In the heat of the day last summer, a cast of unlikely characters would meet under an old oak tree outside of Bridgeville. They were looking for ways to help the ranchers who own the land, Graham and Gloria Cottrell -- and by extension family landowners like them -- make a living so they can hang on to the land. Not surprisingly, the landowners, the state and federal agency employees, and the environmentalists under the oak had their own ideas on how to do this.

They face an array of rules that are among the strictest and most complicated in the world, and the most expensive. Logging, endangered species and water-quality rules are written more for the bad operator and the large, industrial owner and they don't account for one important element: the sense of stewardship the Cottrells and many others have for their land.

"No one who loves the land wants to do anything detrimental to it," said Gloria Cottrell.

The group that meets under the oak tree is the Buckeye Conservancy Forest Project. It is an unusual undertaking because landowners, agencies and environmentalists so often butt heads over the conditions in permits. The forest project is an attempt to learn each other's language and concerns, without the specter of a permit hanging over their heads.

The goal seems one in the same. Everyone involved wants to see the open space and agricultural production of these lands preserved.

Because the alternative is bleak.

A case in point is what happened to the 13,000-acre Tooby Ranch in Southern Humboldt County. That property was sold to a developer and was broken up into 160-acre lots, and many worry this isn't progress.

It's probably not as good for wildlife, for salmon or for water quality as the original property was. And it's just a smattering of what counties to the south have become transformed into.

The Cottrell property, with vast, interlinked meadows, and stands of various species of trees, seems brimming with health. It is difficult at best to see any evidence of logging there other than that some stands are obviously second-growth.

But it's tricky property too. The land is always on the move due to its unstable geology, and it borders an important salmon river, the Van Duzen. Plus, most of its valuable timber is Douglas fir, a species that doesn't command the prices redwood does.

The Cottrell family's ties to the ranch go back nearly 140 years, and Graham Cottrell has been managing the land for timber for about 35 years. Cottrell, with the help of Eureka forester Jim Able, worked up a plan to log the property on a sustainable basis, and has been cutting less than the plan allows ever since.

But Gloria Cottrell said the regulations are "coming at us so fast we feel like we could use a little relief." A single harvest plan can now cost tens of thousands of dollars to put together.

Still, she understands the concept of regulatory relief is not a simple one, primarily because it's important that it not be taken advantage of by bad operators.

"The softening of these rules and regulations," she said, "I'm not sure it can be done across the board."

From the bottom up

The formation of the Buckeye Conservancy, whose members represent some 250,000 acres in Humboldt County, was based in part on the fear of seeing well-managed land like that the Cottrell's ranch sits on go the way of ranchettes and subdivisions.

The forest project is meant to advise the California Board of Forestry with a hope to create incentives and provide some kind of regulatory relief to small- to medium-sized landowners. It's funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which gave the project $20,000 to match the Buckeye contribution, in part paid for in the time of those involved.

"The regulations are the same whether you own 5 acres or 1 million acres," said Mark Anderson, a log buyer for Schmidbauer Lumber who acts as a coordinator for the project.

There have been a number of forums called together to change that. Most recently was the Forest Stewardship Working Group, formed at the direction of California Department of Forestry Director Andrea Tuttle. But while some say that effort is still a work in progress, others feel it is gathering dust. Still, while little has changed on the ground, some movement is better than none.

"Every couple of years someone says we can make this better and incremental progress is made," said Yana Valachovic, the University of California Cooperative Extension's forest adviser.

At the same time, the regulatory process -- designed to deal with the "lowest common denominator" -- is refined and updated, Valachovic said. It's made less and less flexible, she said, because there's no trust.

Because of the adversarial nature of hearings in which rules are created, bad feelings are often formed between factions, said outgoing Buckeye Conservancy Chairman Andy Westfall.

"There have been bad things happen to land, there have been bad things happen to good people," Westfall said. "You've got to find a way to overcome bad feelings and move toward solutions."

Valachovic said the forest project is different than any other forum because there are no decision makers at the table.

Instead, the people at the table -- or under the oak -- are experienced people from resource agencies, landowners with long histories on their properties, and environmentalists who have spent years wrestling with the questions.

The flow of information is happening on the ground, in a kind of bottom-up approach.

Different means

The forest project is looking at 160 acres of the Cottrell's property and trying to find out if it's worth the expense to write logging plans, upgrade roads and take other measures to log the piece of land. Right now, it seems there would be little economic incentive to do it.

The project's first report is due out in May, and the group will try to figure out why it's not feasible, and come up with some other approaches that may change the result.

There are sometimes conflicting interests in the resources of a given property. The Cottrells don't clearcut, for example, which may be good for keeping sediment out of streams. But that may not be so good for the regeneration of trees.

Leaving big, old, dying trees may be good for wildlife that nest and feed in them, but they can be a fire hazard or act as a host for timber-eating bugs.

The forest project gives agencies a chance to discuss their individual charges -- be they salmon, spotted owls or water quality -- in a setting where work will take place.

"It affords them the opportunity to look at what, collectively, impacts they might have," Anderson said while hopping over a gurgling brook at the Cottrell's last month.

The range of costs to landowners for protecting public trust resources can be huge, said Richard Gienger, a longtime environmentalist who has wrestled with how to find regulatory relief for landowners while protecting fish and wildlife. Fixing roads and stream crossings, replanting large areas and other measures are often expensive and necessary because of how the land was managed long ago.

"You need to make them eligible for the public trust protections they can't afford to do," Gienger said. "When you start adding these up it starts to be heavy duty."

Landowners who own more than 2,500 acres aren't eligible to use a Nonindustrial Timber Management Plan, and so aren't eligible for funding to help fix problems on their land. The Nonindustrial Timber Management Plan was created by the state Legislature, and despite its shortcomings for mid-sized land holdings, those who subscribe to the plan are reluctant to go back to the Legislature to rework it. Arguably, the mid-sized landowner has more problems, just because he has more land.

But with budget mayhem in California, there are limited funds to help landowners correct these problems anyway.

For Ken Moore, an experienced environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game, the Buckeye project is a chance to understand the regulatory burden of the small landowner. That may help agencies do their job without dragging the landowner "through the knothole," Moore said.

"I have a very selfish intent here," Moore said. "I don't want to spend my time and hard work and the public's money on landowners who are doing a good job."

He sees the possibility of developing a program that might be brought before the state Board of Forestry. If a landowner is complying with the theoretical program, Moore said, the agency may feel all right about focusing its efforts elsewhere.

The forum also serves to help landowners understand the often complex regulations the agencies enforce, and the avenues for relief available to them.

Clarence Hostler, a forester for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the information sharing goes both ways. He's finding out the woes of landowners, while keeping them up to date on ever-changing rules.

"We're trying to take that information and develop solutions," Hostler said.

Charged with implementing the federal Endangered Species Act, Hostler sees possible relief through a program that sets up a Habitat Conservation Plan. That gives a landowner the permission to harm a protected species as long as the plan provides for the long-term survival of the critter.

These plans have worked better for some than others, however. They are sometimes fantastically expensive, as well. But Hostler said the program is flexible, and could even be taken up by a large group of landowners who are willing to agree to the same restrictions on their properties.

"That's one possible way to get a bigger bang for the dollar," Hostler said.

Another idea is for landowners to talk with agencies before they write up a timber harvest plan, what's called a preconsultation. Getting agency personnel to offer their concerns up front may prevent the hassle of dissecting a complex plan after it's submitted.

In that way, Anderson said, the agencies can also gain a vested interest.

A new idea: Communicate

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the project is its social component. People tend to get hardheaded when their land or lifestyle is on the table or their jobs are on the line.

But Nancy Reichard of Net Gain, a consultant and one of the facilitators of the project, said all involved have been respectful of each other's views. Part of that, Reichard believes, is the non-threatening and nebulous nature of the project.

"What can be hard is getting people interested because it can seem vague and open-ended," she said.

But interest is not a problem with this group. The project has logged well over 600 hours between May and December. And that's a group, as Reichard put it, that has a very low tolerance for unproductive meetings.

Reichard said the project is just as much a communications project as it is a forest project.

"Communication is both the root of many, if not all of the problems, and it's also the potential solution," Reichard said.

Westfall said the relationships being built within the project may at some point help dispel the feelings of many landowners that are skeptical that something good could come of such ventures.

"Everything's personal," Westfall said. "You've got to have a relationship to have a free exchange of ideas."

Those relationships are being forged, under the oak.

(c) 2003 Times-Standard. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.