Background
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| image produced by EF! Humboldt |
EF! Humboldt formed in 2008 to take action to protect a National Forest roadless area from Sierra Pacific Industries logging road construction on the South Fork of the Trinity River. Unfortunately, we had to evacuate due to a lightning strike forest fire. The road was built in our absence. During the amazing forest fires of that summer, our attention turned to the Green Diamond Resource Company, the new name for the Simpson timber company. Green Diamond is one of the last clear-cutting timber giants left in the Redwoods. Their land holdings on the north coast of California presently cover around 430,000 acres. The company aims to cut the forest every 45 years, their main logging method being clear-cutting. They are heavily into the use of carcinogenic herbicides hand sprayed by laborers to kill off undesirable brush and trees that grow back after they clearcut.
Earth First! Humboldt became aware of Green Diamonds “McKay 09″ logging plan in the summer of ‘08 when it was filed with the California Department of Forestry. Even just reading the plans, we recognized the rarity of the grove being proposed for destruction. On our first visit to this 120+ year old grove of Redwoods, Spruce and Douglas Fir we encountered not only a Black Bear cub but a young Northern Spotted Owl. The owl was completely unexpected, not only because the sun was out but because Green Diamond includes almost no information about there . This is due to the unfortunate fact that the State and Federal governments have given the company a special deal, which includes self-monitoring and permits to kill this endangered species.
We set up a tree-sit in August 08′ in a huge ancient Redwood that was marked for cut, as Green Diamonds plan had just been approved. We soon learned that logging wouldn’t be allowed to begin until February of 2009 so we took the tree-sit down, but not before Green Diamond had suprisingly) sent someone out to mark the tree as a “wildlife tree”. This supposedly means they won’t cut it down. Our current tree-village is a few hundred feet away from this tree, known as “Millennia”.