Under cloudy Humboldt County skies, amid Earth flags and colorful banners, a jubilant crowd of nearly 2,000 descended into the heart of redwood country to express their outrage with MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber's (PL) proposed logging in the Headwaters Grove, the largest unprotected ancient redwood forest on Earth.
The September 15 rally included people from many walks of life: urban Food not Bombers, grandmothers, timber workers, toddlers, local housewives and dreadlocked hippies. The date marked the close of the endangered marbled murrelet's nesting season and the opening of the biggest show of support for Headwaters since 1990's Redwood Summer. Earth First!, in coalition with 40 other groups, rallied at PL's mill in Carlotta, California, for three hours before marching two-by-two for over a mile down Highway 36 to one of the company's Headwaters access gates.
Headwaters activists planned the demonstration to coincide with the official end of the marbled murrelet's nesting season, after which the US Fish & Wildlife Service would allow logging in murrelet habitat to proceed. Pacific Lumber is permitted, under a state salvage logging loophole, to "remove" ten percent of the forest's "dead, dying and diseased" trees. Pacific Lumber intends to log downed trees throughout Headwaters by helicopter, ignoring the vital ecological role of such trees. To add insult to injury, PL would get them all for free, since the state Board of Forestry does not count downed trees under the ten percent salvage exemption limit.
Along with a long list of local activist speakers, the rally included actor Ed Begley, Jr., author Joanna Macy and Lama Yeshe, a Buddhist monk. Yeshe received the loudest cheer of the day upon reading a statement of support supposedly from the Dalai Lama himself: "Whosoever is responsible for the cutting of even one redwood tree will spend many lifetimes in the lower realms as a hungry ghost or as a hell being. This is what the Buddha taught."
Music from Clan Dyken, Alice DiMicele and Casey Neill inspired and entertained the festive crowd that featured locals and activists from across the nation. The event was staged from beginning to end, with the police and even Pacific Lumber assisting in the planning. Timber industry supporters held a counter- demonstration down the highway at the local grange hall, with about 50 people in attendance.
The rally continued after the peaceful march, as 264 members of the community and visiting activists waited patiently for their turn to cross a spray-painted line in an act of Gandhian- style civil disobedience. Police had been sent in from as far as Santa Rosa, nearly 200 miles to the south, to oversee an arrest number four times above the previous Earth First! record.
Instead of trespassing en masse, activists followed an extremely ordered single-file-line arrest procedure, which police appeared to have chosen to disempower the crowd and prevent overt threats to PL's power and corporate "rights." But the planning was designed in part to enable families with children and mainstreamers to feel comfortable attending, which did swell the attendance remarkably.
All but two of the 264 arrested were cited and released to appear at a later date.
As the arrests came to a close, word came via cellular phone that the Federal District Court in San Francisco had issued a restraining order on logging in all three of PL's salvage exemptions. The order expires September 22, when the court will decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction on the salvage logging until it settles a lawsuit filed by the Garberville-based Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). The federal suit is a procedural case challenging PL's use of the salvage logging loophole.
Actions will follow on September 22 if the court decides against an injunction.
The California State Senate voted 32-2 on the day of the rally to direct the State Resources Agency to begin negotiations with PL to buy the 3,000-acre Headwaters Grove. A different version of the bill already passed through the state Assembly, so the bill needs final Assembly approval plus Governor Wilson's unlikely signature.
Protecting the Northern Buffer
In another action the morning of the rally, two women locked themselves to a gate accessing Headwaters Grove's northern buffer, which is threatened with logging by Sierra Pacific. The approved and imminent "timber harvest plan" proposes 155 acres of clearcut along 1.5 miles of Headwaters Grove's boundary. The plan would destroy the grove's only meaningful buffer, cutting it off from the relatively intact corridor to the Elk River.
Twenty-five activists stood supporting the two women locked to the gate. Loggers arrived and agreed with much of the blockaders' criticisms of the logging. They mistakenly thought themselves excused by apologizing, "We're not Pacific Lumber." The workers got into the woods through another gate, but three log trucks were sent home. "Then the police came, saw the lock boxes and left," recounted participant Jonathan Paul. September 16 featured an almost identical action, equally successful.
On September 18, dozens of activists descended on the northern buffer, where activists blockaded two access gates, a bridge and logging vehicles throughout the recently activated logging operation. One activist perched himself atop a 30-foot tripod, while two more locked themselves to access gates with heavy-duty bike locks around their necks. Several others chained themselves to logging equipment.
Debt for Nature, Jail for Hurwitz
In related news, a new lawsuit against MAXXAM CEO Charles Hurwitz was announced September 13 when the Federal District Court released previously sealed information on the bailout of Hurwitz' failed savings and loan, United Savings Association of Texas (USAT). Funds that were essentially laundered through investment in junk bonds were taken from the S&L by Hurwitz, and used in the hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. Almost immediately after the takeover, Hurwitz raided the pension fund and practically tripled the rate of redwood cutting to pay off the loans and junk bonds used to finance the takeover.
The lawsuit, US v. Charles Hurwitz, seeks three times the $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds with which Hurwitz' S&L was bailed out. Based on the False Claims Act, the case is filed on behalf of taxpayers and the federal government, alleging that Hurwitz misrepresented his control over the S&L and acted in reckless disregard for its funds.
This suit comes on the heels of another filed August 2 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC made a $250 million dollar claim against Hurwitz, to recover debt to taxpayers resulting from the bailout of USAT. The lawsuit condemns his business practices and his "pattern of deceptive financial reporting."
Prodded by environmentalists, Representatives Ron Dellums (D-CA), Henry Gonzales (D-TX) and other members of the House have asked the FDIC to consider "disgorging" Pacific Lumber from MAXXAM, on the grounds that MAXXAM's takeover of PL was inextricably bound up with USAT's failure.
Jill Ratner, a lawyer at the Oakland-based Rose Foundation, was the first to look into the idea of disgorgement. Ratner sums it up: "What we're saying is that if the FDIC can prove what is already alleged, MAXXAM should be made to surrender the profit it made on the allegedly improper financing deal, and that profit is Pacific Lumber."
Disgorgement would put Headwater into federal ownership, but many would like to see Hurwitz pay for his actions with more than just trees. As Darryl Cherney puts it, "Hurwitz has pilfered the Pacific Lumber pension fund, ripped off the redwoods, and swindled a savings and loan to do it. We say three strikes and you're out. The only thing that is up for negotiation as far as old-growth redwoods are concerned is the length of Hurwitz' jail sentence."
Check in by calling (707) 923-DEMO on or after September 22 to find out whether the court has issued a preliminary injunction on PL's salvage exemptions, and whether any actions are happening following the decision.