Mendocino Trail Stewards’ Letter to the Assembly in Support of AB2494
Mendocino Trail Stewards
P.O. Box 1834, Mendocino, CA 95460
mendocinotrailstewards.org
March 11, 2026
Isaac Bryan
Chair, Assembly Committee on Natural Resources
California State Assembly
Sacramento, California 95814
Re: Hearing on AB2494 - Demonstration State Forest Management
Dear Chair Bryan and Members of the Committee:
The Mendocino Trail Stewards write in strong support of AB 2494, and we ask the Committee to move this bill forward without delay. Changing the mandate of Jackson Demonstration State Forest has been the central mission of our organization since we were founded in 2020. AB 2494 is the bill we have been working toward.
We are a community-based organization rooted in the Mendocino Coast. Our 4,035 constituents are hikers, trail runners, mountain bikers, foragers, birders, and neighbors; people who walk in Jackson Forest regularly, who know its trails, its streams, its old growth remnants, and its clearcuts. We serve as a public watchdog on forest management decisions, we track every Timber Harvest Plan (THP) filed for Jackson, we voluntarily maintain trails that are neglected by Cal Fire, and we educate our community about how to engage in the public process. Jackson is, as we like to say, the People's Forest. It belongs to all Californians, and we believe it deserves to be managed as such.
For decades, that has not been the case. The governing law, the State Demonstration Act, was written in 1947, when old growth logging was still being openly demonstrated as a model practice, and when the Northern Pomo people whose homeland these forests occupied had no seat at any table. Under that mandate, Cal Fire has been required to manage Jackson primarily as a commercial timber operation, and log a few of the other forests as well, with the proceeds from logging funding the entire demonstration forest system statewide. The result is a forest subjected to repeated industrial harvest cycles, degraded watersheds, compromised wildlife habitat, and a network of haul roads that scar the landscape and create ongoing erosion problems. The law has forced Cal Fire's hand, even as the science, the climate, and California's own stated policy priorities have moved in an entirely different direction.
AB 2494 changes this. It replaces a mandate built around maximum timber yield with one built around what this forest and this moment actually demands: climate resilience, carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection, restoration, recreation, fire safety, and meaningful Tribal cogovernance. Crucially, it also addresses the structural funding problem by directing resources through the Timber Regulation and Forest Restoration Fund rather than requiring the forest to pay for itself through uncertain timber sales. This is the change that makes everything else possible. For too long, the logging mandate has been defended not on ecological grounds, but on financial ones. AB 2494 removes that argument.
Moreover, alarmist claims that the bill will eliminate jobs are not grounded in fact. The state-funded restoration effort known as Redwood Rising is designed to address an area similar in size and budget to Jackson, yet generates far more jobs. These jobs are higher paying and more secure from disruptions arising from economic downturns or legal challenges than Jackson Forest is today. Despite claims to the contrary, such restoration efforts do continue to log overcrowded trees that compound fire risk and slow the return to mature forest conditions, and substantial revenues can be produced in the process.
We also want to note that this effort has a history. In 2004, SB 1648, a bill with a similar purpose, passed both chambers of the Legislature, only to be left unsigned by Governor Schwarzenegger. The North Coast has been waiting over twenty years for this to be corrected. The ecological costs of delay are not abstract: they are measured in acres logged, in salmon streams degraded, in carbon released, in trails and campgrounds closed. The window to protect and restore what remains is not unlimited.
AB 2494 aligns squarely with Governor Newsom's Executive Order N-82-20 and the state's 30x30 initiative. Passage of this bill would make all 14 demonstration forests, nearly 85,000 acres of publicly owned land, eligible for 30x30 protections. That is a significant and achievable conservation gain, and it is right here, ready to act on.
We recognize that AB 2494, like any significant policy change, may benefit from careful refinement as it moves through the legislative process. We welcome that process and look forward to working constructively with the Committee, the bill's authors, Cal Fire, Tribal representatives, and other stakeholders to ensure this legislation delivers on its promise. What we ask is simply that the Committee give it the hearing it deserves and advance it to the floor.
Jackson Forest has been waiting a long time to become a Demonstration Forest for the 21st Century. We urge you to help make that happen.
With appreciation for your service to California's public lands,
The Mendocino Trail Stewards Steering Committee
Chet Jamgochian
Marilyn Lemos
John O’Brien
Lynne Paschal
Paul Schulman
mendocinotrailstewards@gmail.com
