Remedy Rally Report

A 27-year-old Michigan native calling herself Remedy spoke at the March 23 rally that would have marked her one-year anniversary sitting in an ancient redwood tree, had she not been forcibly removed a few days earlier by a MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber security team. Speaking at the roadside site of her former tree-sit in the Freshwater area just north of Eureka, Remedy wore a daffodil presented to her by a supporter and spoke with quiet conviction when she said:

"Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for supporting direct action, the treesitters and everyone who does all they can to get in the way of this constant destruction of these ancient forests.

"I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to look around here at this timber harvest plan. Everything that follows the road right here and back for 38 acres, this is Unit 2. Back down the road in lower village is 32 acres, that's unit 1. There are 2 more acres out in the forest, 22 acres already clearcut. Unit 3 still stands. This is one of the largest timber harvest plans in Freshwater.

"A lot of times some of the propaganda that PL puts out is that the treesitters are slowing them down and I hope to God someday that's true. Last summer there were 11 active timber harvest plans in Freshwater, so we're not slowing them down. We slowed them down in these trees, but you really can't have much sympathy for PL. They've got more approved timber harvest plans now than ever before. CDF [California Department of Forestry] rubberstamps every single harvest plan that comes across their desk. The approval process is just that, they never turn them down."

Referring to last year's ruling by California Superior Court judge John Golden that PL halt to all logging operations, (see http://www.headwaterspreserve.org/bach_updates.php?action=showtext&id=00037), Remedy continued, "The Golden Ruling, which came down on August 29, still stands. It was such a source of high hope at one point, that they were actually going to put a moratorium on those timber harvest plans. But all it did was encourage Pacific Lumber to start logging faster, to the point where they're putting out 200 log trucks a day in their holdings in Freshwater, the Mattole, Elk River. Residents were reporting old growth trees being cut in their watersheds faster than ever before.

"There are so many reasons to resist. There are less than 3% of the ancient trees left, and every single one of them is worth saving, every one of them is worth fighting for.

"Living in Jerry for a year was the most amazing experience of my life. I got to see the days grow long and the days grow short again. I saw meteor showers from those ancient branches, a lot of full moons, rain, hail, 100-mile-an-hour winds, Humboldt county's first tornado warning. I often felt like I was an offering to the gods for whatever was going to happen, and a lot happened.

”Someone told me when I was first up there, 'nothing's gonna change with you up there in that tree.' I saw a lot of thing change. I saw the whole landscape around me change. I saw so many trees cut down, helicopter yarding…At 6:00 in the morning, six days a week, the yarding whistles would wake me up, so I could sit here and watch and listen to the forest being destroyed, no matter the consequences being suffered by the residents of this watershed, the destruction of endangered species habitat, the destruction of these ancient, beautiful magical trees.

"Thank you for loving the earth. Don't be afraid to be sad. Don't be afraid to let this break your heart, because it will just open you up and push you into action, whatever your action is. Whatever you're good at, whatever you love. I loved sitting up in that tree. I loved watching the sunrise and the sunset and having Jerry do my hair [a reference to her dreadlocks, which brought laughter from the crowd.] Whatever brings you joy, whatever you can do for the woods, the forest loves you for it, and I love you for it, so thank you." She ended with her hand on her heart to the wild applause and cheers of her supporters.

The tree in which Remedy sat, named "Jerry" by activists for the late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, was still standing at the rally but had been severely damaged by having several of its larger limbs cut off. Three more activists climbed into the tree after Remedy's extraction, but were also removed, one of them from narrow branches at the very top of the 200-foot tree. At the time of the rally another activist named Phil was occupying Jerry. A woman named Wren who occupied a tree near Jerry and other treesitters from the lower village just down the road were also removed during the week. There have been well over 20 arrests this week alone. MAXXAM/PL also began girdling the trees, a practice of cutting a complete circle around the bark in order to kill the tree slowly by cutting off its circulation, even while sitters are still perched on their platforms.

The rally took place without incident, with both organizers and CHP vehicles driving by admonishing the crowd to stay off the road. Remedy's mother, who had traveled from Michigan for the event along with Remedy's sister, spoke at the rally, thanking the supporters for looking after her daughter. Three activists who had been arrested during the week observing the tree extractions also spoke. Karen Pickett of the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters spoke of the wide support the treesitters have. "I'm a tree hugger, I’m not a climber. … Just like the trees, we have these branches, we have these roots that reach out and reach far." Veteran Earth First! organizer Naomi Wagner opened her speech saying, "No war on Iraq, no war on the environment!" Wagner compared the brutality of war to the de-limbing of Jerry she had witnessed. "I noticed in the end when the huge branches were crashing down, everyone looked so sad, including the sheriffs and the security guards." Wagner introduced a tiny, gray-haired woman calling herself Sparrow who locked down and got herself arrested trying to keep the treeclimbers out of the trees. "Action is the antidote to despair, and we're not going to let the bastards get us down!" she told the cheering crowd.

Several of the tree-sitters and their ground crews have been served with so-called SLAAP lawsuits by MAXXAM/PL. Meanwhile, Humboldt county District Attorney Paul Gallegos is suing MAXXAM/PL for misrepresenting data in securing the Headwaters sustained yield plan, a document which established logging parameters in a deal secured in 1999 by the most famous tree-sitter, Julia Butterfly Hill. The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and United Steelworkers are also suing MAXXAM/PL in a race against time, with direct actions both in Freshwater and the Mattole river watershed attempting to slow down the logging until court cases can be decided. Anyone who drives up Route 101 North can see clearcuts in the Jordan Creek area right from the freeway and from the Avenue of the Giants.

On March 18, the U.S. Forest Service endorsed major changes to a conservation plan that could lead to more logging, cattle grazing and off-road vehicle use across 11 million acres of the Sierra Nevada.
Under the plan's revisions, overall logging in the Sierra would more than double to 450 million board feet yearly. The following day, California Democratic lawmakers introduced an ambitious package of timber bills that would sharply restrict clear-cutting and protect water quality in timber-cutting areas. SB810 (Burton) would give local water quality boards power to block logging proposals; SB217 (Sher) would restrict logging along creeks; SB557 (Kuehl) would impose a tax of 1 cent per board foot on wood to pay for the state's costs of reviewing timber plans and restore habitats damaged by logging; and AB47 would order the Board of Forestry to provide detailed information about past logging projects so the cumulative impact of new projects could be better assessed. The package also includes a ban on state agencies buying wood from ancient trees and a ban on cutting any tree over 150 years old.

Earth First! organizer Darryl Cherney announced at the rally that he had discovered that the Northwest Insurance Company, in the Henderson Center in Eureka, provides liability insurance to Eric Schatz of Schatz Tree Service, the man who is climbing the trees and taking down the sitters in what observers say is a very dangerous manner. Cherney suggested a protest might be in order at Northwest "with this demand: if they're going to continue to engage in this behavior their insurance premiums need to quadruple. Also we're notifying the media so they can expect some phone calls from the press about whether they were properly insured." Activist Sue Maloney encouraged county residents to attend Tuesday's Board of Supervisor's meeting for the 2 PM public comment period to ask about law enforcement's involvement in the operation and the attendant costs.

Activists and observers are also needed at the treesit sites. Directions - GO TO north end of Eureka. Take Myrtle Avenue exit. Go a few miles to 3 Corners Market. Turn on Freshwater Road for 100 feet make immediate left on Greenwood Hts. Rd. 1.8 miles uphill exactly until you get to the extraction operation. Tree on right will have giant cave at the bottom of it but there will be many people there. From Arcata take 101 So. to the Indianola Cut-off. Right on Myrtle Ave to the Three Corners market. Turn on Freshwater 100 feet left on Greenwood Hts. Rd. past roadblock. Phone 510-835-6303 or 510-548-3113 for more info.

For more information, see:
http://www.headwaterspreserve.org/
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/
http://www.ancienttrees.org
http://www.wesavetrees.org
http://www.sfindymedia.org/features/forest