-- Campaign For Old Growth | Reference Article --

EDITOR: In your editorial of Jan. 10 on the dreaded oak fungus, sudden oak death disease, that has now been found on redwood trees, you stated that, "unlike the grape growers, who unified to fight the glassy-winged sharpshooter ... there is no single, politically powerful industry lobby for the state's trees."

The timber industry is one of the most powerful lobbies in California. It pours millions of dollars into politicians' pockets to prevent effective regulation of corporate logging practices such as clear-cutting, toxic herbicide use, decimation of the old-growth forest, the muddying of our rivers and the deliberate, systematic extinction of the state's salmon population and wildlife.

The redwood, once famous for its resistance to disease, is now a degraded species, grown in devastated watersheds that have lost their soils and biodiversity, and is cut down as a very young tree at 16 inches diameter. Builders shun it. It's called "yellow redwood" because of its cheap, pulpy properties.

(The coast redwood can grow to 20 feet in diameter of strong, tight-grained, disease-resistant, fire-resistant wood, in an old growth forest.)

Let those who have destroyed the redwood forest now explain, and pay for, this fungus that threatens to extinguish Calif-ornia's signature tree for all time.

MARY PJERROU
Greenwood Watershed Association
Elk