Partnership bidding for Pacific Lumber A consortium of conservation groups and private investors including Save the Redwoods League and the Bank of America [...the Nature Conservancy, Conservation Forestry LLC, Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. and Atlas Holdings LLC] announced Tuesday it will make a bankruptcy court bid for control of Pacific Lumber Co., and nearly 210,000 acres of prized North Coast timberlands.
Another Palco plan hatched A team of investors and conservation groups has formed to pitch its own plan to reorganize the bankrupt Pacific Lumber Co. by protecting its timberland from development but logging enough to maintain a sustainable milling operation.
Save the trees so the trees can save us Redwood Forest Foundation intends to restore the forest to its natural state over the course of the coming century. In the meantime, the plans involve partnering with The Conservation Fund, a Virginia-based environmental group, to guard the land against future development. As the trees regenerate, local foresters will resume harvesting at a rate not exceeding 2 percent annually to preserve local jobs and help pay off the loan...
A Return on Redwoods For years, special-interest groups have raised money to buy and rope off wild lands to protect them. But in June a unique partnership announced it had purchased 50,635 acres of northern California redwood forest and would preserve the land by operating it as a nonprofit business. The acquisition was funded entirely by private capital. The lead group, the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI), in Gualala, Calif., claims the deal creates the first nonprofit working forest in the country and could be a model for safeguarding other natural resources.
Timber, Environmental Interests Join Forces to Prevent Fragmentation, Development At RFFI's annual meeting on June 22, longtime Petrolia resident David Simpson, an environmentalist renowned for his theater work with wife Jane Lapiner, spoke of his first meeting with Harwood. "When I met him about 20 years ago, at the height of the timber wars, I was suspicious," he said. "He was the scion of a timber family! Over the years those suspicions have been allayed, peeled away like an onion. This is a restoration of trust between environmental and timber interests. This is a celebration."
Fast forward "I firmly believe that there is a change in the way that the financial world is viewing environmental issues," said Mark Lovelace . . . "I think that there's a lot of opportunity for doing these kinds of things. Not taking land out of timber production - not locking it up in a park - but just finding a better model."
Nonprofit to by 50,635-acre forest "Our dream was to own and manage timberland for the community benefit, and this is the realization of that dream," Art Harwood, president of the Redwood Forest Foundation Inc., said Friday.
Nonprofit buys 50,000 acres of redwoods Harwood said the land, acquired from Hawthorne Timber Co., was heavily logged in the 1980s and '90s and now consists primarily of second-growth redwood and Douglas fir. "There are a few old-growth trees scattered out there, but we will not be cutting them," he said.
BofA Funds First Private Forest Conservation Purchase The deal will protect a wide swath of the Usal redwood forest in Mendocino County, about 130 miles north of San Francisco, which as a region has seen a long struggle between environmental conservationists and logging and forestry interests.
Letter from Governor Schwarzenegger's office On behalf of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, I would like to offer my congratulations to Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI) and Bank of America on their agreement to preserve 50,635 acres of Usal Redwood Forest. With the assistance of US Forest Capital, LLC, this exemplary agreement will serve as a model for privately-funded forest acquisition for conservation purposes.
Redwood Summer: These days the threat to redwood forests is not so much from clear-cutting but from subdividing, said Pete Mattson, a foundation board member and chairman of the Sonoma Land Trust. Timber owners increasingly are finding it more profitable to sell off pieces of their land to developers than to log. "I've been anti-logging for a long time," Mattson told Green Wombat. "But now I've come to see that logging is critical to preserving forests and keeping wildlife corridors intact."
$65 million financing for Mendocino forest Lawrence Selzer, chief executive of the Conservation Fund, a national environmental group based in Virginia, praised the deal as an "innovative partnership ... to protect the ecologically rich and economically productive" forest. ...
Community-based ownership models work RFFI became the first organization in the United States to be granted federal non-profit status expressly for the purpose of managing timber for harvest. It was able to do so because conservation was built into the very structure of the organization... |
Art Harwood joins panel discussion
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