Anderson Valley Advertiser

Back in 1998, the Fisher family, billionaire owners of Gap and Banana Republic stores, bought 235,000 acres of heavily logged Mendocino and Sonoma County “timberland” from Louisiana Pacific, making them the largest private landowners in Mendocino County. Despite heavily publicized promises to log responsibly and sustainably, Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) and their Humboldt division (HRC), continued clear cutting at pretty much the same destructive rate as LP had been doing, four to six percent of standing inventory per year. This is well over twice the maximum rate recommended by the late Dr. Hans Burkhardt, author of Maximizing Forest Productivity, and member of the Mendocino County Forestry Advisory Committee. Dr. Burkhardt said a rate of no more than one to two percent was necessary in order to have sustainable timber production – and he had decades of research data to back it up.