California has passed a bill which bans logging of the state’s oldest trees except in emergencies.
The legislation was approved by the state assembly’s natural resources committee shortly after James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan backed the ban at a press conference.
Mr Brosnan said old-growth trees were a “living symbol of California’s natural, historical, cultural heritage”.
The legislation will only allow emergency logging in private and state forests of large hardwoods, redwoods, giant sequoias, Douglas fir and Port Orford cedars which were growing when commercial logging began in 1850.
But the California Forest Stewardship Council Certified Landowners says the economies of rural timber communities will suffer and millions of dollars of valuable wood will be impossible to sell, thereby forcing owners to harvest the timber before the legislation makes it worthless.
