Interviewed by Crawdad Nelson – New Settler, Issue #24 September 1987
“Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.”
—Plato, Laws
Crawdad Nelson: Greg King and his partner Jane went into the trees in a grove named All Species early in a September morning.
With help, using spurs on their boots and lanyards wrapped around their chosen trees, they inched up toward the canopy. At the first limbs, some 150 feet above the forest floor, they attached 3’x6’ platforms by means of girth-hitches, and attached themselves to life-lines, then settled in to wait.
A quarter-mile away, Maxxam crews worked. They were clearcutting old-growth redwood. As the trees fell, the woods shook and rang.
GK: It’s an explosion you can hear for miles, when an old-growth tree falls. Clearcuts are brutal. Everyone who passed through there, even the cops, though they wouldn’t voice it to us directly, talked about how ugly it looked.
And it’s just amazing. They leave no underbrush at all, no trees. It’s heavily desertified. It’s almost twenty degrees cooler in the forest. It’s just a tragedy.
CN: Do you consider yourself a warrior?
GK: A warrior; that’s interesting. When I was living in Sonoma County, and I come from folks who have been both in Sonoma and up in Humboldt going on six generations now, I was talking with a man (This was just after I had given up the editor’s position at the North Coast News which I had just been offered. In between, I went up and saw Pacific Lumber’s forest and was so astounded with what they were doing I called up and turned down the job.), and I told this man in Sonoma County that I was moving to Humboldt to take on Maxxam full time. And he said, “Wow, you really are a warrior, aren’t you?”
That was the first time I really thought of myself in those terms—about environmentalism as a war.
I recently heard a speech by Dave Foreman—at the Round River Rendezvous where he referred to Earth First!ers as a warrior tribe. The things we are doing are often paramilitaristic—without the weapons of course. Guerilla actions. A lot of times in the dark. A lot of times we sneak into places.
Looking at the warrior aspect of it, we do have to get together and plan our actions, and we do have to be clandestine. Often times we have to worry about the phones we use, and sometimes we have to worry about whether we have an infiltrator in the group. We don’t worry about it very much, but sometimes you can, especially when you’re dealing with such powerful and insidious people as Charles Hurwitz of the Maxxam Group. But there are a lot of other elements that you could call warrior elements … the camaraderie.
Actually getting into the trees required the help of a half-dozen friends. It was work: climbers opposite each other on the trunks of ten foot wide trees, each stepping slowly up, planting spurs, lifting the other’s rope a few inches and waiting while the climber opposite did the same.
Climbing the hundred and fifty feet took a good part of the first morning Then we, Jane and I settled in, stashing food and supplies, while our partners descended and the ground crew fastened supplies to ropes which we then pulled up. Then we secured a line between the trees, just a single rope between us.
CN: What was going through your mind after you first got up there and were settled in?
GK: What really went through my mind was the magnificence of this grove, which Maxxam is right now cutting the heart out of. I pretty much just said goodbye. We enjoyed the peacefulness of the forest. We heard pileated woodpeckers and spotted owls, which are supposedly protected but are really not.
For the first few days we just hung out, so to speak. I could jump off the platform above the forest floor and slide across to Jane’s tree about fifty feet away in a matter of seconds. That was a real thrill. Later, I learned that experienced climbers consider it dangerous to perform a traverse on a single line. Something to do with magnified stress. Fools rush in, I guess, where angels fear to tread.
CN: What were you living on while you were up there?
GK: A lot of fruit. Green avocados are the best because you can let them ripen slowly. Rice cakes,…crackers, cheese. I brought four cans of sardines, for the protein. Vegetables, carrots. Sometimes I bring my own bread. Whatever you can carry.
The first time up I brought a lot of clothes which turned out to be unnecessary. You really only need one change.
And I suppose you’re wondering about the basics. For urinating you just let it go off the side. For defecating, the standard way is to do so in a paper bag, then fold up the bag and, if you are in a wilderness area such as we were, and you’ll only be there a week, throw it off the side where it will decompose. You want to be sure and not throw it in the same place every time, because that’s really not fair to the loggers who’ll be working there. Some people save it in a plastic bag and take it out with them.
At the mill in Scotia, steam and the deep scent of drying redwood drift south. It is warm. Smoke from forest fires
It thickens the air between high, rugged ridges. A man drives across Main Street in a lumber carrier, passing between the mill and an air-yard across the freeway. Acres of land are committed to the proper drying of this top-quality lumber.
In wide ponds between the mill and the river, logs await delivery to headrigs in utterly patient grids. The pond water is dark and still.
Old-growth logs, hauled two or three at a time, arrive here from as many as twenty crews. They arrive from the grove where Greg and Jane sit, contemplating tragedy,
People in Scotia live in neat row houses separated by waist-high redwood fences. A row of such houses abuts the mill’s main parking lot. Fresh laundry sags across from the imposing machinery of the mill. A row of massive vents stands abode the mill, staring out at the freeway with empty faces
One thing all Scotians share is a dependence on redwood forestland; another thing they share is the threat of time. Maxxam’s well-publicized acceleration of production is causing the boom before the bust. Work and money, work and money.
“Oligarchy: a government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.”
—Plato, the Republic
GK: On Wednesday morning, we heard voices and crashing through the brush, and all of a sudden a dozen big guys came flooding through the underbrush from six different directions.
They did a sweep, trying to find our ground crew, moving very fast, making threatening comments like, “We’re going to cut those trees down right now, they’ll be at the mill in Scotia by tomorrow.”
The first thing they did was cut down all the trees and shrubs near our trees, including a beautiful vine maple, so that we couldn’t escape. They hooted and hollered and walked around in the bushes looking for infiltrators.
And then a D-8 Caterpillar came over the ridge and cut a skid road three hundred yards in fifteen minutes, right to the base of the tree next to mine. This was followed by a PALCO security vehicle, with the Chief of Security. It was a very well-staged assault on our situation.
It became obvious later on that the initial intimidation was just a ruse to see if they could scare us down. But I wasn’t sure at first what they were going to do, so I called up the Sheriff’s department, and got some deputy. I told him there were a bunch of loggers threatening to chop us down, and he said, “So, why did you call me?” I said, “Well, I just thought you might want to know. Who am I supposed to call?”
We pretty much got their goat last time by escaping, and then coming back, so they wanted to give us a little shit.
The first time, the loggers were obviously under orders not to talk to us. But this time, the loggers who were there (we had a crew of eight watching us at night, and three during the day) they were obviously under orders to make a lot of noise, turning on floodlights and things to try and get us out of there.
A couple of loggers, particularly, were very nice. Intelligent, good to talk with. I came away with a real good feeling about some of those men. One or two of them continued to act really hostile, but then they even came around and would talk to us. For the most part, the loggers were funny, witty … kind of loud and obnoxious, but that was part of the game. It was actually enjoyable.
We would talk about how from different perspectives, clear-cutting was very wrong. From our perspective, ecologically; from their perspective, economically. We agreed on that, almost every logger agreed. They don’t like Maxxam, they don’t like Hurwitz. There was no logger who said, “No, we shouldn’t be cutting old-growth.” They all thought of .it as a harvestable commodity. With them it was the rate. We said there was so little left it should all be saved. We disagreed on that, but it was OK. We got along pretty well.
They really enjoyed just being out there. Camping out. The second night, they plugged a TV into the generator, and they were much quieter that night. They said, “I could do this forever, making $18 dollars an hour just for sitting around on my ass.” One guy complained that he could actually make more money working, because he got paid per tree. Everyone else was getting a lot of overtime.
CN: Something like Plato. Human beings living in an underground den, they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.”
GK: Using a chain instead of a rope as lanyard, Dan, one of the loggers, gave us a tree climbing exhibition. His movements were quick, sure, practiced. As he ascended, the chain slackened. Rather than break rhythm to stop and advance the clip on his belt, he gathered the slack in his hand. If he slipped he would have slid until all the slack was drawn tight. That would be almost certain, serious injury. His arms, man. You wouldn’t believe his arms!
In half an hour, he was up to my platform. He told me that he has been offered $100 if a platform falls by his work. He tried to persuade me to come down. I was impressed by this man who does the work of two Earth First!ers in a third the time.
CN: Did it seem bizarre at night when they set up the spotlights?
GK: Surreal, with the lights coming up, shafts of light shooting through the trees, I even went across the traverse at night. On Thursday night, the night before we left, I went across and sat with Jane. They really worried that we were plotting to escape because their asses were on the line. A short while later they turned on a second set of lights, so Jane said, “Hey, if he goes back to his platform will you turn off that second light?” We made a deal. I went back and they turned it off.
CN: What kind of relationship did you and Jane have in the trees?
GK: We were comrades. We have a real strong friend-ship that really comes out up there, because we help each other out. Jane’s a really strong old-growth advocate, one of the strongest I know of. It’s really a privilege to be up there with her.
At dinner, on the evening of the day they come down after five days aloft, Greg and Jane sit together where we all talk. They eat light, and beam, as if they have literally eaten light.
People stop in the restaurant to congratulate them. There is a feeling of victory. Even though Greg and Jane have appointments in court, and All Species Grove will certainly be reduced to right-angled stacks drying on the gravelly banks of the Eel.
Greg feels they have advanced the cause, if only because they are now on speaking terms with a dozen loggers.
And because he has pictures, pictures of him-self and Jane high above the ground, in their platforms and traversing the fifty feet between them. Publicity is the forest’s most valuable tool. These pictures can bring All Species Grove to newsstands on Wall Street; middle suburbia; the front desk at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Only one thing is wrong about the pictures. They rest, undeveloped, in the limbs of an oak bush one mile deep on Maxxam property. Greg had expected the film to be confiscated, so he stashed it. He wants to go back and get it that night.
A direct action! Trespassing in the night.
After dinner, Greg, Jane and some friends relax with and ale and a few songs. Mokai, a wiry man with deep, dark eyes and luxurious hair, sings Earth First! protest songs, at Jane’s request. His voice is fine, the songs are true.
Jane relaxes on a sofa. She mentions a bruise on her ribs. She tells of slipping while climbing in the limbs above her platform. She had been throwing a rope up and wrapping it around the branches, then scrambling the distances between them. As she stood on a limb, she slipped and fell into a wide crotch where a limb forked. Her lifeline stopped her short, and she smacked into the stub of a rotten limb she had just broken off.
After songs and conversation, Greg is ready to go get the film. He and Mokai dress in jeans and jackets. They wear light shoes and move quickly through the house. The feeling is tense but certain. The nearest related feeling I can recall is being in the presence of people preparing to poach game.
CN: How do you keep going day to day? Support yourself, I mean.
GK: I get some donations from friends and family, without which I would not be able to survive, monetarily. I almost never drive my car. I ride my bike a lot. I buy my own food and live as cheaply as I can. I just barely get by. Right now I have a handful of change, which will have to do until something else comes along. I try to sell articles. Taking on Maxxam is a full time job, sometimes sixty or seventy hours a week.
I don’t want to get too mixed up in this capitalist system of debt, and working for someone else to pay off things. I would like to have a little bit of cash flow, which would make me a stronger activist. If I had my own cash flow, then I could finance things myself. I could spend my own money. I had a little savings—a couple thousand dollars, and I’ve already spent that.
I would like to go into other parts of the ecologic crisis that is facing Humboldt County: the nuke plant, spraying, oil companies exploring for gas up on Salmon Creek, the mining. There’s a lot of things plaguing this area. We can hopefully shut down a lot of these blights, and make this an oasis in an otherwise desecrated United States terrain.
That’s one of my career goals, actually.
CN: I grew up the son of a logger and went to work at the mill. Most of the people I know are pretty much committed to the industries you want to shut down. Their career goals center on keeping a dry house and something to drive. How would you explain your motives to them?
GK: I’d like to tell them that I empathize deeply with them. I did manual labor putting myself through junior college. I worked at Safeway for five years, did other things—dishwashing. Especially I can empathize with them being in the grasp of the big economic giant that comes in and steals the resources. They come in and monopolize hundreds of thousands of acres of timberland. They come in and force the people to work or practically starve, because there’s nothing else going on up here. It disturbs me a lot that if we are successful in saving the grove, it will put people out of work. But if Maxxam is allowed to go on, then these people will be out of work in five to eight years anyway.
My contention is, the jobs are going to be gone in a few years anyway, so why have both jobs and the unprecedented, irreplaceable legacy gone? Why not do something now to save the forest, and to save most of the jobs? Why not go into a sustained yield second-growth cycle? Do it now, not in five to eight years, and keep these forests. Hurwitz—a billionaire—could afford to do that, he could compensate all these workers, just out of his own pocket. Such a greedy, short-sighted man—it’s hard to believe that kind of man exists.
I think that the Palco employees should right now go out on strike. Shut down the mill, tell Hurwitz and his gang of thugs, “We’re taking over.” Say, “We want some guarantees, we want sustained yield.”
It would very much cushion the inevitable crash. In five to eight years the old-growth will be gone. Just about all of Maxxam’s old-growth will be gone. They’re cutting about 10,000 ac-res a year—it could be more—that includes about 1520% virgin stands, and the rest residual, where they have made selective cuts in the past. So they’re cutting a lot of that residual. And that’s where Palco left the timber standing, providing for future generations. These forests evolved over 130 million years. Over the last 130 years 95% have been cut.
As of a year and a half ago, Maxxam had sixteen thousand virgin roadless acres, and fifty-six thousand acres of residual old growth stands.
Those are viable old-growth trees, four to six feet in diameter.
When you leave that much standing timber, even though it’s destructive to use a caterpillar—cut layouts and landings and skid roads and all that—it will regenerate into a viable old-growth stand, whereas if you clearcut it will not.
The company was purchased for less than a billion dollars. For the amount the taxpayers paid for the Redwood National parks, which was a huge boondoggle—seventy thousand acres of cutover land—we could have bought all of Pacific Lumber’s holdings—timberlands, welding works and all, and make a nice profit. We could have saved all the old-growth and the second-growth, which is really important now, as all the second-growth lands in the north state are being cut over.
If the bureaucracy had its shit together, they could have done a much better job in this whole thing. For a billion dollars they could have bought all Pacific Lumber’s timberlands. They could have compensated the employees and saved a little ecological island in this world of maddening clearcuts and devastation.
Midnight. Damp outside. I need to wipe fog off the pickup’s windshield several times a minute. We turn east at the Indianola cutoff and head up into the curling ridge roads leading to Kneeland.
Several times we stop in the road to let deer find a way into the brushy ditch. This is classic stump country; timber crowds in close to the narrow road. Kneeland itself hardly exists. At this time of night only one or two lights illuminate living-room curtains, or porches. After Kneeland, we cross a ridge opening to broad, steep meadows. There are cattle guards, miles of board fence.
A fat moon sits in the sky above us. Dense fog encroaches up river-gulches and into the gaps between hills. Greg and Mokai point out a light shining on a point of land just above the limit of fog.
“That’s ol’ Mullin’s light. We have to drive right through his yard.” They explain their relationship with old Mullins as we negotiate switchback turns. Tense. But friendly too. The draws and cleavage on this bare slope support giant old oak trees. Each time we turn out toward the south, the creamy mat of fog is closer. The skimming headlights brush expanding fingers. Soon, we are directly under the floodlight. Mullins lives in an imposing ranch house. It is dreadfully old under moonlight and the cold, inefficient stare of the floodlight. Barns and sheds stand back behind fences and deep rose-bushes. I am glad enough to pass through and be gone.
A short distance down the road, I stop long enough for Greg and Mokai to slip out of the truck. I do not wait and watch them slip into the woods, but drive on to park some distance farther down the road. I am to wait ninety minutes and then meet them.
“Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities.”
—Socrates, the Apology