Sierra Club Defends Giant Sequoia National Monument

FOR RELEASE: February 27, 2001           

CONTACT: Brian Smith,

Earthjustice, 415-627-6700



ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS INTERVENE TO PROTECT

GIANT SEQUOIA NATIONAL MONUMENT:

Timber Industry and Off-Roaders Seek to Overturn Designation



SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Lawyers from Earthjustice and the Natural Resources

Defense Council filed court papers today opposing a lawsuit that seeks

to dismantle the newly designated Giant Sequoia National Monument,

created to conserve nearly 330,000 acres of forest ecosystems and the

last unprotected giant sequoia groves in the Sierra Nevada. The

coalition includes: NRDC, the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and

the Tule River Conservancy.



The intervention comes in response to a lawsuit filed by timber and

off-highway vehicle interests whose damaging uses of the lands now

inside the monument are eliminated or restricted by the designation.

Sadly, the industry groups have been joined by local groups and citizens

who fear the repercussions of the designation, despite having much to

gain from the new monument.  The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate

the monument designation, which President Clinton created under the

Antiquities Act on April 15, 2000.



"This legal assault on the Giant Sequoia National Monument seeks to

erase the protections that the giant sequoia groves need to survive in

the long term, and at the same time subvert the President's ability to

protect our national treasures as monuments," said Earthjustice attorney

Michael Sherwood. "The fate of the monument and the Antiquities Act as a

conservation tool are at stake. We hope to uphold both for the use and

enjoyment of future generations."



The lawsuit, brought by Sierra Forest Products, Sierra Nevada Access

Multiple-Use & Stewardship Coalition, Tulare County, and other groups,

is just one of several legal challenges to the Clinton administration's

national monument designations. Elsewhere, conservationists represented

by Earthjustice lawyers have been forced to intervene to defend the

Grand Canyon-Parashant, Canyons of the Ancients, Cascade-Siskiyou, and

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments from lawsuits seeking to

overturn their designations. Judging from past comments made by

President Bush and other officials of the new administration, the

federal government will do little to defend the new national monuments.



"The obvious antipathy of the Bush administration toward Clinton's

public lands legacy, especially the national monuments, makes it all the

more crucial that conservationists intervene in this lawsuit to defend

the Giant Sequoia Monument designation," said Nathaniel Lawrence of

NRDC, who is co-counsel for the conservation groups. "We can't count on

the new administration to mount a vigorous defense."



The 327,769-acre national monument, in the southern Sierra Nevada,

protects 34 of only 70 remaining groves of giant sequoia. These groves

are the last remnants of a once widespread species that has been a part

of the North American landscape for millions of years. Giant sequoia are

the largest trees on earth, and are among the oldest. Individual trees

can live more than 3,200 years, and preserve in their annual growth

rings a long record of climate change, drought, and fire regimes.



Because the big trees are a dependent part of the larger forest

ecosystem, the monument also includes the wide areas within each grove's

watershed, including an elevation range of 7,000 feet, habitat for

sensitive species like the Pacific fisher and great gray owl, and

multiple Native American archaeological sites.  In achieving this

protection, the monument designation eliminates only the most damaging

former uses of the area.  Though timber harvest will no longer take

place and OHV use will be reduced within its boundaries, the monument

provides for recreation of all kinds, maintains private property rights

and existing special use permits, and will allow for fuels reduction

under a new management plan.



"The fundamental purpose of the monument designation was to provide

protection to the giant sequoia, as well as to the overall ecosystem in

which these trees are found," said Jay Watson, Regional Director of The

Wilderness Society. "The giant sequoia are the sentinel trees of the

Sierra Nevada -- California's Range of Light, and they deserve complete

protection."



For all their bulk and longevity, giant sequoia are ecologically

fragile. They grow only on sites with an ample supply of subsurface

water, and their shallow roots leave them vulnerable to toppling when

the surrounding forest is cleared.



"A few years of timber harvest can do damage to a sequoia grove's

watershed and surrounding environment that takes a lifetime to repair,"

said Joe Fontaine, vice-chairman of the Sierra Club's Sequoia Task

Force. "We've known for years that in the long run it's ineffective to

protect individual trees while the forest around them is stripped bare.

Sequoia depend on a healthy forest ecosystem."



Carla Cloer, a founder of the Tule River Conservancy and chair of the

Sequoia Task Force, agreed, "Sequoia ecosystems include the physical

environment and all living organisms found where giant sequoia grow,

from soil and groundwater to bacteria, chickarees, and the big trees

themselves. The monument designation is the first management scheme that

truly recognizes these relationships."



Contacts: Michael Sherwood, Earthjustice, 415-627-6700, Nathaniel

Lawrence, Natural Resources Defense Council, 360-570-9309, Andrew

Wetzler, Natural Resources Defense Council, 323-934-6900, Carla Cloer,

Tule River Conservancy, 559-781-8445, Joe Fontaine, Sierra Club,

661-821-2055, Jay Watson, The Wilderness Society, 415-518-2604





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