Activists Descend on a Sierra Pacific Mill to Protest Clearcutting

Protesters gathered on Sunday to demand that Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) stop clearcutting. SPI is the second largest landholder in the United States, with 1.5 million acres of timberland in California. Up until now, Pacific Lumber Company (owned by Maxxam) has been the scapegoat out of all the timber companies. This is no longer the case. Sierra Pacific has increasingly come under a lot of scrutiny, with good reason. The focus of the February 18th protest was SPI's use of clearcutting, an extremely environmentally harmful logging technique. (SPI's clearcutting surged from 2,000 acres in 1996 to 23,823 acres in 1999.) Chants of, "Hey, hey, Ho, ho, Clearcutting has got to go!" rang out while activists held a banner reading, "Sierra Pacific Stop Clearcutting," which was then signed by all present and mailed to Sierra Pacific Industries' headquarters.