   | ||
|
 | Newsroom | |
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Protesters Act To Stop Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's Illegal Logging For Immediate Release - Contact: Garrett Brinton (707) 441-1577 or (707) 834-6006 (cell phone) PL Contractors in the Mattole React With Threats and Violence. Twenty protesters took part in non-violent direct actions on Monday to stop MAXXAM/PL's illegal cutting in the old growth Douglas Fir forest bordering Humboldt Redwood State Park. Demonstrators placed debris and logs in an access road, which kept logging vehicles out of one area in the Mattole (home of an active spotted owl nest) for the morning. Then, at about noon, a demonstrator using a steel lock-box locked down to a standing tree to protect the surrounding old-growth Douglas Fir grove, an action which halted the illegal tree-felling in that unit for the remainder of the day. Although all of the protesters were peaceful, several found their lives threatened during the day. When PL contractors arrived at the blocked road, they failed to notify and wait for law enforcement. Instead they crashed heavy equipment into the blockade, which sent debris flying toward the protesters, risking serious injury. Later, after the lock-down had successfully halted tree-felling in one area, activists attempting a dialogue with another nearby tree-feller were repeatedly threatened by the logger, who said that he "wished I had my gun... I'd shoot all of you," and then felled a tree in their direction, a sequence that was ominously similar to the events that led to the killing of activist David Gypsy Chain in the autumn of 1998. In the months leading up to the 1998 tragedy, CDF's failure to enforce the law, and PL's cynical corporate tactic of blaming protesters for job losses had led to escalating violence against peaceful protesters. Yesterday, activists said that by labeling peaceful protesters as "terrorists," blaming them for job losses, and failing to take action against employees and contractors who have been violent toward protesters, PL has, in effect, encouraged yesterday's violent and threatening actions by their contractors. A dedicated protester, Joyous, said, "I must do what I can, even at the risk of my freedom, to protect the forest. The legal system, so far, has been unable to stop the trees from falling." On August 29, 2002 Lake County judge, John Golden, ordered a stay on all PL operations. The lawsuit, filed by EPIC, Sierra Club, and United Steelworkers of America, disputes the "Headwaters Deal", suing the California Dept. of Forestry, California Dept. of Fish and Game, and PL for enabling and executing permits which allow for such actions as the killing of endangered species. According to PL, the company has been "harvesting", or as Fish & Game calls it "mining", 1 million board feet a day since the stay was issued, a fact that is all to clear from the scarred landscape evident throughout PL's lands in Humboldt County. This outrageous level of illegal slaughter includes 11 near-finished plans in the Mattole watershed, just since July. PL and it's many contractors, to the community's and wildlife's dismay, are clear-cutting, downing the last of the old growth trees, using herbicides and diesel fuel on the land, killing endangered species and their habitat, and creating landslides and massive erosion. Protesters had been hopeful that the stay on PL's unsustainable operations would stop the logging, but as the company has continued to blatantly disregard the court order and the devastation of the forest has continued, protesters have found they need to act with direct, non-violent action to expose the problems and stop or slow the destruction that the legal system has failed to halt.  << Back to Press Release Archive | Latest Press Release | Newsroom | | 
| | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |
Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH) is a project of the Ecology Center. Website design facilitated by Trees Foundation. © BACH |
