UKIAH - For the first time, Mendocino County supervisors are endorsing less logging and more recreational uses in Jackson State Demonstration Forest.

After an intense debate, county supervisors this week split 3-2 to endorse a management option plan favored by environmentalists, the Sierra Club and some locally prominent timber interests.

The county board's stance signals a significant shift in local attitudes toward long-term management of the 49,000-acre state-owned forest, which straddles Highway 20 between Fort Bragg and Willits.

"It was the right thing to do," said Art Harwood, whose family operates the last large independently owned sawmill in Branscomb.

Board members David Colfax, Kendall Smith and Hal Wagenet voted in favor of recommending to the state Board of Forestry a management plan that would allow the least logging, one of seven alternatives being reviewed at the state level.

The state Department of Forestry, which has managed Jackson State Forest since it was established in the late 1940s, favors continuing to manage it with a focus on timber production and logging techniques. That's a concept that has won support from major timber companies, local logging contractors and the Mendocino Employers Council.

When acquired after World War II from the old Caspar Timber Co., the Jackson forest was a heavily cut-over tract. But over the past half-century, state management practices have turned it into one of the best-stocked commercial timberlands along the North Coast.

Even so, there's been a push over the past decade for the state management emphasis to shift from logging to recreation.

In 2003, logging within the boundaries of Jackson forest was halted by a Superior Court judge after reviewing a lawsuit filed by local environmentalists. Judge Richard Henderson then found that state environmental studies were inadequate and ordered a logging halt until they could be revised.

This week's vote is the latest chapter in a continuing struggle by state foresters to get a new management plan in place. While the vote by Mendocino supervisors is only advisory, it's the first time since the 1940s that local officials have urged less logging in Jackson forest.

Supervisor Mike Delbar said the board vote reflected a movement to turn Jackson forest "into a park."

Delbar said the mandate for Jackson forest has always been to support maximum sustainable timber harvesting to provide logs for the region's timber industry.

"That's why it was formed as a demonstration forest," said Delbar.

But sawmill operator Harwood said times change.

Harwood said Jackson forest managers need to re-examine the overall goals because public sentiment today favors management of forest resources "for the greatest public benefit."

"The future of forestry is no longer the old industrial model," Harwood said.