SISTER’S OF THE SISKIYOU’S SOUND OFF OVER LAWLESS LOGGING

Cave Junction, Oregon - President Bush's new Roadless Area rules have re-fueled the fires of resistance against the nation's largest logging sale in modern Forest Service history. Controversial logging underway in Southwest Oregon is the testing ground for the Bush Administration's anti-environmental agenda. On May 16, at 9:00 AM, the "Sister's of the Siskiyous" will gather for a demonstration on Eight Dollar Mountain Road, where logging trucks barrel down Fiddler Mountain every three minutes, laden with timber illegally cut from protected Old-Growth Reserves affected by the Biscuit Fire of 2002. Logging companies and the agencies refuse to wait for the courts to decide.

Citizens, activists, and forest recreationalists have joined the "Sisters of the Siskiyou’s" to issue a national "S.O.S." that includes the threat to Roadless Areas, both in Oregon and nationally. According to Laurel Sutherlin, “The Roadless Rule was an enormously popular policy enacted by Bill Clinton to provide protection for nearly sixty million acres of America’s most pristine remaining natural heritage. The original rule involved over two million (positive) comments from the public, making it among the most widely supported land management decisions ever made by the federal government.”

On May 16th, the "Sisters" will also demonstrate their opposition to the unconstitutional closure of our public forest lands. Currently only the Forest Service and the Silver Creek Logging Company have access to Fiddler Mountain. 72 year old Joan Norman of Cave Junction, Oregon, already arrested twice during this campaign said, "There are essentially no witnesses to the destruction of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers area; a place of globally significant levels of biological diversity, as well as the largest concentration of nationally designated Wild and Scenic rivers in the country. This is a travesty of justice, and at least I can tell my grand-kids that I tried to stop it!"

Since last March - when the first old-growth reserves in the nation began falling to the saw - a compelling series of actions have resulted in fifty-five arrests that reflect mounting public frustration with the Bush Forest Service's assault on the largest remaining Roadless Areas in Oregon. The first women’s action last March 14th resulted in 22 arrests that included three women over 70, another woman who was nine months pregnant, and many first time arrestees. Another local arrestee Annette Rasch, said, “Writing letters or attending meetings doesn’t work anymore, so we are left with the honorable tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, to seek redress from the unlawful acts of our government. We must tell America about the illegal decimation of our last remaining old growth forests…I guess this is what it takes.”
Like many places in the west, the Siskyou’s are a landscape born of fire. Periodic wild fires in the summer are as natural and important as the rain in the fall. Smokey the Bear was wrong. Instead of suppressing wildfires, we should follow the example set by the Native Americans before us and manage wildfire. A century of fire suppression combined with global warming and decades of aggressive logging practices that left slash behind have created the challenges our forests now face. The “Biscuit Fire Recovery Project” is a Salvage Logging Hoax that will impoverish the forests, harm rivers, kill wildlife and create more fire risk. “The Siskiyou’s are now regenerating after the 2002 Biscuit Fire, and to log these sensitive and wild Roadless Areas is like mugging a burn victim” said Mori Garloff, another arrestee.



Background:

The Bush Forest Service has systematically excluded the public from the process by granting emergency exemptions, refusal to hear appeals, and has refused to wait and let the courts decide the legality of logging Old-Growth reserves protected by the Northwest Forest Plan. This has lead more and more citizens to civil disobedience actions to have their voices heard.

The “Biscuit Fire Recovery Project” is corporate welfare project that is projected to cost taxpayers more than 40 million in road building alone - more than the timber is worth on the market. The future of the local economy is intimately tied to nature-based tourism and visitors don’t come here to see stumpfields. The Siskiyou Wild Rivers area hosts myriad natural treasures that belong to all the citizens of America - including those not yet born - and the region is a world class destination on par with places like Yellowstone. Long deserving of federal ‘permanent protection’ designation, the Siskiyou Wild River’s area came close to gaining National Monument status back in 1999.

Within this vast and diverse landscape, the unprotected serpentine wonderland surrounding the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area has become ground zero for both forest defenders and the Bush Administration’s corporate driven assault against hard won legal protections for Old-Growth Reserves, Inventoried Roadless Areas, salmon-bearing streams and the nationally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers!

The broad-based alliance includes community development organizations, local woodsmen, business owners, artists, writers, hikers, river enthusiasts, teachers, doctors, grand-mothers, retirees, laborers, sportsmen, homeless people, students, journalists, lawyers and environmentalists…to Earth First! Many national organizations also support the locally driven “Biscuit Alliance”; which gave birth to the “Sister’s of the Sikiyou’s”, a growing sorority of gals - of all ages and stages - who don’t mind getting arrested to get their point across. The erosion of civil rights in the U.S.A. correlating with the destruction of our National Forests is not taken lightly in Southwest Oregon.

With the now increased threat to Roadless Areas within the Siskiyou’s as well as nationally, expect this “Poster Child” campaign to grow.

From Grants Pass in So.Oregon, take highway 199 west about 25 miles between
Selma and Kerby, then turn onto Eight Dollar Road. Go one mile. You can park at a turn out just before the road closure. People will gather at Selma community center on 199 in Selma around 8:30 am and car pool over to the intersection of 199 and 8 dollar mtn. rd.

For more background: http://www.o2collective.org, http://www.kswild.org or http://www.siskiyou.org




Contact: Annette Rasch: 541.659.2917 or 541.592.4334 Laurel Sutherlin: 541.301.8963
Shelley Elkovich: 541.821.0935