Environmental Activist Confronts MAAXAM at the Annual Shareholder Meeting

(Wednesday, May 21)- Houston based multi-national holding corporation, MAXXAM, with it’s subsidiary, Pacific Lumber, is linked to several lawsuits won this year by environmental activists. Today, local activists confronted MAXXAM CEO Charles Hurwitz, at the corporation’s annual shareholder meeting in Houston, while long time forest defenders celebrated the designation of Judi Bari day in San Francisco. Judi Bari helped begin a campaign to stop Pacific Lumber’s practice of clear cutting old-growth and Redwood forests in Northern California. Local Houston activists are making the attempt to tie MAXXAM to it’s subsidiary’s actions on the West coast.

This year’s MAXXAM shareholder meeting lasted about 15 minutes. In his brief yearly address, MAXXAM CEO and majority shareholder, Charles Hurwitz, stated, "Last year was a challenging year for the economy. We have right sized our corporation and cut back where we need to maximize profit."

According to long time nemesis of Hurwitz, Earth First! activist Darryl Cherney, this includes laying off all loggers and truck drivers of its subsidiary, Pacific Lumber. Cherney states, "At what price is a tree worth that an activist should be killed to extract a Redwood for a few thousand dollars? That was the question I asked Charles Hurwitz and the Pacific Lumber Company, and I suggested that they start to engage in preserving the environment as a corporate practice instead of mowing it down and destroying it. I realize that it is a bit of a pipe dream, but the bottom line is that we have to ask for what we want. I put those seeds out there knowing full well that the MAXXAM board of directors are very entrenched in their ways, so that we might breathe some fresh air into a very stale shareholder meeting atmosphere."

Darryl sent a message to Hurwitz through his proxy shareholder, local activist Courtney Clarke, also known as Raya Green, who is Houston Coordinator for Children of Earth, a National organization that focuses on the connection between Houston-based MAXXAM corporation, and its subsidiary Pacific Lumber. Ms. Clarke read the following statement to MAXXAM shareholders during the meeting, posing a moral question:

"Charles Hurwitz and Members of the Board of the MAXXAM Corporation:

I am very sorry that I can not be here today. As you know, I love visiting with you all and singing for Charles in particular. I cherish my five shares and the entrance it provides me to this grand affair. I do hope to pay you a cordial visit in the not too distant future. But for now, we'll have to settle for this statement that I am grateful to my proxy Courtney Clarke for reading.

Up here in the Redwoods, things are looking a bit grim and I am concerned for the potential liability that my company may face. I trust that the Board is aware that people who are sitting in trees in peaceful protest are being ripped down violently without regard to their personal safety by contractors who work for Pacific Lumber, a wholly owned MAXXAM subsidiary.

I can recall when Charles Hurwitz, back at the 1999 MAXXAM shareholder meeting, in front of 200 steelworkers and a cadre of environmentalists, said to Cindy Alsbrooks, and I quote, "I am sorry for what happened to your son," referring to the death of David "Gypsy" Chain, [an environmental activist from Houston who was killed by Pacific Lumber tree-fallers]. It was the first time I had ever heard Charles Hurwitz say he was sorry. And Charles, you meant it. And I appreciate that. But there has been a lot of water under that bridge, and although you can correctly assume that I do not see eye to eye with this Board and do in fact, have an alternate agenda, I can tell you honestly and factually that it is a miracle that another activist hasn't been killed by Pacific Lumber, a wholly owned MAXXAM subsidiary.

So, Charles Hurwitz, when you said your were sorry to Cindy Alsbrooks, did you think at that time that you might have to say your sorry again to another bereaved mother who's child died at your company's hands? Yes, these people are protesting. And yes, they are risking their lives. But they do not deserve to die. I simply want you to understand that I, as a shareholder, want to recommend in the strongest possible terms that you order your wholly owned subsidiary Pacific Lumber to cease taking actions that greatly endanger the lives of protesters.

I am not here, at least by proxy, to lecture you all about the irresponsible behavior of your wholly owned subsidiary. I am here, however, to suggest that you all look deeply into your souls and ask yourselves at what point will you kill another human being to make a dollar. It's happened once. It appears that something severe is going to happen again. The Forest Peace Alliance that this company arranged into reality with Ms. Alsbrooks as part of the settlement for the wrongful death suit she filed against you, began its venture by establishing some guidelines that the timber fallers should follow when encountering protestors. But laws and rules are only as strong as those who enforce them.

Now you can make your excuses about how the people sitting in trees deserve what they get. And you can go on about trespassing laws. But, when you meet your maker, will you tell him or perhaps her, that the company you directed was willing to kill people who sat in its trees. Imagine that moment, right now, if you will.

Ancient trees are like people to this company. They are something to be calculated on a ledger, given a value, and then exploited or eliminated as profit dictates. That is a given in your world of capital. But the world's capital is not its money, but its resources. And though the current economic systems that dominate the world allow us to grab all we can now, it doesn't mean that we must do so. That is a moral decision.

And that is what I want to leave you with today. To understand that no matter what side of the issue you're on, that this is a moral issue. Can the corporate leaders of the 21st century decide that they want to be leaders of how we can make the world a better place? Can you conceive of making Pacific Lumber into a model timber company practicing truly sustained yield? Can you employee people repairing the earth, including the land you've logged and left with landslides and dead streams? Can there be a way a company like MAXXAM can live in harmony with the Earth?

If not, then the company surely will go bankrupt. It will be economically bankrupt, as has most likely been the plan all along. The lots of real estate in the desert will have lost their value because the water tables will have dried up. The Kaiser Aluminum Company went bankrupt, of course already. And the trees will really be gone, as they have for hundreds of lumber companies before Pacific Lumber over the millennia. Boom and bust is nothing new. And it will be morally bankrupt.

No concern for the employees, including the staff here at MAXXAM in Houston. No concern for the future economy of this nation as a whole. No concern for the earth that brings us all the very components of life itself.

So my fellow shareholders and members of the MAXXAM Board, in this heady time in the history of this country, MAXXAM has the opportunity to change it's course. But of course I know that most likely all of you are set in your ways. But you know what I say. Live dangerously. Set a precedent. And not one to go down as a footnote in the biography of Michael Milken, but rather one that shows the world that we can all change. If you can do that, it would truly be something to be remembered. If you don't and no one else does either, then there most likely will be no one left to remember anything anyway.

So go out, have one last steak dinner, and then bust out in the morning and say, we're going to start saving some trees. We're going to start repairing the damage we've all done. And we're going to leave the world looking better than when we found it, just like a real environmentalist. Thank you."

Clarke, along with fellow activist Janice Blue, were approached by Charles Hurwitz and his colleagues directly following the meeting, and voiced concerns on behalf of their fellow activists in Northern California. Hurwitz stayed only long enough to shake their hands, and then left them with longtime board member Paul Schwartz, Assistant General Council, Joli Pecht, and spokesperson, Josh Reiss.

MAXXAM subsidiary Pacific Lumber has posted trespass warnings on it’s property there to prevent Earth First! activists from engaging in tree-sits. When using this tactic, activists, some as young as 16, essentially camp out in a tree and refuse to leave it’s branches in order to prevent loggers from cutting it down. Recently, Pacific Lumber hired workers to extract sitters against their will, raising concerns from activists like Remedy. For 12 months, Remedy sat in her tree until she was extracted. She states, "As soon as I was evicted, a second woman, Wren, went up in one of the most dramatic extractions we’ve seen . She retreated to the very tip-top of the tree, where the trunk is only as big around as your arm, and Eric Shatz [hired Pacific Lumber climber], followed her up all the way. He threw a rope around her ribs, anchored it to the small top of the tree, and started lowering her down. He told her that if she had fallen, they were all going to testify that she committed suicide. It’s really outrageous."

Spokesperson for Charles Hurwitz, Josh Reiss, explains the company’s response by stating, "The company respects their first amendment rights, just as I would hope those individuals would respect the company’s first amendment rights, and the rights of its employees, to practice their livelihoods. However, if you are going, and you chose to trespass and engage in an activity like tree-sitting, you are assuming certain risks. If people want to uphold the first amendment, that is fine, but you also need to be prepared to address what the consequences of those actions might be if you chose that path. I think the unfortunate thing is that many of the individuals who are sitting in the trees right now, and are being encouraged by Earth First!, and folks like Rod Coronado, who is a convicted arsonist, that they want to practice their first amendment rights, but if something happens to them and they get arrested, well, they don’t like it. And they’re not happy with that, and they’re complaining about that, and unfortunately, that’s just not the way America works."

Reiss argues that violence can be defined as including property damage, which he associates with activist, Rod Coronado, who has an admitted history of arson. Coronado went to prison for setting fire to an animal testing facility, and argues he served his time. He is now occasionally involved with activists fighting to stop Pacific Lumber logging practices they feel are unsustainable. Remedy explains why she feels MAXXAM and Pacific Lumber still focus on Coronado, although he is not a major figure in the Earth First! campaign in the area, by stating, "They are so desperate to make us look bad, since they are screwing up the forest and the economy , that they are trying to change the view about all of us by one person’s past. I was in a tree for almost one full year without touching the ground, and I am completely non-violent in my actions. The tree-sitters are non-violent in their actions." Remedy also says Pacific Lumber declined non-violence training offered by Earth First! on several occasions.

For more information on this campaign, visit http://www.JailHurwitz.com or contact Raya and Children of Earth at 713-858-0074/ FightMaxxam [at] aol.com.