Silver Willow taken down from Utopia

It is appalling that PL is allowed to endanger the lives of treesitters and observers, with the blessing of the Humboldt Co. sheriff's dept. , while continuing to pursue their liquidation logging and environmental destruction. Descriptions of the encounters of this week are too much like accounts of third world assaults and exploits. Is there no one in Humboldt Co. who can document and help to stop this craziness?

And innocent, non violent sausages are being mistreated by hired barbeque attendants in backyards across the country. I am appauled by this. How can this happen!? Somebody...PLEASE!...STOP THE PIERCING...STOP THE PIERCING!!!!

And while you're at it- stop this person from destroying the English language!

A court ordered removal of tresspassers is craziness?
Please Advise.

I understand you are the mother of one of the tree sitters in Freshwater. I can see why you are concerned. This is a potentially dangerous situation which is enherent to climbing a tall tree. Am I also correct in understanding that your concerns reach across this great nation as you are residing near the east coast? I thought I caught that earlier; maybe I'm mistaken. I'm sorry your child is here. A big issue with many of us locals is that we totally do not appreciate outsiders coming in to support a cause which doesn't affect their original homeplace. On the other hand, I'm sorry you are not here. Then you could see that there are lots of green hillsides and trees left, and that the supposed environmental destruction is not massive but minimal and renewable. You would also see the majority of timber workers behaving professionally and safely under stressfull conditions. And then you would understand that your child has a 99% percent chance of being arrested unharmed. It's truly unfortunate that you are only presented with heresay and non-factual dogma.

See the SF Indymedia Forest News feature page for context.

The DA of Humboldt County recently filed a $250 million fraud suit against Maxxam/Pacific Lumber, alleging the company fraudulently obtained permits to log on steep, unstable slopes.

PL loggers and hired thugs have been allowed brutalize and even kill nonviolent forest defenders with impunity (R.I.P David "Gypsy" Chain, 1998) due to extreme pro-industry bias by the former county sheriff and DA.

Humboldt County law enforcement is internationally infamous for coldly using pepper spray Q-Tip torture on locked down nonviolent sit-in protesters, and they are being successfully sued for it.

Maxxam/PL was found guilty of hundreds of violations of the laws governing logging. The company's logging permit was revoked for a time because of the pattern of flagrant and continued violations.

For more about the pending pepper spray torture suit against Humboldt County and its current and former sheriffs, visit the website put up by the nine nonviolent Headwaters Forest defenders who are suing over being tortured with pepper spray dipped Q-Tips thrust into their eyes, and having the searing chemical weapon sprayed directly into their eyes from a distance of 2-3 inches.

The case is set for a retrial in federal court in Eureka beginning May 12, 2003.

http://www.nopepperspray.org

For more about the pending pepper spray torture suit against Humboldt County and its current and former sheriffs, visit the website put up by the nine nonviolent Headwaters Forest defenders who are suing over being tortured with pepper spray dipped Q-Tips thrust into their eyes, and having the searing chemical weapon sprayed directly into their eyes from a distance of 2-3 inches.

The case is set for a retrial in federal court in Eureka beginning May 12, 2003.

http://www.nopepperspray.org

Sinner, I spent a week in your lovely county just last week and believe that I am very aware of all sides of the issue. I went to PL's Fortuna plant, and spoke at length to an employee there, willing to hear PL's viewpoint on this issue. I have been following the PL situation for years, and apparently know more about it than some of you local residents, with your blinders on, do. I am grateful to Indy media for telling the truth which will not be reported on CNN. I have seen for myself the photos and videos, and wounds, which do not lie, as to what tree sitters endure at the hands of loggers and law enforcement. Yes, there is green left there, for now, but surely you cannot believe that PL has only good intentions. (Maybe you can, propaganda is strong and money talks really loudly!) Please note, for the record, that I am not opposed to sustainable timber harvesting and the logging industry in general. I have a post graduate degree from a school of forestry and know better than that. But my opposition, as that of all of the forest defenders, in your county and elsewhere, is to the destruction of entire ecosystems that cannot recover, the destruction of entire watersheds that affect humans as well as all of life, and the destruction of the last remaining, and very irreplaceable, old growth redwoods. Please , even if you are a logger, or somehow sustained by that industry, do a little research and become educated. I found much information available there, much of it free locally. Become an informed advocate for your own neighborhood. If there were more local advocates, then dedicated people like my son would not need to be there. In the meantime, I am proud of him and grateful to all of them!

Thank you, Tree Mom, for your educated and well-thought comments to "Sinner." Your own text says it best! And thank you, too, for raising a caring, compassionate person.
~From another mother of a Freshwater treesit supporter (also with a graduate degree and also "been there").

I appreciate your comments, and I am glad you have had the opportunity to visit our wonderful county. Additionally, it is commendable that we can all claim multiple college degrees; it is much like name dropping, and so, gives us more authority amongst those who have not. However, visiting and living here are quite different. You suggest I should do a little research and broaden my own viewpoint, hence education, yet you are unaware how much I know about both sides. The enviros do have a place, for they have raised many people's consciousness, and this elevated consciousness has transferred itself into improved practices and behavior. Believe me, if I thought that their position was unequivocably correct, I would switch sides - as would any logical person. Of course the timber industry isn't infallible; nobody ever claimed that. But it has improved, and it is both the founding and current industry of our local culture, yet the local community's anger stems from the enviros agenda to terminate this, for this is their true aim. Bankrupt PL. What they fail to acknowledge is that Humboldt county is and has lots of trees. As I said before, until another major industry blooms here, only fools will think this place is about anything else. If I honestly thought that my or the timber industry's actions were wrong, I, like many others, would indeed quit. Nobody wants to permanently denude a hillside or ruin an ecosystem. That would be shitting in your own bed. And despite what that may infer, I am acutely aware of my ability to avoid laying in shit.

When you visited here, did your son lead you around outside PL's locked gates, or did you benefit from a tour with a licensed proffesional forester? Did you see the ocean of timber from from above in a privately chartered plane or helicopter? I don't believe you did. Sure there are clearcut blocks; that is what industrial timberland looks like nationwide, but you surely cannot deny the vastness of the remaining resources in our region. I'm sorry, but the "wounds" and the scars do indeed heal; very few are irreversable. Slides and logging units revegetate in 2 to 5 years, and many ugly places upon revisitation are unrecognizable due to their resurrections. I cannot hunt in the majority of clearcuts that are 10 years old because I cannot see through the 20 foot tall trees that blanket the area.

As for inymedia, I cannot say that they lie; they do, however, carefully omit facts and important facets of events, and they excel in promoting a single view. I know. I am here daily. Some of the reporting is truly outrageous. So, be careful when throwing out the uninformed, narrow minded guantlet. I do appreciate indy giving me a forum to sound off.

Sinner, you claim to be informed, yet you miss some very key points:
1) Yes, the lumber company has been the sustaining industry of the county for many, MANY years. And, environmentalists have been around for just as many years. Are you aware of why, and when, the actions against PL began? When MAXXAM took over the company, it ceased the long-standing methods of sustainable timber harvesting, and replaced this with liquidation logging. Such practices will lead to NO logging faster than any environmental efforts. The "enviros" are not against all logging, only that which devestates watersheds, ecosystems, and irreplacable, 1000 year old trees. If it is just redwood that they want, PL/MAXXAM could be concentrating its efforts on logging and replanting, on slopes which can withstand such, to insure the future of the company, and the jobs of your citizens. PL/MAXXAM has, for the past several years, demonstrated that their concerns are for the here and now, for how much money can be made NOW by cutting faster than regrowth can occur. A company which truly cared for its employees and its neighbors would surely engage in sustainable (i.e., able to be continued over a long period of time) logging practice.

We are not ranting against logging, the industry, or even, in certain circumstances, clearcuts. We ARE ranting against massive destruction of entire watersheds and ecosystems, to the point that the redwoods can no longer thrive there, nor can the salmon, or, apparently, the humans with homes downstream of the mudslides.

2)And, this week, PL/MAXXAM has demonstrated that their aim in Freshwater is to demonstrate the power of wealth, as they spend much money, time and energy to evict tree sitters from trees, some of which are not even viable for timber sales. They have also engaged in the practice of tree girthing, again just to prove their "property rights". They have once again demonstrated that human lives are not significant , with the recklessness of their climbers and loggers in the presence of not only the tree sitters, but numerous concerned local citizens.

ANd, just for the record: I went to the PL mill in Scotia, requesting a tour. I was told that:" there are no more old growth trees to log, so this mill is closed." I went to the mill in Fortuna, requesting a tour. I was told that no tours are available to the public. I did speak , for almost an hour, with the gentleman at the gate to the Fortuna mill, listening to the PL viewpoint. Then, I accompanied my son to the Freshwater treesit area, met a number of the forest defenders there, and spent 2 days and 2 nights, 160 feet up in an ancient redwood giant. Maybe, if more conscious and aware persons such as yourself would have such an opportunity, it would affect you as it did me, instilling an awe and respect for these most ancient of living things on our continent, and for the humans who recognize their value beyond dollars and decking. Oh, yes, and I also viewed, firsthand (from a redwood tree, not from a helicopter), the "ocean of timber"...complete with numerous clearcuts, active logging operations, and the slides which you claim regenerate in a few years. If there is no topsoil left, how can a hillside revegetate? Certainly not to its former health. Would you prefer that the entire county be covered in 20 foot tall trees, and dead streams, instead of 250 foot tall trees and viable salmon habitat?

Forest Moms, Dads, Siblings, Friends,
Please tell your children and loved ones that the "Forest Denfense" does not need another martyr. They are doing everything they can to get one of their own killed to further their goals.
It appears that the protesters would rather have a sitter killed during removal than to have them safely removed. Niether the police nor the climbers are forcing anyone to remove their harnesses and go to the tops of the trees. It is a choice that is encouraged by the protest movement.
I pray that those with influence in the "Forest Defense" will tell the protesters to stop endangering their lives. But I fear that to some involved, the safety of the sitters is less important than gaining media attention.

Protesting is one thing,
But advocating risk to human life is inexcusable.

meow

When "sinner" said, "A big issue with many of us locals is that we totally do not appreciate outsiders coming in to support a cause which doesn't affect their original homeplace." it really puzzled me. What is an "outsider"? Is your county a foreign sovereignty, and are you a xenophobe? I do not live in Humboldt County, but I am NOT an outsider, and this country IS my birthplace. What happens there DOES affect me and my birthplace, whether you call my birthplace California, the United States, North America, or planet Earth.

what they havnt said is that when silverwillow was taken down the wind was blasting so hard that it was a completely dangerous extraction eric is putting peoples lives in danger we need to find a legitamite way to stop p.l. before they kill anyone else. eric is now pulling people from the topos of trees that are not safetyied in and have no harness on binding sitters hands and feet and in some cases hog tying them before lowering them down they have no way to grab anything if things dont go well he is dropping limbs with sitters in the tree and girthing well they sawed in to the tree 2-3 inches in all the way around while there was somebody in it whats the next step tree sitters oh well lets just fall the tree anyway people please get involved we need your help to stop this before people get hurt eric is being assaultive to activists when there is no police there the police will not communicate with the activists they just want to beet up and pepperspray nonviolent protesters

Don't think I am ignoring you or your latest message. I've been busy out of town with family, and I haven't been able to respond. We'll talk more on one of the more current stories.

What happened to Curt? He had some intelligent discourse.

It blows me away how a supposedly educated person like Tree Mom can be so ignorant in her supposed area of expertise. Isolated residual OG trees surrounded by square miles of second growth adjoining suburbia do not a primordial ecosystem make. Get a life.