Vigil for the Ancient Trees Held in Front of Humboldt Courthouse

For immediate release October 28, 2004
Contact: NCEF! (707) 268-5613
Vigil for the Ancient Trees Held in Front of Courthouse

A crowd of activists and supporters of a ban on the cutting of old growth trees in California gathered in front of the Eureka Courthouse today for a pre-Halloween demonstration to commemorate the ancient trees lost to Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's illegal and unsustainable cutting. Activists, dressed in black, held mock tombstones painted like tree-stumps, denoting the trees' approximate ages when cut, from 500 to 1,200 years old. The nineteen stumps depicted trees from the Freshwater, Grizzly Creek, and Mattole watersheds, where liquidation logging practices continue unabated, with CDF's approval, despite court rulings, a pending fraud suit by the county, continuous protests, and public outcry.

Maxxam/PL's Sustained Yield Plan has been ruled "non-existent" by Judge Golden, but no halt has been called to the company's rampant over cutting. A suit by District Attorney Paul Gallegos has charged Maxxam/PL with business fraud, but no restraining orders have been issued.

These ancient trees that would be protected by the Heritage Tree Act, a bill that narrowly missed a floor vote last month in the state assembly, but gained the support of assembly member Patty Berg, who has agreed to help reintroduce it next year. The nineteen trees commemorated by the tombstones had all hosted tree-sitters, who struggled to save them by living in their branches on small platforms suspended high above the ground. The trees were cut by Maxxam/PL's contract loggers, after sitters were forcibly, and in some cases brutally and dangerously, removed by company-hired extractors.

"These tombstones represent not only the trees cuts down last year, but also the hundreds of ancient trees destroyed by clearcuts, illegal operations, faulty timber harvest plans. They also represent all of the countless species about to become extinct, due to the loss of these trees in the near future," said the artist who created the tombstones, known as "RBG."

The most recent incident occurred on September 25th, when the tree-sits in the Aradia grove on Gypsy Mountain, located in the Grizzly Creek/Van Duzen River watershed, were raided and the trees cut down. A tree-sit had been maintained in Aradia for two years and ten months, and a proposal had been made to add the grove to Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park, in memory of David "Gypsy" Chain, who was killed near that site by an irate Maxxam/PL logger on September 17th, 1998. In the absence of a legal or legislative solution, protests will continue against the destruction of the environment by corporate greed, at home and abroad.
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