When your purpose is the destruction of those whom you conflict with, why bother with dialogue?
The radical enviro movement in concerned with the destruction of jobs, in particular, and capitalism, in general.
I have met decent people wanting elevated diolog on forest issues, and those who's ego says no to diolog, and just want to hurt and punish.
My point is that non-violent civil disobedience is one thing; and the break-away Earth liberation Front self professed monkey wrenchers are quite another.
One will never get rid of people for more or less logging out there.
The trick is to cull out those doing violence, who endanger lives, and don't understand this is a free republic where we can civilly disguss our differences.
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, 2002Santa 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