Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Background
• Upper Mattole River and Forest Cooperative (UMRFC) was created in 1999 through
signing of an MOU.
• Signatory participants to the MOU are: Sanctuary Forest, Save the Redwoods
League, Restoration Forestry, California State Parks, California State Coastal
Conservancy, CA Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Bureau of Land
Management, CA Department of Fish and Game.
Limitations
• This draft plan is a vision for how to maintain old-growth, salmonid, wildlife and other
resources through voluntary and collaborative actions.
• The plan is non-binding.
• The plan is NOT a CEQA or NEPA document
• Plan scope was developed through consultation with UMRFC members, Sanctuary
Forest committees, Community Focus Groups and Visioning Questionnaire
Scope
• Plan Topics are: Forests & Fire, Watershed and Fisheries, Wildlife & Habitat, Scenic
Resources, Cultural Resources, Public Access, Trails & Recreation, Education and
Interpretation, Roads and Transportation, Economic and Community Development,
Connectivity and Collaboration
• Plan considers and makes recommendation for management of all lands within the
planning area.
Format
• Each Plan Topic Includes:
– Current Conditions: Describes current status of resources
– Preliminary Public Input: Describes public interest and concern from focus groups
– Management Goals: Describes values UMRFC would adopt and policies to
achieve them
– Projects: Actions that would achieve management goals.
Scenic Resources
Current Conditions
• Impression of unbroken forested landscape
• Elements of scenic Briceland-Thorn Road Corridor: Redwood and other groves;
Meadows; Ridgetops; River; Night Sky; Shrines
• Impacts to scenic resources: Rural residential development; Littering and dumping;
Outdoor lights; Utility lines; Generators; Roadside vegetation management; Industrial
forestry
Scenic Resources
Preliminary Public Feedback
• Scenic beauty is reported as a core value and benefit to living here.
• This is identified as: peace and quiet, river, hills and trees, stars at night.
• Freedom to enjoy forest is important
Scenic Resources
Management Goals
• Protect visual integrity of views from roadways by:
– Limiting visual impacts of rural residential development.
– Discourage placement of commercial signage.
– Discourage outdoor lighting left on all night
– Request modifications to logging activities with significant visual impacts.
– Limit visual impacts of clearing rights-of-way
Scenic Resources
Proposed Projects
• Promote and develop a program of roadside trash clean-up.
• Promote and encourage a program of abandoned car removal.
• Identify and develop scenic pull-outs along County roadways.
• Explore designation of County roadways as “scenic byways”.
• Develop river access points.
Cultural Resources
Current Conditions
• Understanding of cultural resources is just beginning.
• Most significant theme is the changing human uses and impact of the natural
resources as they are today.
• Native American: Archaeological evidence going back 5,000 to 10,000 years.
• Sinkyone people occupied headwaters around 1400 B.C., Athabaskan speakers.
• Fist record of Euro-Americans in Mattole 1832
• Period of “ethnic cleansing”, Sinkyone dispersed.
• Area settled by Euro-Americans in 1850’s
• Presence of redwood led to development of timber industry, then tan-bark boom,
tractor logging
• “Back to the land” movement
• Extensive Native American cultural sites both archaeological and traditional cultural
properties
• InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council and Bear River Band often serves as Tribal
Consultation
• Euro-American cultural resources include: logging history, historic apple orchards,
stage coach house, unique local architecture.
Cultural Resources
Preliminary Public Feedback
• Topic was not addressed in focus groups
Cultural Resources
Management Goals
• Conserve, protect and where appropriate interpret cultural resources within the
UMRFC, particularly those that reflect the history of land management.
• Honor Native American heritage by developing a formal relationship with the
InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council as the consulting tribal entity in regards to
management of Native American cultural resources within the UMRFC
Cultural Resources
Proposed Projects
• Undertake a formal cultural resource inventory of UMRFC lands that would:
• Develop relevant historical themes.
• Identify all cultural resources on UMRFC lands.
• Lead to nomination of any significant cultural resources to State and National
registers.
• Create a mechanism of collaboration and cooperation for management of cultural
resources outside of the UMRFC.
• Create a public awareness and educational program to promote historical study,
interpretation and conservation of cultural resources.