(From “Dear Nedd Ludd”), by “Nagasaki Johnson[1]” – Earth First! Journal, Litha (June 21), 1987
Tree spiking is again in the news. It started with an article in the Eureka Times-Standard on Thursday, May 14, about an accident in a mill in Cloverdale, Sonoma County, California, where a sawyer was seriously injured after the saw he was working hit an 11-inch spike and exploded in his face. Louisiana-Pacific, owner of the mill and the old growth redwoods being milled, was quick to point the finger at Earth First! and specifically mentioned Ecodefense. Ed Abbey’s forward to that book was quoted freely.
A press conference was hastily arranged by the Sonoma sheriff’s department the next day. Meanwhile, Earth First!ers were besieged with calls from the media from Washington state to Los Angeles. The media received our standard disclaimer and expressions of sympathy for the injured worker. The press was reminded again that we are not a membership organization, and that it was therefore impossible that one our “members” was involved.
On Friday morning, I picked up a San Francisco Chronicle, and there on the front page was the headline “Tree Spiking Claims First Bloody Victim”. Back at home, my phone was ringing off the hook. I was on my way up to Garberville to meet with fellow EF!ers about the big action against Pacific Lumber planned for the 18th. When I walked into the office in Garberville, Darryl (Cherney) was fielding the many calls from the press and reminding them we had a demonstration planned for Fortuna on Monday, and that Cloverdale was 150 miles to the south.
The sheriff’s press conference was packed, and spokesmen from the mill still insisted that radical groups “like Earth First!” who supported this type of terrorism were at fault. At that point the story took a turn toward the bizarre. L-P mentioned that they had also discovered decapitated animals placed at the logging site seemingly as some sort of a “hex.” A member of the press asked if they had drawn any connection between the beheaded carcasses and the spikes. L-P declared that they had not, but after further questioning admitted that they had been screening the logs from Elk with metal detectors since the first animal parts were found, and then admitted that they screened only those logs from Elk. The logs from Elk were the only ones in which spikes were found. In other words, they had made the connection.
This came as a surprise to the county sheriffs, because L-P had not mentioned the connection between the mutilated animals and the spiking when they began their investigation. Indeed, such activity had been occurring at Elk for about a month, and this was the first the sheriffs had heard of it. Apparently, L-P had deliberately withheld information to give a stronger impression that EF! had been involved. While there are many who would believe we might have been involved in the spiking, few would believe we had adopted such bizarre rituals as the killing and mutilation of sheep and dogs. Nevertheless, this bad publicity cast a pall over our efforts to stop the plunder of California’s old growth redwoods, and threatened to undermine the immense efforts EF! organizers had invested in this campaign.
Friday’s Chronicle featured an article on the new twist, but downplayed the role of Earth First! and sensationalized instead the gory side, as could be expected from such a rag. Inside, however, they ran a scathing attack on tree spiking and environmental terrorists without mentioning us by name. Others in the news media seemed to lose interest in the story by late Friday, and we continued preparing for our actions on Monday.
The National Day of Action against Maxxam was a big success. The Chronicle ran a good story. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat ran one of the finest news pieces on us I’ve seen in some time. The Eureka Times-Standard printed a front page retraction to their previous headline, which had read “Earth First! Blamed For Spiking”, with a headline that stated “Headline in Error.”
Mondays Chron also ran another poison-penned editorial by the infamous Abe Mellinkoff attacking radical environmentalists for both the spiking of trees and the pulling up of strawberry plants in Brentwood that were to be sprayed with the genetically engineered bacteria “Frost-Ban.” Mellinkoff had written earlier that the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French was justified, so to be attacked by him is a compliment.[2]
So what is the lesson to be learned here? Well, I’m not exactly sure but I sure am proud of all the EF!ers who had to endure this. They defended themselves with honor and eloquence, and never retreated from their original positions. They focused on the issue, which in this case is old growth, and we are all better off for it; it also brought some chickens home to roost.
Spiking is dangerous to fellow humans, and should never occur without warning! I think even the most misanthropic among us would agree with that. If it is indeed a defensive tactic, and not an offensive one, then we owe it to the unfortunate laborers who must slave away for corporate greedheads at a job that is already the most dangerous in this country. Monkeywrenching is a controversial subject among EF!ers, and always will be. To expect it to be any less controversial among the media and the public would be foolish. But the bottom line here is that as a result of all this unfavorable coverage regarding spiking, people on the West Coast are acutely aware of the crisis that exists with our forests, and our role in trying to prevent it.
The accident tells us that lumber mills do not report spiking incidents as a matter of course, but only when they think they can score a propaganda victory over us. In this case, I think it backfired for two reasons. First, it demonstrated the lengths to which the timber beasts will go to discredit us, to the point of exploiting the injuries of one of their workers for their own political goals. In fact, it is likely that the accident was the result of L-P speeding up the greenline at the mill, in their zeal to maximize profits, by overworking millwrights and overcutting redwoods, a situation they have admitted themselves. Second, it demonstrated that spiking can be effective and is more widespread than previously thought. It is becoming obvious that the timber industry wishes to suppress this fact.
Footnotes:
[1] Nagasaki Johnson is actually Mike Roselle.
[2] See “The Strawberry Liberation Front”, by Homo Fragaria, Earth First! Journal, Litha (June 21), 1987.