Works In Progress - September 2003 - Updates on Cascadian Eco-Resistance!

This year has seen Cascadia’s forest activist community come together as never before under the unified banner of "Cascadia Summer," with new levels of regional coordination and outreach. The result: an influx of people from around the country and a region better prepared for the massive war on forests being planned and orchestrated by the Unites States Government. Amongst the exciting news of the summer – besides the usual intensive direct action campaigns – are the new lengths (and heights!) Cascadia’s eco-radicals have gone to work with what remains of legal protections, to challenge patriarchy, and to network outside the environmental community.

Survey Crew

Tree-climbers and groundtruthers from around Cascadia have been surveying for threatened species that the Forest Service ever-so-accidentally misses almost every single time it assesses a potential timber sale, conveniently making a much larger percentage of the last 2% of old growth left in Oregon available to private industry.

The Forest Service, for the time being, is required by law to protect Red Tree Voles (RTVs) under the Northwest Forest Plan. The forestry service satisfies these legal obligations by surveying for canopy bound rodents on the ground and surveying for salamanders in the dead of winter. Meanwhile, Cascadia’s eco-defenders have been finding alarming numbers of endangered and otherwise threatened/protected species where the forest service claims their searches found none. RTVs, threatened lichens, and Spotted Owls are just a few of the species found in areas slate to be cut - areas they could be cutting as you read.

The Cascadia Forest Defenders and NEST, the Northwest Ecological Survey Team, experienced a small victory July 8 when the Forest Service removed 24 acres from Unit 2 of the Straw Devil timber sale in the Willamette National Forest near Eugene, Oregon. Due to the high density of active red tree vole nests (32) found by the survey team’s efforts, the Forest Service, due to political and public pressure confirmed their findings and provided buffers reducing the unit to six acres.

Direct action in the forest

New tree-sits popped up at the beginning of the summer, courtesy of the Klamath-Salmon Action Network, in the Glassups timber sale in the Klamath National Forest near the Oregon-California border, along one of the very last stands of native, old-growth forest along the Salmon River (one of only two undamned rivers in California). This provoked a brutal police response and a number of arrests, and the tree-sits were taken down by forest service climbers. A day later, hundreds of miles north in the Mt. Hood National Forest, the Cascadia Forest Alliance erected a new sit at the Solo timber sale. Due to an injunction, activists working in the Solo timber sale are safe from active logging until October 1, 2003.

A press release was sent out in March to announce the tree-sit and occupation of Straw Devil, following the death of Sparrow, who participated in finding the above mentioned nests. Some of Sparrow's ashes were placed in Units 1 and 2. The press release included this quote: "’Sparrow will always be a part of the forest and will forever be inside each of us, affecting our thoughts and actions. Any attempts to log this forest will be akin to a declaration of war and is an audacious attempt to desecrate the sacredness of this forest,’ stated Karla Wiley, a forest advocate and friend of Sparrow."

On July 24, 2003 Basco Logging of Sutherlin, Oregon, under contract with Starfire Lumber (Engel Investors) of Cottage Grove along with the U$ Forest $ervice destroyed units 1 and 2 of the Straw Devil timber sale. They knew what this forest meant (especially these two units) and they knew that they wouldn't get it without a fight, so they resorted to sending in an infiltrator and orchestrating a "hard and fast" operation- building a road, marking unit boundaries, and felling trees - effectively clearcutting the units in less than two days. More than ten loggers and handfuls of law enforcement were sent in at once to do the job as quickly as possible. One of our comrades was arrested while passionately confronting this destruction and charged with a Class A Misdemeanor, "Interfering with an agricultural operation," and will be arraigned on September 5, 2003.

Still, even amidst this tragedy, amazing work has continued at Straw Devil. An all womyns action has been maintained for the last four months in an attempt to shed light on the fundamental link between womyns oppression and the oppression of the earth. Unit 6 of Straw Devil is equipped with several all womyn built and occupied situations. Various other working camps and crews have also established themselves in what is left of this magic place.

Bridging Urban and Forest Activism

Wishing to expose the issues of the forest in a broader context and to a larger audience, the Cascadia Forest Alliance in Portland took to the trees within city limits. By the end of the day five people were in jail (two of them got out without giving their names!)

Their purpose was to draw attention to Bush’s obscene plans for environmental degradation. Bush wants to eliminate the "Survey and Manage" list of Cascadia’s threatened species – those same critters we were just talking about above – thereby expediting the exchange of big green trees for little green bills. Eliminating Survey and Manage will all but destroy the already insufficient Northwest Forest Plan, and make even those areas already protected within our national forests potentially accessible to timber companies.

Equally horrific is Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative, a proposed law based on the understanding that the best way to prevent forest fires is to prevent forests. It has already passed the House and is currently making its way through Senate.

On the Bigger Front

Holistic activists are disgusted at the bad reputation that the direct action forest community has earned for tolerating "manarchists", heterosexism, and perpetrators of sexual violence within the campaigns. This year saw forest activists adopting a region wide anti-oppression code, creating a dispute resolution body for addressing a wide variety of community issues, and booting several known perpetrators from forest activist campaigns. A womyn’s as well as a womyn and transgender "action camp" were held to address the lack of inclusivity often felt by womyn, queer, and transgender activists within forest defense and to share advanced direct action skills, so as to take power from those who have classically used "skill hoarding" as a means of control. These are first steps within forest defense at confronting sexual violence, male domination, and the same multifaceted forms of oppression that attempt to dominate and control us as well as the earth.

In addition to expanding ties to the anti-patriarchy movement, this summer has seen some new and interesting alliances with Cascadia’s pagan community through a number of events, including the recent Wild Spirit gathering in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Early in the summer Olympia had its annual Industrial Workers of the World / Earth First! BBQ. More networking projects are in the works for the future.

Join Us

We’re always looking for more folks, whether they’re interested in direct action, species surveys, in-town organizing, or any other participation. Check out http://www.cascadiasummer.org, the best source for up-to-date information on forest activism throughout the region as well as contact numbers and upcoming events. Washington is currently in the beginning stages of preparing for the necessity of direct action – get connected with groups like the Environmental Resource Center at The Evergreen State College (867-6784) for information on local organizing efforts!