Background:  Over the last two decades, a changing regulatory climate has greatly increased the cost of securing timber harvest permits in California. Non-industrial forestland owners who prefer to log with a lighter touch have been particularly hard-hit by these changes. The cost of permitting has made light harvests less feasible, creating economic pressures to either subdivide large land holdings or leave the forest unmanaged, thereby allowing a hazardous build-up of fuels.
    At the same time, the forest -- now recovering from its original logging in the 1940s to 1990s -- can actually be helped by light-touch logging. Thinning trees can accelerate the forest's return to late seral habitat, can avoid the cycle of clearcutting young forests which carpets the landscape with young, highly flammable stands, and can fund the rehabilitation of failing roads and stream crossings that are poised to deliver sediment to creeks.

PTEIR: an innovative solution.  Program Timberland Environmental Impact Reports (PTEIRs) can offer a route through this regulatory tangle. Authorized by the state Forest Practice Rules (Sec. 1092), PTEIRs include many of the environmental reviews that individual projects would normally undergo, such as wildlife studies, watershed issues, and cumulative effects, saving landowners from having to repeat the same reviews in their logging plans.

Another advantage is that nearby projects can be evaluated together instead of piecemeal, making the environmental analysis more closely reflect the overall impact. PTEIRs apply to specific land-management practices in a specific area. Once a PTEIR is completed for that area, landowners can file Program Timber Harvest Plans (PTHPs) if they are proposing to use those practices, with far less paperwork than a regular THP. Logging must still meet the forestry standards in place at the time of harvest. One forester who has prepared a PTEIR and related PTHP estimates the cost savings at 40 to 65 percent.

Coming soon: a Mattole PTEIR.  The Mattole Restoration Council has prepared a draft PTEIR for the entire Mattole basin, which can be downloaded in three parts here. The MRC convened neighborhood meetings and a scientific advisory committee to gather the best local and technical knowledge about the state of the watershed. A steering committee composed of local landowners, forestry practitioners and non-profits, and environmental activists has guided the process at key steps along the way.

Because the watershed is so large, it was analyzed in several parts, or sub-basins. After public comment, responses to public comments (and possible adjustments as a result), and certification by the director of CAL FIRE, Mattole landowners who work within the framework of the PTEIR will able to log under a PTHP - like an "EZ" form THP.

The MRC's goal:  We advocate the sustainable use of Mattole forests and rangelands as a key foundation of local livelihoods. A PTEIR will give landowners further incentive to use light-touch logging, and may enlarge the area of the Mattole under active forest management - thereby creating new opportunities for woodsworkers and reducing fire hazard.