Forests – Enviro Updates

Op-Ed: You may not believe in climate change, but your insurance company does

July 24, 2026

Marylee Guinon. PRESS DEMOCRAT

In 2020, lightning-initiated fires burned more than 4 million acres of California. This year’s predicted super El Niño event may make 2026 the worst of times. Now is not the time to point fingers, but to make informed decisions within your control.

Prioritize actions you can take to prevent experiencing a total loss of your home, precious memories and years of your life spent building your life back. Simply relying upon the insurers, Insurance Commissioner, politicians, first responders or sheer luck in wind-driven structure to structure fires will not protect you.

Insurance companies have sophisticated risk models, recognized by Department of Insurance (DOI), to determine the risk to structures. Recently the DOI acknowledged climate change and the actual risks before structures burned, which allowed for necessary, yet painful rate hikes. While DOI Insurance Commissioners will come and go, climate change and wind-driven wildfires will only increase resulting in catastrophic community burnover.

State and local governments continue to approve new development in high fire-prone areas. As existing and new development increase structure density, catastrophic structure-to-structure fires have increased. Fire departments and water supplies cannot extinguish fire when it engulfs entire communities. Utility infrastructures are not built to survive 80 mph winds. These factors make it more imperative that homeowners prepare their properties for wildfire.

Climate Change & Energy, Forestsdevelopment, SAFRR, wildfire hazard, wildfires, wildland urban interface

Controversial Jenner logging plan withdrawn after more than a year of review

June 19, 2026

Emma Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Sonoma County family’s logging plan for more than 1,000 acres of forest near the mouth of the Russian River has been withdrawn amid opposition from nearby community members and heavy state scrutiny.

The plan, initially proposed by landowner Bruce Berry in early 2025, encountered sharp pushback from local residents and environmental groups worried about the impact timber harvesting could have on a watershed that supports imperiled salmon runs and supplies drinking water for the village of Jenner.

On June 6, following numerous rounds of plan reviews with input from multiple state and regional agencies, as well as a significant pile of public comment letters, Berry withdrew his proposal for a nonindustrial timber management plan.

Forests, WaterCalFire, Jenner, logging, salmon habitat, Sheephouse Creek, timber harvest plan

Santa Rosa approves redrawn fire hazard maps

May 13, 2026

Paulina Pineda, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Roughly 3,100 more properties fall within risk zones; opponents fear insurance rate hikes

Santa Rosa leaders approved updates to the city’s fire hazard areas in what they described as a push to better safeguard the city from another destructive wildfire.

About 3,100 properties across parts of Bennett Valley and in Oakmont will be added to the city’s so-called wildland urban interface, or WUI, under the expanded boundaries.

The approval Tuesday by a 6-0 vote came over objections from a group of residents who have raised questions about the process used to craft the maps and the implications for their properties.

The neighbors, who live in the area surrounding Matanzas Creek south of Hoen Avenue, worry they could see property insurance rates rise or lose coverage altogether by being included in the updated boundaries.

Climate Change & Energy, Forestsfire safety vegetation rules, Santa Rosa, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

California tribes could help oversee ancestral redwoods again

May 12, 2026

Lila Seidman, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Daniel Felix, 10, looks out from atop a gargantuan stump of an old-growth redwood on his tribe’s ancestral land. Once, this forest on California’s North Coast was replete with the ancient behemoths that can live beyond 2,000 years.

Only a fraction are left now, depleted by a logging company before the state acquired the forest in the 1940s.

This is unique public land, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, spanning 50,000 acres in Mendocino County. Trees are plentiful here, but they might not live a millennium. California’s 14 demonstration forests are required to produce and sell timber to show — or “demonstrate” — sustainable practices. Money from logging — roughly $8.5 million a year — pays for management of the forests by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

Daniel’s tribe, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, has pushed to rein in the cutting — spearheaded by his late great-grandmother, Priscilla Hunter. They’re part of a diverse coalition that includes environmental activists, local politicians and other tribes.

Now they may finally get their wish. Assembly member Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, has introduced a bill that would nix the forests’ logging mandate, instead prioritizing values such as carbon storage, wildfire resilience and biodiversity.

ForestsAB2494, carbon sequestration, forest management, forest regeneration, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, logging, Pomo, prescribed burns, redwoods

State forestry board new rules for California’s new ‘Zone Zero’ fire-safety proposal

April 23, 2026

Noah Haggerty, LOS ANGELES TIMES

CalFire Defensible Space webpage

After years of heated debates among fire officials, scientists and local advocates, California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection released new proposed landscaping rules for fire-prone areas Friday that outline what residents can and can’t do within the first 5 feet of their homes.

Many of these proposed rules — designed to reduce the risk of a home burning down amid a wildfire — have wide support (or at least acceptance); however, the most contentious by far has been whether the state would allow healthy plants in the zone.

Many fire officials and safety advocates have essentially argued anything that can burn, will burn and have supported removing virtually anything capable of combustion from this zone within 5 feet of houses, dubbed “Zone Zero.” They point to the string of devastating urban wildfires in recent years as reason to move quickly.

Forests, Land UseCalifornia Board of Forestry, fire safety vegetation rules, Safety Zone, wildfires, Zone Zero

Logging plan for Jenner forestland riles coastal community

March 23, 2026

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

For several generations, the Berry family has logged the forest on their sprawling coastal property near the mouth of the Russian River to feed a sawmill they continue to operate a few miles upstream.

But the family’s latest plan for 1,099 acres of forest they own overlooking the river near its outlet at Jenner has riled this small community, raising concerns about the long-term impacts on drinking water and imperiled salmon runs that have yet to recover from a century of destructive commercial logging.

Bruce Berry, proprietor of Berry’s Mill and Lumberyard in Cazadero, is seeking state approval to thin his family’s forestland, which borders the river’s north bank, with the protected Jenner Headlands Preserve to the west.

The proposal has sparked concerns among some local residents and with environmentalists, who have waged a larger fight in recent decades over the scope of modern commercial logging on the coast. Stretching back to the Gold Rush-era, the region was razed for its redwoods and fir trees, producing lumber that helped build San Francisco — and rebuild it after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Forestscoho salmon, Douglas fir, redwoods, Russian River, salmon habitat, Sheephouse Creek

Op-Ed: Rural California needs help with fire mitigation

March 6, 2026

Anne Cottrell, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Disaster Resiliency and Coverage Act of 2025 (H.R. 1105), currently pending before Congress, is a critical step toward narrowing the insurance protection gap.

Natural disasters in California are no longer rare or predictable. Wildfires burn hotter and faster. Atmospheric rivers cause record flooding in places that have never flooded before. Rural counties are on the front lines of this volatility.

In Napa County, where I serve on the Board of Supervisors, the 2020 Glass Fire left an indelible mark. Over 23 days, it destroyed 1,555 homes and commercial buildings, displacing families and reshaping entire neighborhoods. This was not an isolated incident; events such as the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire and the 2017 Sonoma Complex Fire had already left a devastating mark on the region.

Disasters like this are happening more often, and for rural communities, the growing risk carries a steep financial cost. Homeowners’ insurance is becoming unaffordable or, in some cases, unobtainable altogether.

Forestsbuilding hardening, building retrofits, fire prevention