Earth First! Humboldt

Things have been going very well for us since the action camp at Clam Beach 3 weeks ago. About 25 people came to receive training and get involved with the campaign to protect the Redwood ecosystem from Green Diamond’s clear-cut logging. There is currently a strong crew occupying our tree-village and much progress is being made in the forest and in town. The spotted owls have been visiting the tree-sitters lately. We think that the Osprey have flown south for the winter. When the heavy rains come we will be watching for the Coho Salmon, an increasingly rare fish threatened with extinction in California. They come back from the ocean to mate and lay their eggs before their lives end in the gravelly creek bed in the East Branch of Ryan Creek. The population in Ryan Creek is reportedly the healthiest in all of the Humboldt Bay watershed and we will do what we can to document and protect these fish that were once so abundant but have now been devastated by the onset of industrial logging.

We continue to explore more areas of the McKay Tract and have discovered that there is an extensive, but illegal, recreational trail system. This trail system is “maintained” by locals and is often used for hiking, dog walking, horseback riding, dirt bikes and ATV’s. These trails need a lot of erosion control. Green Diamond knows of this issue but apparently can’t (or won’t) stop it. If this 7,200 acre tract was transformed into a community park/wildlife sanctuary, it would do much to promote responsible recreation in our area and prevent the large amount of erosion currently harming our creeks and fish.

National Geographic magazine has published a story about the state of the Redwood Forest. This will bring much global attention to the Redwoods but does not go into much detail about the plight our forests are still facing from the continued archaic practice of forest liquidation known as clear-cutting. It does, however, mention Green Diamond as one of the last giant practitioners of clear-cutting. (Sierra Pacific Industries being the other Californian forest liquidating behemoth).

If you’d like to be involved with this growing campaign please contact us.