opinion
Pine Mountain is a much-loved recreation area close to Patagonia’s headquarters. We have more than 700 employees here, many of whom work at Patagonia because of their passion for the outdoors and for recreation opportunities in the Los Padres National Forest.
The public lands encompassed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service’s Reyes Peak Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project on the Pine Mountain Ridge are vital to our company and the greater outdoor industry. In California, the outdoor industry generates more than $92 billion in consumer spending, contributes $6.2 billion in state and local tax revenue and directly supports 691,000 jobs. Areas like Pine Mountain provide recreation opportunities ranging from bird watching to backpacking to climbing. Our business depends on these places where people can recreate, and wildlife can thrive.
Pine Mountain is a culturally significant area to the Chumash people and home to some of the most diverse habitats in the Los Padres National Forest. The area hosts the greatest diversity of coniferous tree species in Ventura County, which occur next to large expanses of rare old-growth chaparral. Altogether, the ridge is home to over 400 species of native plants, including dozens that are rare or sensitive. The area is also home to several species of wildlife that depend on the mountain’s unique ecosystems. Mountain lions, black bears, bobcats and numerous species of birds and small mammals can be found in and around the project area.
Patagonia strongly opposes the project, which would allow the logging of centuries-old trees and the clearance of rare old-growth chaparral along six miles of the prominent ridge known as Pine Mountain. The project will require the use of mechanical equipment and may involve the creation of skid trails and the construction of temporary roads, all of which can cause significant damage to soil, water, and plants. It is likely that the Forest Service will allow private logging companies to profit from the timber harvest in exchange for services, which all but ensures that forest health will not remain a priority.
More than 30% of the project is within two proposed additions to the Sespe Wilderness approved by the House of Representatives with the passage of the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act earlier this year. The legislation would designate an area along part of the western portion of the ridge and an area that includes Reyes Peak. Patagonia has advocated for the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act since it was first introduced by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). The bill recently passed as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. It makes no sense to cause lasting damage to an old-growth forest that the House has already voted to designate as wilderness.
Moreover, damaging old-growth forests will not achieve the stated goal of the program: to reduce wildfire risk. In fact, the Forest Service itself has found that old-growth forests are less likely to experience high-severity fire than young-growth forests during wildfires. This suggests that old-growth forest could be leveraged to provide valuable fire refuges that support forest biodiversity and buffer the extreme effects of climate change on fire.
Additionally, old growth forests are known to be carbon sinks, making this a particularly bad idea, only to exacerbate fire danger in Ventura County by removing one of our most effective natural mitigation tools to combat climate change. Finally, this area is not near any community. To more effectively mitigate fire risk, the project should be focused on areas directly adjacent to homes where science has shown such activity to be more effective.
The Forest Service’s effort to improperly define this project as wildfire mitigation is solely an effort to avoid requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act to conduct a detailed study of potential impacts to the area’s unique ecosystems. These loopholes would also limit the public’s ability to voice their concerns while eliminating the official objection process that helps reduce the potential for litigation. Attempting to circumvent the detailed study that NEPA requires is particularly egregious where the value of an ecosystem has been detailed so extensively as part of the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
Patagonia urges the Forest Service to withdraw this plan, and we ask others to do the same at protectpinemountain.org.
Alison Huyett works on the environmental campaigns team at Patagonia, an outdoor apparel company based in Ventura.
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Guest column: Forest Service should withdraw Reyes Peak project - VC Star
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