It was encouraging this week to see the Humboldt County supervisors agree to add support for the Buckeye Conservancy Forest Project to the board's legislative platform.

The endorsement seems to show the board recognizes the concerns of area ranchers, who are hoping to ease regulatory burdens on landowners who cut timber as part of ranching operations.

The project is the fruit of the Buckeye Conservancy, a group of 200 ranchers, agency representatives, environmentalists and forest professionals whose aim is to protect open space through family ownership. The group speaks for about half the privately owned timberland in the county.

This diverse group of interests all have attested to a looming threat in the state and Humboldt County: The likelihood that unless regulations are eased to make non-industrial logging more feasible to private landowners, the trend toward subdividing open lands will only continue. That's because right now subdividing land is about the only way ranchers can make a profit. This subdivided land often ends up in the hands of developers or illegal marijuana growers, the latter particularly in Southern Humboldt County.

Environmentalists have supported the Buckeye project, arguing that subdivisions of the open land are a critical threat, and that environmentalists are willing to support responsible logging.

Landowners say they need the current 2,500-acre limit to acquire non-industrial timber management plans expanded, so that larger ranches can qualify. Also the Buckeye group wants to extend the current two- to three-year term limit for timber harvest plans to allow landowners more flexibility in logging their properties.

We support these goals, and praise landowners, agencies and environmentalists in working together to keep our open spaces from vanishing forever. Let's hope the Board of Supervisors can be successful in raising these issues in Sacramento. We expect our state representatives, Sen. Wes Chesbro and Assemblywoman Patty Berg, to be ready to assist.