Jere Melo Foundation
  Newsletter - August 2018 (Click to open)



On August 27, 2011, while working as a forester, Jere Melo was shot to death while investigating a report of an illegal drug cultivation site.  In the last ten years of his career, Jere spent considerable time addressing the effects of marijuana cultivation and it’s associated harms through environmental degradation, illegal water diversion, and harm to animals and humans alike.

His death graphically highlighted this invasion on forestland throughout California.  In response, a group of concerned citizens formed the Jere Melo Foundation to ensure Jere’s work was continued, and his memory was honored.

The issue the Jere Melo Foundation addresses is the hostile intrusion on the forest itself.  Drug growers trespass onto both private and public lands in remote areas to grow because:

  • they have no cost into the land, thus no paper trail
  • the remote locations, provide illicit seclusion
  • they divert much needed water from nearby streams and rivers
  • the use of toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in such strengths does great harm to wildlife, and soil.  It creates a virtual dead zone.
  • the used water gets dumped back into the streams and rivers, creating strong algae blooms, and harm to aquatic wildlife, and continues downstream

 This is a raging environmental and safety disaster, a dark reality that too many justify or simply turn away.   Join us as we try and find a way to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.  Turning a blind eye and doing nothing is being part of the problem.  We need to be a loud and persistent voice that this disaster be addressed, whatever it takes.