By Greg King – Earth First! Journal, Mabon (Sept. 23), 1987
Vividly I remember the burl: massive, gnarled, mending the midsection of a Coast Redwood 12 feet in diameter, perhaps 2,000 years old. The view—south into the heart of Headwaters Forest—was from 130 feet above the forest floor, as I rested on a three by six foot plywood platform just under an ancient old growth canopy.
During Earth First!’s latest offensive to save the world’s last untrampled, uncut Redwood forest, I stood with Jane Marie Cope as a witness against a war as brutal as any human carnage. Ours was the second EF! aerial occupation of the Pacific Lumber Company’s (PALCO’s) virgin forests since our May 17, 1987 action, which was the first Redwood occupation in history.
“Owned” by PALCO’s new masters—MCO Corporation, Maxxam Corporation, and Houston rape-and-run business-man Charles Hurwitz—Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County, northern California, is—at less than 5,000 acres—the world’s largest known stand of roadless virgin Redwood, the last Redwood wilderness. Yet, without direct action, Headwaters Forest would join the incalculable ranks of unique ecosystems lost forever.
In July our group scheduled an action for the last weekend of August. Oregon Earth First! and the Cathedral Forest Action Group would by then be concluding the summer’s Kalmiopsis campaign, in the northern Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion. Their talent proved invaluable when the action hit.
Reconnaissance being a must, Reta Urn and I at midnight, August 9, hiked to Headwaters Forest, camping at the head-waters of Little South Fork Elk River, the world’s least degraded Redwood stream. Here is found timber harvest plan (THP) #1-87-240, a proposed l24-acre clearcut. But this plan and two others were temporarily stalled in litigation, and on August 10 we moved through dense old growth underbrush to the northeast panhandle of Headwaters Forest, now under destruction.
Here we found THP #87-427, a 385acre “modified select cut.” This new “alternative prescription” was designed by PALCO to avoid lawsuits, and “modified” to leave one tree per acre. THP 427 includes the last virgin forest in Elk Head Springs, the highest reaches of the South Fork Elk River. Elk Head Springs consists of countless tiny drainages separated by slopes of massive trees and thick undergrowth reaching far over one’s head. The water remains pure, not yet having been turned brown by soil erosion from tree cutting.
The rectangular expanse of forest at THP 427 is perfect for tree sitting. The walls of standing old growth adjacent to clearcut land lend themselves nicely to banners, and the distinctiveness of healthy forest compared with adjacent injured terrain is startling. On August 19, the California Department of Forestry (CDF) ignored the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the California Forest Practices Act and approved THP 427. The next day, 17-ton tractors were ripping new roads through the stand.
On August 27, Earth First!’s Nomadic Action Group (NAG) arrived. It included: Valeri Wade, who that day ended a 20-day jail term for occupying a 92-foot logging yarder in the North Kalmiopsis; tree climbers Phil, Tim, Madrone, Barry, Duff, and Soul; and supporters Joanne, Clear Blue Lou, Helen, Daniel, Kelpie, and Karen, Six locals rounded out the solid team.
A crew of 15 carried 500 pounds of climbing gear, food and clothing eight miles to base camp. Work began at dusk. Tim, Urn, Archdruid, Daniel, Val, and I climbed carefully from base camp across the river from the site—up the ridge to P-L roads on which we crossed the stream and entered the grove. At the bridge, Archdruid left for his security position, up the main haul road, with portable CB radio.
We chose two eight-foot diameter trees facing the northern clearcuts, and a second wave of climbers and supporters began work. At 8 PM Mokai, Phillip, Urn, and Tim—using a tandem system to spur-climb the trees—began their long ascent. By 4 AM they had equipped a tree for me with platform and girth hitches for hanging supplies, and one hour later finished Jane’s tree. Using mechanical ascenders, Jane and I climbed fixed ropes to the platforms. I’d never been more than 30 feet up a tree, but adrenaline—the drug of a new generation—made the climb easy. We then used a pulley system to haul up food, clothing and water for two weeks.
We were not discovered until Monday morning, August 31. A logger noticed my banner (“FREE THE REDWOODS”) and ran over. Soon the entire crew strolled over to gawk and comment. Peer pressure and managerial oppression, however, forced the loggers away from us for nearly the entire action.
Soon two Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, as did three P-L security crew members. The deputies, shouting upward, offered their opinion that we were trespassing. I replied that Maxxam had abrogated its right to private property via its destruction of same; and Jane said, “I’ll come down when they stop cutting the old-growth.”
PALCO chief of security Carl Anderson has the job of guarding Maxxam’s tools of ruin—tractors, skidders, loaders, and other heavy machinery representing millions of dollars. Our infiltration and occupation of the grove was embarrassing for Anderson, and on Tuesday he attempted ending this embarrassment by having a professional tree climber tear down my banner.
Jane’s banner (“THIS TREE HAS A JOB / HURWITZ OUT OF HUMBOLDT”), not tied to the tree as was mine, was easy to lift before the climber reached it. I then unfurled my extra banner (“2000 YEARS OLD / RESPECT YOUR ELDERS”).
By Tuesday evening PALCO assigned to us a 24-hour security guard, in addition to the man hired to watch the machinery during our stay. Wednesday and Thursday were “normal”: At 6:30 AM loggers would arrive, sounding fog horns, and roaring engines. Trees crashed; the quiet calm of the forest was dead for ten hours each day.
We often sang, and during the loggers’ lunch one day I sang for them “The ol’ Tree Spiker” by Spike Johnson.
On Friday, Anderson seemed nervous. That afternoon Jane traversed the rope between our trees and we prepared lunch. From Anderson’s radio—into which he was talking—came a reply: “I’ll be there in an hour.”
The tree climber returned, hoping to cut down Jane’s plat-form before she could traverse back. This was a silly idea, as Jane reached her platform before the climber reached her tree. The game became intense. Anderson left and returned two hours later with a pick-up full of surprises. He unloaded fuel cans, floodlights, and a generator! P-L would fill the remaining forest with obnoxious light and engine noise to annoy those who would preserve these trees.
Anderson would find a weakness in my aversion to internal combustion engines and artificial light. Jane and I agreed that escape seemed futile. But with arrest imminent anyway, I decided to escape the hell Anderson devised. Escaping arrest was not the point. I wanted to leave the forest on my own terms, not those of money grubbers holed up in offices thousands of miles from the areas they impact.
The decision to leave was buoyed by sighting two figures across the river—Duff and Soul. We signaled to them our intentions, and began to pack. It seemed impossible, dismantling the traverse rope and gear hanging all over the trees without our guard noticing. “This is suicide,” shouted Jane. Although speaking in metaphor, I would soon learn how close to the truth her words had been.
I struggled into the straps of my 80 pound pack. We were ready. I fit the rope through the 8-ring (rappelling device). Attached to the 8-ring was a carabiner, which I hooked to the locking carabiner on my harness. The extra “biner” seemed incorrect, but I focused on other problems.
I could not fit my body with pack through the small opening between a guy-rope holding up the platform and the tree itself. Opening my knife hanging from my neck, I held the climbing rope while forcing my weight against the guy-rope, and cut the latter. Life immediately became dangerous. The platform lurched downward, and the water jugs slid across its length to a crash 130 feet below. The released tension sent pack and I flailing across the tree and back. The cheap harness squeezed my waist, nearly halting my breathing. The descent began in agony.
Rappelling worked only in spurts, as the extra biner became twisted in the line and added friction to the rope passing through. With each lurch, I groaned. Although I had positioned the rope along the tree’s dark side, occasionally I traversed uncontrollably into the floodlight. I had no doubt I would be caught, but this became the least of my worries.
Soon my beard became caught between the 8-ring and the twisted rope. Twice I stopped descending and pulled my head to the right, affirming that the captured whiskers were still attached to my face. A riveting thought occurred to me: People die doing this.
Pulling my head to the right, endorphins rushed in to kill the pain. The lurching lessened as I moved the rope to various locations around my body, finally wrapping it around my butt and into my left hand. The leather glove smoked as I gained speed, and the 8ring became too hot to touch.
(What seemed like) (y)ears later I found myself flat on my back, atop the pack, lying on the cool salal growing thick below my tree. It was then I noticed the open knife hanging from my neck. That it did not cut my gut or rope during the bouncing ride can only be called fortuitous.
Soon I heard footsteps. “It’s Soul,” said a welcome voice. He took all my provisions so I might lightly stumble across now unfamiliar solid ground, my footing adjusted to the sway of a platform. Jane was down safely. Our getaway was clean.
We crossed the river and began the eight mile hike to the nearest public road. After a few miles, we saw people approaching us. Two of them carried flashlights covered with clear red plastic to dull the beam. Three voices spoke at once: “Who’s that?”
“We’re Earth First!” came the reply. “Oh, so are we.”
Six supporters, hearing (via the rented mobile radio phone I took to the tree) of our well-lit demise, had planned an action to aid us. Yrral carried three six-packs of beer; Mokai, a portable stereo with reggae and Doors tapes. One hiker carried smoke bombs. The idea was to relieve our suffering by creating a diversion with the smoke bombs while someone hoisted beer to us. The music would relieve the generator sound, and we would all party together on opposite sides of the river.
By consensus, the group decided to postpone this action until the next forest occupation. We opened the beers and shared the glory of our small coup. We were free, happy Earth First!ers caught in a maddening world of environmental imprisonment. Yet like the burl, our lives are dedicated to healing and preserving the world’s disappearing wild places.
Postscript: This action was the latest in an Earth First! campaign to preserve all of PALCO’s old growth, as well as entire watersheds, as wilderness. Humboldt EF!ers have, since June 1986, spent thousands of volunteer hours and donated dollars in publicizing the issue through education and direct action. Major environmental groups and federal politicians are finally beginning to voice concern; but without Earth First!, Maxxam would today face little if any public pressure. The old growth will last only a few more years at Maxxam’s current logging levels, but it appears we are now breaking ground toward preservation.