Posted on 07/16/2002 11:56:35 AM PDT by Glutton
U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers have blocked resupplies of food and water to a woman who climbed a tree in the Willamette National Forest to protest old growth logging.
Officers intend to arrest the woman when she comes down and charge her with interfering with an agricultural operation, a Class A misdemeanor under state law, District Ranger Rick Scott said Monday.
"It's up to her to decide when she wants to come down," Scott said.
The woman, who goes by "Basil," has spent the past two weeks on a platform suspended about 70 feet up a large Douglas fir. It is one of the last few trees marked to be cut at the Berry Patch timber sale in the Middle Fork Ranger District east of Lowell.
The rest of the sale area, which included trees several hundred years old, has been logged by D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. of Riddle. The company's contract for the timber dates to 1996, and about three-quarters of the site was logged in 1997 and 1998. The rest was cut in recent weeks.
Supporters tried to bring the woman supplies Sunday but were blocked by Forest Service officers.
"Their strategy is to starve this woman out of the tree," said Josh Laughlin with Cascadia Wildlands Project, a Eugene-based group that opposes logging of ancient forests.
Laughlin, who spoke with the woman Sunday, said she is willing to come down if she isn't arrested and charged.
"She wants to save what's left up there, including the tree she's sitting in," he said. "And she doesn't want to be a criminal for saving the last of the old growth forests."
Laughlin added that it's dangerous to deny food and water to someone that far up a tree. But Scott said safety "is of paramount importance."
"We certainly don't want to contribute to any accident," he said.
On July 8, Lane County sheriff's deputies arrested a 20-year-old man at the logging site and charged him with interfering with an agricultural operation and third-degree escape. The district attorney's office decided the case lacked enough evidence to prosecute, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Mortimore said.
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
About time. Under Clinton, we would've been paying to feed her.
So her communist-funded, anti-capitalist handlers told her. And she bought it.
Perhaps these pinko traitors can cause the supply of natural resources to dry up, making natural resources cost so high that it affects the US economy. This would absolutely affect GDP growth, so much so that slave labor commie countries (like China) can grow faster.
They learned from the collapsed Soviet Union model: You have to outgrow the US system to defeat her. Communist Red China makes no secret that is exactly what she intends to do. They boast about it. They also boast about 10% annual GDP growth. We hover at around 3% or so. Wealth generation is paramount--it's what funds growing military might.
North Korea tries to tax itself into military might, and it's subjects starve, while its military is (still) a joke. Only through true wealth creation, reflected in GDP growth, can a nation grow its military without starving its people.
While the commie traitors are at it, it wouldn't hurt to infect our education system, with the goal to raise an entire generation of usefull idiots who don't understand anything about capitalism. In a few years, all our welfare tree huggin kids will not be able to generate GDP gains if they had to, and besides, they don't want to.
I will confess that I desire to see as many of the remaining old growth giants saved as can be saved.
A southern slash pine forest can grow back in one lifetime. An east coast broadleaf forest can mature in a couple of lifetimes.
Once cut, however, these ancient giants will never be seen again for another 500 years.
The old trees are more valuble commercially, but we do not grow back six hundred year old trees. We cut down silvaculture plantations at age 30 to 60 years on the average out here.
Apparently the loggers really like her alot. She has been pleasantg and cheerful towards everyone, and they have sort of 'adopted' her.
She is a tiny woman with long dark dreadlocks, and she has a voice like the high voiced woman in the "Police Academy" series of movies.
She is going an excellent job remaining within the realm of non-violent civil disobedience. If this was a loud, stocky male screaming at the loggers and USFS police (some of whom are apparently Waco vets), they likely would have been alot more aggressive at doing the removal process.
The group of kids whom she is part off put this sit up with security present, and shut down logging for several days with the tactics known as "cat and mouse."
They did much better then even some older, more experience hands likely would have. This is a big reason the continued flow of a large amount of volunteer manpower into this calling is the backbone to keeping the timber wars going.
I would like to agree with you, but every time I fly over the forest, or travel through it, I see greed being more of a determinate in planning cuts then science.
I am not here to argue the Cascadia Forest Defender line, but I don't nessesarily trust the words of those making money on public forestland.
Especially seeing how subsidized it is after you factor in road building and other costs. I have also seen boundry lines that were illegally moved to make units bigger, and smaller trees contractually earmmarked for extraction diced up to lenghts that made them useless for mill use to keep profits up by only taking the fattest, most profittable trees.
We need to stop these counter productive timber wars, but it won't be possible until both sides give some on the issues.
I note that in the aftermath of that incident, Pacific Lumber was cited for precisely the state logging violations the protesters claimed were being committed when they were involved in their game of brinksmanship.
There is a wrongful death lawsuit currently in the works by David's family. Regardless how irritating Chain and his friends were, I still do not support violence or death in the realm of this issue. I also do not support vandalism and property distruction either.
Life is too short as it is.
If they want my respect, they would *buy* the land and put it away, log it, or whatever the hell they want to do with it. I've backpacked thousands of miles through all kinds of places, and I learned right away I'd rather chat away an afternoon with a logger or horsepacker than these wack jobs any day of the week. 10 to 1 she's from back east. I'm sure she means well, but probably hasn't ever worked a day in her life. Time these goofballs were shown some reality.
Everyone owns part of the blame on that one. People who hate the smoke and ugliness from fires intergrated into the forest ecosystems made it hard for us to do prescription burns in logged areas to remove fuel. The burns were only allowed if the smoke blew the right way.
This political pandering towards local people helped keep forestland loaded with an unhealthy amount of slash by keeping what burning is allowed less then what it should be.
To keep the forests healthy, we not only have to thin and manage stands of trees better, we need to burn the understory better during wet and cool months. We also used to have a huge amount of field burning in the Willamette Valley to keep the grass seed crops vigorous and healthy.
The people complaining about and fighting that are rank and file citizens who work and live in the valley, not 'eco-terrorists' bent on the distruction of this sort of crop that has been hurt by the burning bans.
You bring up a valuble and important key point to all of this struggle in the forest, but when passions cool, there will be enough blame for the fire problem to go around. Of that I am sure.
I too love to talk to loggers, tree planters, and others who have worked long and hard - like I have - in the woods. Loggers are working to house, cloth, and feed their families. The political fight should never focus crosshairs on them. Thar would be foolish, wrong, and evil.
This is common down there, and North Coast EF! spends much more effort at schooling activists in the realm of non-violent civil disobedience then you see up here.
Interestingly enough, Julia Hill's (Butterfly) sit in Luna was instigated by activists from my area. NCEF was not interested in that action until much later when it proved successful.
The sits in Arcada, Ca's Forest Park were also projected from up here.
Our area has many less activists then many other areas, but they tend to operate at a higher level of efficiency and proficiency then you find many other places in the U.S.
In fact, I have been many places in the U.S. and the world, and their is simply nnothing at all in the world like the community of activists - of all stripes - here in Eugene, Oregon.
Its 'Fawlty', and I doubt it. If she was, she wouldn't have made it above ten feet or so before falling back
to Spaceship Mother Earth.
Where's a friggin federal arsonist when you need them?
I'd settle for an attack by owls. If it's so g.d. important to them, buy the tree and be done with it.
Better yet, take a look at the trees for ten miles around Mt. St. Helens after it blew. Then take a look now.
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