North Coast EF! Press Release – Country Activist, July 1987
North Coast California Earth First! strongly condemns the timber industry’s recent heavy-handed tactics designed to bring woodworkers wrath upon environmentalists. Our efforts have not and will not involve tree spiking, destruction of private property, or devices that threaten harm to any life form, including humans.
Industry’s spring media blitz, which inaccurately associates Earth First! efforts with malice toward woodworkers, is a blatant ruse. Recently local residents have realized that corporate greed, not environmentalism, is the real villain threatening their livelihood. A healthy, selectively cut forest would please most environmentalists and most woodworkers, who could be guaranteed sustainable jobs if Industry would not cut so heavily.
Pacific Lumber, for instance, would now be feeling no pressure from environmentalists had the company not adopted clear cutting while accelerating its logging of old-growth redwoods and Pacific Lumber employees—who two years ago were guaranteed jobs for generations to come—would not now be faced with the prospect of massive layoffs over the next five to ten years.
“Just as Big Timber without care destroys forest life, it is willing to devastate human life if it better facilitates resource extraction and profit maximization,” said Greg King, a Humboldt County investigative journalist working with Earth First! “Since the 1950’s timber boom, this human devastation has come predominantly in the form of the clear-cut-and-run, boomand-bust timber cycles that have left families, entire communities, languishing in poverty and despair. Now Industry and some local politicians are premeditatedly taking examples of what it calls ‘terrorism’—isolated incidents in no way associated with Earth First!—and are using these scenarios to pit woodworkers against environmentalists.”[1]
“It is unfortunate and ironic that Big Timber would use tactics that so obviously and purposefully create illusions among employees that could bring violence against Humboldt County environmentalists, who are using nonviolent means to end violence in the forests and in woodworkers’ homes,” said King.
Footnote:
[1] The local press had a field day as well. Bruce Anderson notes in the “Here and There”section of the May 27, 1987 edition of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, “the (Ukiah) Daily Journal and the (Santa Rosa Press Democrat), predictably, weighed in with dumb editorials about what they called ‘timber terrorism.’ These two publications serve as P.R. outlets for big timber which is busily using a single tree spiking to discredit the entire environmental movement. Zane Smith, described as Pacific Southwest Regional Forester, took the hysteria to ridiculous extremes when he issued a warning to persons cutting firewood in national forests to be alert for spikes. The Cameron Road spiker, now being tracked down in L.A., is a rightwing gun nut, not an environmentalist. His motives for spiking the logs on Cameron Road, because he appears to be psychotic, will probably never be clear. L.P. does more damage to public forests in a single day than all of the tree spikers in the world have even thought of doing.”