Interview with Owl, a Tree-Sitter at the Science Hill Tree-Sit

More pictures by Hannu Paju -> http://www.clearcut.fi
http://ameba.lpt.fi/%7Etaiptomm/siirto/Lappi/valmiitsharp
© - All rights reserved/Hannu Paju info[at]paatehakkuu.fi

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The heavy cuttings in forests of Finnish Lapland, even in indigenous Saami peoples home area have continued last fifty years.

The conflict between forestry and nature conservation has been constant during last 20 years, when this invasion has reached more and more of the last remaining wildernesses.

The traditional, freely grazing reindeer herding, dependent of the old growth forests, has been loosing its resources but not any complaint or protests has managed to strop the process.

In spring 2005 Saami reindeer herders made an alliance with Greenpeace which established it Forest Rescue Station in the wilderness of Inari. The international pressure mobilized by Greenpeace made multinational Finnish forest company, Stora Enso to stop buying the wood from conflict areas. And so Finnish state owned company Metsähallitus has stop the cuttings.

The situation gets even more dramatic when loggers party builds up their own camp, "Antiterror infocamp" nearby Greenpeace forest station. People from that camp start constant threatening and noisy disturbing so that Greenpeace campers cannot have rest not in the nights or not in the days.

In May Greenpeace decides to remove the camp, when the main aim, logging break has been achieved. Logging break does not continue too long.

Stora Enso announced in July 2005 to start again buying wood from Metsähallitus, from the conflict forest. Metsähallitus starts logging in August.

Kalevi Paadar, a saami reindeer herder from village of Nellim, makes with his brothers a complaint to UN Human rights commission. They claim that loggings in their home village violate their right continue traditional way of reindeer herding based on free grazing. UN asks Finland to stop cuttings.

The cutting break continues more than a year until in May 2007 Metsähallitus starts again logging, this time in the wilderness of Kessi.
No one of the big pulp and paper companies admits to be the buyer and in July it is seen that the buyer is the local heating energy company, Inergia.

In the epiloque of the documentary Pekka Aikio, the chair on Saami Parliament, has to answer a question: What is all this about that the Finnish state and the Inari county are burning down the woods of the Saami land.

The documentary follows the conflict and its reasons and backgrounds but also seeks the alternatives. What kind of civil cultural alternatives exists and what are the possibilities based on the special quality of Lappish wood? You could think that it is possible to find for this many hundred of years old timber some more profitable ways of use than pulping, burning or producing for railway stocks.

Technical data:

Length 59 min, shooted with mini-dv and dv-cam
For presentations available dv and dv cam and dvd with ntsc and pal formats

Musics:

Ulla Pirttijärvi, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Wimme Saari, Niilas Somby

Authors:

Directing and manuscript
Hannu Hyvönen
Dramaturgy: Pauliina Feodoroff
Cameras:Hannu Hyvönen Ossi Kakko, Rikhard Saukko, Maarten van Rouveay ja Greenpeacen mets
Cutting: Hannu Hyvönen

Contacts:

Webpage: http://elonmerkki.net
e-mail: info [at] elonmerkki.net
hannu [at] elonmerkki.net
Kihmulankatu 41
74130 Iisalmi p.0408317733

Because he shows how ill-informed and dogmatic the movement is. I could only watch half of it, as it was painful to hear him stumble through the responses, looking for justifications that actually make sense.

A couple of points (quotes are paraphrased):

"...the Regents' mad rush to pave with this LRDP..."
- The LRDP has been in development since I was a student. I graduated in 2000. I hardly think an 8-year process is a rush. Just because you started paying attention at the end doesn't mean it's been rushed.

"... the first chancellor, whose name I'm forgetting, he wanted to preserve everything the way it was..."
- Well, first off, if you were actually a student, you might recognize the name McHenry, seeing as it's attached to one of the largest buildings on campus. And if you actually knew anything about the campus' history, you'd know that, as the first chancellor, he oversaw the first LRDP, which called for an eventual student body of almost 30,000.

There were other "gems" like that, and I'm sure the second half is full of them. Thanks for showing how informed and educated you are about the very system and process you're seeking to change!

Well, I wouldn't use the term "mad rush" myself, but what's being condemned is not just the decision making process (which of course was arduously bureaucratic and tedious, yet still managed to ignore the Academic Senate and scores of public comments), but the inherently unsustainable expansion itself--any expansion of the UC as it exists today is symptomatic of a systematic insanity. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to work each time" or something like that.

Thanks for nitpicking, Craig, but you're really missing a lot of what's astir in this world. Have you taken a walk in the so-called "upper campus" anytime recently?

So now we get down to brass tacks. I call out a few egregious factual errors, out of many that this movement has decided to spew, and that's called nitpicking.

Sorry- I thought that having a dialogue on an issue based on facts and rational thought was a good thing.

So, since you've made clear that at least some folks don't want to see their fellow CAians educated for the same cut-rate price that they were, let's get irrational. Because that's the only way to respond to someone who wants to overthrow the entire system and have a world of anarchy or libertarianism or something. Not sure what, other than not what is there now.

I for one think that, while it's important to have a strong humanities and social science program, it's also important to have cutting-edge research. The two are not mutually exclusive. However, science is a lot more expensive than the arts, humanities and social scientists (and before you get all in a twist, I'm a graduate of the Politics department). Setting up a professor in, say, politics, requires far less funding and infrastructure than, say, a nuclear physicist. A social scientist doesn't need a particle accelerator, a lab, etc etc etc. So there's simply going to be more money going that way.

And there are those of us who don't support the current LRDP, but also don't think that the entire idea of expansion is bad. There are good ways to do it, and so far I have to say UCSC has done a good job of physically expanding through infill as much as possible. If you still look at an aerial photo of campus (and in the LRDP) most of the buildings are unseen. That wouldn't happen most other places.

But you and Owl, through your statements, have made it clear- you don't want any more people to have the opportunities you have had. They should go to Merced if they want a UC education (why didn't you, then?). blah blah blah.

Was that irrational enough for you?

No, can't expand at Merced, they have fairy shrimp that need protection http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/20/UCMERCED.TMP

Wow...

"So, since you've made clear that at least some folks don't want to see their fellow CAians educated for the same cut-rate price that they were, let's get irrational."

"Because that's the only way to respond to someone who wants to overthrow the entire system and have a world of anarchy or libertarianism or something."

HAHAHAHAHAHA, this is tooo funny.

OK - I work two jobs (Bank of the West teller weekdays and tend bar on weekends), rely on public transportation because I can't afford a vehicle (blue coller kid from Handford, CA here) and manage to go to UCSC full time. And the school is having to pay for private security and legal fees because some fucktards with surplus time and their friends (yes you Jennifer Gobles, er Charles) are trying to save third growth trees in a parking lot?!

I was ambivalent before, but now I'm pissed.

The school needs to quit pussying out and get those idiots out of the trees NOW!

More Bills for U
As the tree sit continues, the university is racking up quite a bill. Additional guards, tree cleaning services, lawyer fees--the list of expenses goes on and on. And it just got a little longer. Jennifer 'Charles' Gobles and Oliver Schmid, two of the protesters, will collect expenses from UCSC now that they've successfully won a countersuit against the university. Attorney Mark Goldowitz, who represents Schmid, has filed for $53,402. Dana Scruggs, who represents Gobles, says he's going to file this week for about $21,000, though that figure could be subject to a multiplier.

And the defendants won't see a dime of it. All that money will go straight into the pockets of their legal defense unless they want to file another suit against the university.

The other seven defendants did not file the same motions as Schmid and Gobles, and the judge granted the injunction against them. Now, for the price of both its own lawyers and the lawyers of the two defendants, the university has the injunction.

This, added to the cost of Panther Security Services ($90,000), brings the university's expenses to about $165,000 at the very least, and that's not counting the costs of its own lawyers and of mutual aid from the Berkeley police.

The tree sitters are lodging in the trees in order to protest the campus' plans to build a biomedical facility. Their concerns include the environmental impact of construction, the possible addition of up to 4,500 students and the development of 120 acres by the year 2020. UCSC doesn't have an exact date for the development because it's in mediation with the city, the county and the Coalition for Limiting Campus Expansion; additionally, portions of the Environmental Impact Report were rejected in court.

The sitters--who the university says are not students and are trespassing--remain unnamed to this day, five months after the protest started, and their exact numbers are still unknown.