Eureka Protests Species Extinction

Eureka, CA – Forty-one demonstrators gathered outside the Six Rivers National Forest HQ this morning to protest the Bush administration's plan to remove protections for 460 rare and endangered species.

The protest was one of eight such demonstrations happening today along the West coast, where forests covered under the Northwest Forest Plan will be opened to increased logging. In California, logging would double on five and a half million acres of public land.

Holding signs reading “Stop the Bush War on our National Forests,” "Extinction is forever,” and “Mother and Child Against Extinction,” demonstrators spoke about the roll-back in environmental protections that have existed since the 1970’s, like the Endangered Species Act, which turned 30 this year. “We’re here today because they are still cutting our old-growth forests,” said Scott Greacen of the Environmental Protection Information Center. Many species under protection of the Northwest Forest Plan are old-growth dependent.

Survey and Manage, a program within the Northwest Forest Plan, is the protective measure Bush wants to cut. Forested areas serving as habitat to rare species cannot be logged under the program.

The Bush Administration, which has reaped millions in donations from Northwest timber companies, aims to clear the way for restrictions on old-growth logging on public lands. Protections for rare species are an impediment to old-growth logging. Greacen said environmentalists planned to sue over the removal of protections, which would render the Northwest Forest Plan illegal. “It’s a slam dunk case,” he said.

Earth First! activist Naomi Wagner also addressed the crowd, voicing her hopes that police would enforce existing laws, instead of protecting the “interests of the crooks” as often happens in Humboldt County. Wagner is facing a forty-day jail sentence for using civil disobedience to stand up to Humboldt’s most infamous timber crook, Maxxam’s Pacific Lumber.

Kimberly Baker of the Klamath Forest Alliance addressed the crowd about timber sales in National Forests. “We have a right to know what happening in our forests,” she said. “It’s empowering to know you can walk into the Forest Service office and look at their plans on file.” But if there is a discrepancy between the plans on paper and the situation in the forest, “they won’t know,” said Greacen, pointing to Forest Service Officers observing the demonstration from afar. “We have to tell them.”

Following the hour-long demonstration, a march to near-by highway 101 took the message to a larger audience. Honks and waves were offered in support. But while the demonstrators engaged in their rights to freedom of speech and assembly, a man with a small dog engaged in a little profiling, using his video camera to record vehicles and license plates of protesters. Such is the climate of free-speech in America.

The US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will decide in the coming weeks whether to keep the Survey and Manage program intact within the Northwest Forest Plan.
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Click here to read about other F23 extinction protests.