Trees Spiked in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest

ELF Press Office ^ | 15 Aug 02 | unknown

[Glutton]

"No, if they really want to protect the trees, they need to buy the property or buy the trees. Telling the entire nation what we can and can't do, buy, build, farm, or create is simply anti-Freedom."

The beef is the national Forests are for multiple users, but the logging industry gets preference.

There is disgust the subsidized roads cost more then taxpayers get for the wood harvested, thus pointless.

I myself do believe more logging then nessary has been done in recent decades on public land, and not enough thinning, restoration, and other upkeep has been done to improve the yeild of these silvaculture plantations of young trees.

Having worked out there many years my opinion is come by honestly, and I fully realize that to support a complete end of logging to be an insane position to assume.

[Glutton]

EF!ers use recycled wood in the tree platforms, and wipe with moss when using the buckets that are their outhouses in the canopies.

Cobb and straw are very popular amound this set of people. So is building underground.

One common crossed wire many EF!ers get is understanding that dense development in urban boundries are to be tolerated if they trully indeed want to stop the spread of new homs in the urban forest interface that also give firefighting such grief as they protect homes instead of trail fires out of existance as fast as they can.

I understand there is a plan for building near Mount Hood to accomidate skiers lodging near the slopes. I bet this will be an ELF target. It is too contriversial, and too close to a big population of ELFers.

This should be watched by the authorities closely. This is just my opinion mind you.

[Glutton]

Here is a new EF! press release to compare with this one from ELF. You can find those involved using information in the EF! handout, and it is an action built to gain support for an issue using non-violent CD.

EF! has been around a couple of decades, ELF was born in the ninties out of frustration with EF! willingness to fold an action if the community at large speaks and the consensus is to thwart it.

ELF is involved in an assymetrical conflict. They abdicate all respocibilities of good citizenship and are owed no quarter to be given them beyond due process.

The press release:

Press Release - For Immediate Release - 18 August, 2002

Santa Cruz Earth First! Action Update - Ramsey 2 Treesit Starts Against Redwood Empire

A tree-village has been established in the Ramsey 2 Timber Harvest Plan (THP) in southeastern Santa Cruz county in California. Located at the southern end of the contiguous Coastal redwood belt that stretches south from Oregon, the treesits, called Critter and Free, were setup on Friday, the 16th of August by activists with Santa Cruz Earth First!

(SCEF!) This area has been the scene of some of the worst logging in recent Santa Cruz county history and two years ago was the site of the first treesit in the county. That treesit ended 18 months later with a court victory that closed Summit Road to Redwood Empire, a San Jose based timber liquidator and land speculator. In 2001, SCEF! managed to save a couple of acres of Coast Redwood and Douglas Fir in the steep, easily eroded soils of Ramsey Gulch by occupying several trees and fending off helicopters. A local judge prevented Redwood Empire from forcibly removing the treesitters for fear that someone would be injured. Redwood Empire had filed a lawsuit aimed at removing the activists and collecting damages, but stopped it after the judge made his ruling.

A 1995 THP in nearby Game***** Canyon was the scene of 37 Forestry Act violations by a Redwood Empire logging contractor. The now bankrupt Licensed Timber Operator, Hayward Logging, amassed the violations by overcutting, felling unmarked timber, causing excessive erosion, and violating other forestry regulations repeatedly. Loggers working for the Hayward brothers were noted for randomly shooting off firearms into the woods and firing at activists. Their father once called SCEF! and begged us to leave the woods so that people wouldn't get shot.

They also terrorized local residents with verbal and physical assaults, sending one neighbor to the hospital. The neighbors sued, finally forcing Redwood Empire off the local road. Redwood Empire's Registered Professional Forester, Peter Twight was forced in the past to relinquish his license due to undisclosed violations, though sources cite his repeated overcutting of Northern California THP's.

Here is the story of the first days of the new treesit by Penelope, one of the treesitters. "On August 14th, I became aware of the possibility of a compromising Timber Harvest Plan (THP) being approved for Ramsey Gulch. On August 15 I decided to take action against illegal cutting of trees along Ramsey Creek, a Class I fish-bearing stream that Redwood Empire contends should be reclassified as Class II [Note: Class I streams get 75-foot 85%-canopy-retention "Watercourse and Lake Protection Zones," whereas the WLPZ for Class IIs is only 50-feet. Not to mention the fact that County Ordinance 4571, passed by the S.C. Board of Supervisors in Nov. 1999 but overturned when local timber behemoth Big Creek Lumber successfully sued the county in California Superior Court in 2000, would have established 50-foot no-cut buffer zones for Class I streams. And no-cut means 100% canopy retention...]

We arrived on scene the night of August 15th and worked all night to set up a 2-person platform to protect a cluster of five 2nd-growth redwood trees among many other massive redwoods and oaks. I witnessed the blue marks for cutting on trees surrounding a large oak tree marked "W" for wildlife [a tree Redwood Empire is "saving" as "mitigation" for the impact on raptor habitat in the THP]. Logic tells me that if all the trees surrounding a tree marked "W" are cut, the wildlife tree's habitat also will be destroyed. On the morning of August 16 around 8 a.m. I heard the start-up of chainsaws and the catcalls of loggers.

Having been informed of the 5-day waiting period after a THP is approved [to allow for appeals], I was disappointed once again to find that the greedy corporation, Redwood Empire, had jumped the gun and had started to destroy the diverse ecological system that my heart calls home before it was actually "legal" to do so.

So I will be here until the public is aware of these atrocious things and a way to put an end to the destruction of our forest comes to light in the minds of more than just a few. If the average human had the blessing of spending the night with these trees and the creatures that dwell therein, I would not have to write this to express the love I feel for the home all earth's beings have been given. Please take the time to notice and appreciate your surroundings and stop the perversion of human life." Penelope - Ramsey II Tree-Sit -- August 17, 2000.

For more information call Santa Cruz Earth First! Voicemail - 831-425-3205 or send email to: cruzef@cruzio.com Volunteers and donations are needed immediately. Send donations to SCEF! POB 344, Santa Cruz, CA 95061

[Jolly Rodgers]

ELF is the direct action arm and EF! is the political arm of the same terrorist organization. It is a classic example of the communist insurgence structure.

[Trajan88]

I burn lots o' wood in my fireplace when it is cold.

Nothing like a roaring fire and a good NFL football game on fall Sunday afternoon (ooops can't forget the beer).

Trajan88; TAMU Class of '88

p.s. t.u.'s Crissy Simms SUX!

[timestax]

bump

[Glutton]

"ELF is the direct action arm and EF! is the political arm of the same terrorist organization. It is a classic example of the communist insurgence structure."

Now that is an example of deductive reasoning done with a grounding in facts. No, you are wrong.

Many ELFers start out by getting involved with Eath First! and others involved in contesting environmental issues by informing and doing active and passive resistance.

But if they don't trust the process of elevating diolog on important issues and want to try to force a change using violence - and make no mistake, property damage IS violence - they have to leave EF! and organizations like them.

The reason is EF! and others like them recognize protest has responsibilities, and do not take that lightly.

EF! is still part of the community at large, and are in it for the long term. the Earth Liberation Front are flashes in the pan that ruins all it touches.

There are squabbles enough in the forest defender community - for example the uneasy relationship with feminimist elements and men acting like, well, you know, men - without entertaining letting a bull like ELF into the china shop that is often the sociological elements of the community of forest defenders.

I invite you to revisit your conclusions concerning the alleged connectivity between EF! and ELF. There just isn't any.

[Jolly Rodgers]

I invite you to revisit your conclusions concerning the alleged connectivity between EF! and ELF.

There is no question that the two are just sub-cells of the same political subversion organization. The FBI knows it and any person who gives them more than a passing look via the evening news knows it. You can protest it all you like, but it is so utterly and obvious true that your talking point won't fly. Don't get my wrong, I do understand why you need to keep them disassociated, just as subversive communist revolutionaries in other countries do, I just don't fall for it.