Cal-Fire Approves Timber Plan for Bohemian Grove

Cal-Fire Approves Tim­ber Man­age­ment Plan for His­toric Bohemian Grove

Plan Will Lessen Fire Dan­ger, Restore For­est Near Monte Rio

San Fran­cisco, Calif. (Decem­ber 29, 2009) – The Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Forestry and Fire Pro­tec­tion (Cal-Fire) has approved an appli­ca­tion by the Bohemian Club for a Non-Industrial Tim­ber Man­age­ment Plan.

The plan applies to 2,300 acres at the Bohemian Grove, a rus­tic retreat owned by the Bohemian Club near Monte Rio in Sonoma County. The pro­posal to selec­tively har­vest over a 20-year cycle an over­crowded sec­tion of this for­est will allow the replant­ing of red­wood seedlings and reduce the threat of a destruc­tive wild­fire to old growth trees and sur­round­ing property.

“For the past sev­eral years we have worked with a vari­ety of envi­ron­men­tal agen­cies, pro­fes­sional foresters and Cal-Fire to craft a plan that pro­tects the majes­tic old growth trees on our prop­erty, pre­serves impor­tant wildlife habi­tat and allows us to lower the very real risk of a cat­a­strophic fire,” said Emmett Mac­Corkle, Pres­i­dent of the Bohemian Club. “We appre­ci­ate the deci­sion made by Cal-Fire to approve this plan. For more than a cen­tury, the Bohemian Club has been work­ing to restore this for­est and pro­tect it for future gen­er­a­tions. This plan will allow us to con­tinue that effort.”

Any rev­enue gen­er­ated by tim­ber har­vest­ing will be re-invested in for­est restora­tion at the Bohemian Grove, where the Club has been plant­ing 15,000 red­wood seedlings annu­ally as part of the effort to return this prop­erty to a more nat­ural state. The Club’s plan is pro­jected to result in the reduc­tion of more than 254,000 met­ric tons of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions over the life­time of the plan.

The Bohemian Club was founded in 1872 by a group of writ­ers, musi­cians and per­form­ers seek­ing to encour­age cul­tural activ­i­ties in 19th cen­tury San Fran­cisco. The Bohemian Grove, a site used for com­mer­cial log­ging prior to the Club’s own­er­ship, was acquired by the Bohemian Club more than 100 years ago and is in the process of being restored to its pre-settlement condition.

For more infor­ma­tion on for­est restora­tion efforts at the Bohemian Grove, visit www.protectbohemiangrove.org .