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Add an EventHumboldt Forest Defense Action Camp and Skill Share
We'll be rendezvousing in the Ancient Redwoods here in Humboldt. More details will be out shortly. Stay tuned at our blog http://humboldtforestdefense.blogspot.com/ . Join us May 2nd through May 9th to share and acquire skills for non-violent direct action focused on defending our forests!
Inviting old-timers and newcomers alike!
Humboldt Forest Defense is celebrating two major victories this Fall! Both Fern Gully Tree-sit and Nanning Creek Tree-sit will have successfully saved two majestic Old-Growth groves as their THPs(Timber Holocaust Plans) expire this fall!
Who says Tree-sitting doesn't work?
For decades, Humboldt has been at war with Pacific Lumber after the ill-faded company's hostile take-over by MAXXAM. Recently, Pacific Lumber has filed for bankruptcy. Read more about Humboldt County's chance to rid our forests of Charles Hurwitz:
Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters(BACH) Trees Foundation Environmental Protection Information Center(EPIC) NorthCoast Environmental Center(NEC)
Local Forest Actions will most likely be affected by the bankruptcy decision! It is our intent gather and discuss what these changes may bring to local Forest Defense, and to discuss ideas and tactics with local environmental groups.
We invite everyone to come join us and speak about these changes on behalf of their group/affinity.
Campaigns for Forest Defense are starting up everywhere along the West Coast:
UC Berkeley Action UC Santa Cruz Action Bear Mountain in Victoria, BC Please email spooner@spoonerdirect.org if you have an action that needs attention.
Come join us to both learn and share how to defend trees in your neck of the woods(or city)! Non-violence trainings, climb trainings, and backwoods survival trainings will be offered and shared. Have a skill? Please come and share it so others may inspire and participate in safe, non-violent forest actions around the planet! This will be a campout, so please come prepared for sleeping outdoors. It is recommended that you bring food, etc. to share with others. This is a rainforest setting, so please be prepared for the possibility of wet weather. For more information about the Sequoia Symposium, visit HFD as more information will be released on the exact location, which will be in beautiful Humboldt County. Symposium originally referred to a drinking party (the Greek verb sympotein means "to drink together") but has since come to refer to any academic conference, whether or not drinking takes place. We have all worked very hard to protect what is left. We have a lot to celebrate! Come join us in celebration and unity. The Sequoia Symposium is a drama free, Shunka free event.
"...have prayed that they (Pacific Lumber) go bankrupt."
Sorry, i need to clarify some historical background hear. If it feels like a lecture, then it probably is..
Here's another take on the Pacific Lumber (PL) bankruptcy..
Prior to the '85 takeover by Maxxam (of Houston, TX) of locally (Scotia) owned PL, their logging method was selective harvest and approx. 50% of the trees were left standing on a cut. This wasn't by any means "perfect", though it enabled some sustaianble harvests and enough local jobs. Earth First! activists were busy further south in Mendocino with Louisiana Pacific and SPI that were already doing clearcuts. Following the '85 takeover of PL by Maxxam, there was an instant acceleration of logging on PL lands from 3-4X the current rate of previous harvests, AND an end to selective harvests of 50% and hello to 100% trees taken from a cut. The topsoil was left barren of any canopy cover and then the soil erosion and flooding of streams from excess sediments resulted in homes flooding and slow recovery on the denuded bare hills..
Following this tragedy Earth First! then identified MAXXAM/PL as the greatest threat to the region and began their campaign in Humboldt, with Judi Bari at the forefront speaking up for the PL loggers (who had their pensions raided when MAXXAM took over), the downstream residents (including salmon choked out by sediments) AND the redwoods ecosystem in general. Judi Bari then suffered from a car bomb attack and died of cancer soon thereafter. It is believed by many that Judi's effectiveness at getting the community together (steelworkers, loggers and environmentalists) in Redwoods Summer was directly correlated with her car bomb attack the following year..
Today during the PL bankruptcy trial in Corpus Christi, TX (location chosen at the claim of Maxxam's ghost corporation), it is unclear to observers how Maxxam the parent corporation of PL could be making considerable profit while PL continued to lose money. This bankruptcy is only in the interest of Maxxam, as PL was just a small local toy for them to play with in their rush for short term profit. So now Maxxam CEO and former Texas Savings and Loan bankrupter C. Hurwitz can enjoy his profits at the expense of laid off PL workers who were made too log too much too fast and the decimated ecosystem of eroded soil and sediment clogged streams from decades of rapid clearcuts..
What comes across as pure irony yet indicates effectiveness in strategy is that the long term occupations by treesitters may have prolonged the eventual PL bankruptcy hearings by defending a few "assets" of old growth tree groves that MAXXAM was counting on collecting. Of course the corporate media and MAXXAM public relations officials will try to blame the bankruptcy of PL on the environmental reguations when in fact the opposite is true. If there were no environmental regulations and no treesitters MAXXAM would have clearcut these forested hills and vanished with the profits long ago..
Where do we go from here? The community needs to retake control of the region's forests before the land is further exploited and ruined by developers seeking to put mansions across the ridges OR another logging corporation (Mendo Redwoods Corporation) OR MAXXAM/PL getting leniency in the TXcourtroom and being allowed to return to Humboldt (#1 worst case scenario!)..
There was some vague discussion of community forestry around the bankruptcy trial and return of PL land to the Bear River Tribe, among others (Wiyot, Round Valley, etc..) for tribal forestry programs of selective harvest. While this may not be what the "zero cut" folks want to hear, most would agree that community and tribal control of the forests where we live is way, way, way better than some corporation (Maxxam/PL, MRC, SPI, etc..) coming in and causing more deforestation with sloppy clearcuts, erosion, etc...
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