40 



I want you to notice, though, here that to the east there is the 

 Great Basin Desert, and to the south we have the Mojave Desert. 

 So it is £in island of hfe surrounded by desert. 



The agency which controls this southern end of the Sierra Ne- 

 vada is the Sequoia National Forest. This is also Sequoia National 

 Forest, so not ^1 of this national forest is forested. 



With harsh conditions, low rainfall, shallow soils, steep slopes, 

 short winters, it is a miracle that conifers can grow here at all. But 

 the great towering peaks of the Sierra wring out the moisture 

 brought in from the Pacific. 



Forest establishment depends on luck. Occasional cycles of good 

 growing conditions break the usual pattern of dryness so trees can 

 take hold. However, these cycles of better conditions are precarious 

 and unpredictable. Nature dictates that this is not a good place to 

 try to establish a tree farm. 



Now, at the edge of its range, the Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer 

 forests are presided over by the monarch of the Sierra, the giant 

 sequoia. 



This is my favorite summer place. Camp Nelson. The mountains 

 in the background would be in the preserve. 



In the background here we have a hill called Jordan Peak, and 

 as a kid, I used to ride my horse behind this mountain and go to 

 the top of it, going through old-growth fir forests, and it was my 

 very favorite place in the world. 



Now, as an adult, I knew there was a lot of logging that had gone 

 on back there. I had seen it on the ground and on maps, but I real- 

 ly was not prepared for what I would see when I first flew over this 

 forest. The next slide will show you what is on the other side of 

 Jordan Peak. 



Jordan Peak is in the middle, and all of those cleared areas in 

 the front are clearcuts. In the distance you can see my hometown 

 of Porterville. 



My favorite meadow was surrounded by clearcuts. You can see 

 the meadow down here in the bottom. 



Today, Sequoia National Forest contains over 1,650 clearcut 

 patches like you see here, accented by the snow. The clearcuts in 

 this photo have all occurred in the past 10 years. 



This logging is forestwide; for example, here on the Great West- 

 em Divide and here on the Sequoia National Park boundary. 



You will hear about other issues from our experts: watershed 

 d£images, loss of soil, a hillside that is unraveling below a clearcut. 



In spite of this overlogging, you may be told today that logging 

 this forest is a viable option. But adding insult to injury. Sequoia 

 National Forest is having a real problem in growing back its logged 

 areas. 



Here we have a unit in the Evans sale. It was planted in 1966 

 and again in 1970. Today it is primarily a brush field. 



This is the Castle Rock sale, logged in 1973. Sequoia National 

 Forest claims that, overall, it has a 93 percent success rate in its 

 reforestation. That figure is based upon a reforestation report writ- 

 ten in 1991. 



The next slide is going to be of one of the units that is specifi- 

 cally described in that report. There is a unit which was logged in 

 1964. That means that it is a 30-year-old plantation. The report 



