From Mendocino county Public Broadcasting this the KZYX News for Monday, Aug. 9. I’m Sonia Waraich, a Report for America corps member.
The Jackson Advisory Group meeting last Tuesday started like just about any other local government meeting.
That’s George Hollister. He’s a small forest land owner and chair of the group known as the JAG. The advisory group was formed just over a decade ago in 2008 to offer recommendations to CAL FIRE and the Board of Forestry about how best to manage Jackson Demonstration State Forest in the public interest.
The advisory group can be composed of up to 14 members with applicable knowledge, ranging from registered professional foresters and land owners to biologists and conservationists. It currently includes industrial forestland managers and recreation advocates.
Those are activists who ended up shutting down the meeting.
After leading a march to the Fort Bragg Town Hall, they were initially quiet, allowing a couple staffers like Jason Serna, the timber sale program manager at Jackson State, to get through their presentations.
But it wasn’t long before Chair Hollister lost control of the meeting.
While logging has been a contentious issue in the county for decades, interest in preventing commercial logging in Jackson State has grown over the past year, triggered by a timber harvest plan in the forest called the Caspar 500, which is close to residential communities and a popular recreation destination.
Activists have been engaging in direct action to stop the logging and in June it worked. Cal fire temporarily paused logging in the area to gather local input through a series of town halls.
The meeting Tuesday was the culmination of those meetings and the community came with its concerns.
The meeting was intended for Cal fire and Jackson State staff to address those concerns, but that’s not how things ended up playing out.
During one portion of the meeting, a handful of protesters began chanting. As a result, CAL FIRE staff weren’t able to get through their presentations.
The JAG members decided to continue discussion on the agenda items to their meeting in the field at Jackson State at the end of this month.
That’s John Anderson, a member of the advisory group and head of the Mendocino Redwood Company.
As a member of the JAG, Anderson said he didn’t find the tactics used by the protesters to be very productive.
For the KZYX News, I’m Sonia Waraich. For all our local stories, with photos and more, visit KZYX.org. You can also subscribe to the kzyx news podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
