Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department
2550 Ventura Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA 95403

Sonoma County General Plan 2020 Citizens Advisory Committee

Re: Conversions of Forest Land

07/25/2002

Citizens' Advisory Committee:

To quote from the June 20, 2002, PRMD staff analysis of timber conversion: "In recent years ... as vineyards have expanded into previously unplanted hillsides and forests, conversion applications have increased. This recent increase, while relatively minor to date, suggests a trend that threatens the County’s timber base. Minor timber conversions involving less than 3 acres have also occurred and have raised concerns from neighboring residents in many cases." [http://www.sonoma-county.org/prmd/gp2020/pdf/tmbrcon4.pdf]

We and many others have noted this alarming threat to the County's timber base. But the threat goes beyond timber concerns – conversions impact the complete ecological health of the County, since they involve erosion, herbicide runoff, water diversion, and loss of wildlife habitat.

Why should anyone care about these conversions, especially the tiny ones? To emphasize the point, we mention the recent Living Planet Report by the World Wildlife Federation:

The report <http://www.panda.org/livingplanet/lpr02/> shows that humans are currently running a huge deficit with the Earth - using over 20 percent more natural resources each year than can be regenerated - and this figure is growing each year. Projections based on likely scenarios of population growth, economic development and technological change, show that by 2050, humans will consume between 180 percent and 220 percent of the Earth's biological capacity. According to the report, this means that unless governments take urgent action, by 2030, human welfare, as measured by average life expectancy, educational level, and world economic product will go into decline.

In that light, we urge you to adopt Option 3 from the same PRMD analysis. Among the proposed alternatives, Option 3 will do the most to safeguard our local ecosystem, while the oversight of the conversion process by the Dept. of Forestry is cursory and inadequate, where it even obtains.

Respectfully,

Jay Halcomb
RRRAUL