It’s Tuesday afternoon in downtown San Francisco. Office denizens scurry about the financial district foraging for food. I am with a small flock of displaced marbled murrelets descending on the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein to lodge an urgent plea for the conservation the murrelets 2000 year old redwood forest home, Nanning Creek (see more pictures of the ‘fly in’ here). Also see the report from Indybay for pics and background…

It is the latest chapter in the fight to preserve the world’s last remaining stands of ancient redwood forest. Unfortunately, most folks stopped following the story after Feinstein successfully brokered a deal to purchase and protect 10,000 acres of coastal redwoods from Pacific Lumber back in 1999. The deal, of course, was a good thing. Without it, those 10,000 acres would be facing the same fate as Nanning Creek.

The tragedy is that just six years later, Charles Hurwitz, President of Pacific Lumber’s parent company Maxxam is driving the company into a financial nose dive, and taking the forests down with it. According to a really excellent article by Christopher Helman in the latest Forbes,

"Absent some regulatory relief Maxxam’s timber business, according to the latest filings, may be forced to sell off operations and file for Chapter 11. At a recent $33 Maxxam’s shares are trading at half what they were six years ago. Any other chief executive would have been booted by now. But Hurwitz controls 76% of the voting shares."

The company is in its final death throws, making a last ditch effort to placate its creditors by liquidating a global treasure.

Nobody–including the hapless ‘consumer’ who buys the decks and patio furniture that these forests will produce–wants to see an ancient redwood forest fall. What’s missing is a critical mass of awareness and action to generate the political leverage to stop it.

Groups like EPIC and WeSave Trees.org are working to keep the pressure on in the courts and in the woods, but they need help to get the word out. Click on the links above to lend ‘em a hand and send a letter to the editor of your favorite paper while you’re at it.