How to Save Trees : Sierra Club’s stand undermines timber protection bill

California’s timber industry has been cutting four trees for every three it grows to take their place. It is worse in places like Mendocino County, so much worse that the state Department of Forestry says timberlands will not even “ begin to recover� for 500 years.

Blocking such barbaric assaults on nature is the sort of fight that the Sierra Club spoils for. But--ironically in its 100th year as protector of forests and forest creatures--it has allied itself with strange bedfellows.

The lobbying by club members has stalled three forest protection bills in the state Assembly. They could well die, leaving the state’s already depleted timber resources naked to the chain saws, unless the Sierra Club backs off.

One bill narrowly passed Thursday, but Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) promised no safe passage for the other three interlocking, bipartisan bills.

The bills were introduced with the support of Gov. Pete Wilson in an effort to make up for his vetoing nearly identical legislation last year.

But in a try for perfection--based on a claim of loopholes that other environmentalists don’t see--the Sierra Club has set up the bills for hits by both Republicans supporting business and Democrats who don’t want to vote against the Sierra Club.

For years, “trust us� was all the club needed to say to get support for its side of issues. That will happen less in the future if it succeeds in killing the forest bills.