PLEASE JOIN A RALLY AND PRESS CONFERENCE TO PROTEST THE OPENING OF BIDS AND AWARD OF A CONTRACT TO LOG 15,000 TREES FROM BRANDON GULCH, ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND ECOLOGICALLY VALUABLE CANYONS OF OUR PUBLIC REDWOOD FOREST.

The rally will begin at 12:00 noon on Tuesday April 8 at Howard Forest headquarters, approximately 4 miles south of Willits on the east side of Hwy 101 (at the summit between Willits and Ukiah). Picnic tables are available and music will be provided. Make a fun time out of displaying your support for restoring rather than logging our public forest.

Carpools are being arranged. If you can offer a ride or need a ride, please reply to this email with your location and phone number.

Forests Forever, our San Francisco coalition partner, will hold a press conference to protest the at the rally. We need at least thirty to fifty people at the rally to impress the media with the strength of opposition to state logging plans.

The California Department of Forestry (CDF) is trying to minimize the public’s ability to protest by moving the bid opening to Howard Forest from Fort Bragg, where all previous bid openings have occurred. Let’s show CDF that we will not be defeated by their cheap tricks.

The Brandon Gulch logging is only the first salvo in the state’s attack on our forest. Bids are also being solicited now for logging in Camp3 in the central recreation area of the forest and adjacent to Brandon Gulch. The two plans cover 900 acres of 100-year-old redwood forest. More than 30,000 trees and 20 million board feet of timber will be taken from the largest area of undisturbed old second growth redwood forest in Mendocino County.

In the midst of the U.S. attack on Iraq, thinking about anything else is difficult. But, we can’t stand by while our state government destroys the most precious ecological and recreational part of Jackson State Forest. Please join us if you possibly can.

For more information, please call Linda Perkins and Bill Heil at 937-0903, Vince Taylor at 937-3001 or Lily Parsons at 964-2352.