Pierce Brosnan helps save some ancient trees from Californian legal loop-holes

After actor Pierce Brosnan became the latest celebrity to back a ban on logging California's oldest trees, an Assembly committee Monday passed a bill it had stymied last year, reports NBC11.com.

Brosnan, the latest actor to play secret agent James Bond, urged the Assembly to follow the Senate in approving a bill that would allow only emergency logging in private and state forests of large hardwoods, redwoods, giant sequoias, Douglas firs and Port Orford cedars that were growing when commercial logging began in 1850, the year California became a state.

After it had delayed the bill last year, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee approved it 7-1 Monday, but only after bill sponsor Sen. Don Perata promised he will resolve provisions that committee members said could hurt responsible landowners.

Timber land owners argued the bill will harm the economies of rural timber communities, which have already been pounded by restrictions on logging. It will also make millions of dollars of valuable timber impossible to sell, thereby forcing owners to chop it down before the legislation makes it worthless, said representatives of the California FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) Certified Landowners, a group of land owners who cut timber.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also opposes the bill as "unnecessary and scientifically unsound" because old growth forests are protected under other existing laws. That's not enough, bill supporters said.

"These ancient trees are a link to our past and our hope for the future," Brosnan said at a news conference before the vote. "Along our coastlines, deep in the valleys, atop the mountains and in the forests, old growth trees are a living symbol of California's natural, historical, cultural heritage."

His wife, environmental activist Keely Brosnan, called the trees "a natural wonder" that provide important habitat for many species, including endangered ones.

Singer Bonnie Raitt and famed tree-sitter Julia "Butterfly" Hill previously endorsed a variation of the bill that backers tried unsuccessfully to put before voters in the form of a ballot initiative.

Only 3 percent of the trees remain, and of those just 1 percent are on nonfederal land and would be affected by the bill, said Perata, D-Oakland. The Campaign for Old Growth estimates the bill could protect as many as 3 million trees spread over millions of acres, mainly in the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, Siskiyous and coastal mountains.

Meanwhile, the same committee advanced, 7-0, a bill requiring four firefighters on state wildland fire engines, instead of the current three, and extending the fire season year-round in Southern California.

It also approved, 7-0, a bill requiring counties with oak woodlands to develop measures for developers or farmers who want to remove oak trees to make up for the losses, including planting oak trees somewhere else.

Committee members also conditionally approved, 6-1, putting before voters a California Clean Air Bond Act. If voters approve, the state would borrow $5.15 billion to pay for converting farm equipment to cleaner-burning technology, to offer farmers incentives to phase out agricultural burning, to research and reduce emissions from confined animal facilities, and other air quality-related programs.

Thanks to `Paul` for the alert.

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