The Bureau of Land Management sells native forest to logging companies to create revenue for public schools.
In July of 2009, when Roseburg Forest Products, one of the largest privately owned corporations in the nation, went to cut a tract of 80 to 100 year old trees ("mature growth") on the Umpcoos Ridge of the Elliott State Forest, loggers found dozens of masked Earth First! activists blockading the road with barrels, slash piles, and an overturned van. Several protestors sat in delicate treetop installations, called "bipods" and "skypods" intended to collapse and kill the sitters if tampered with.
"No matter how much you lobby, the Bureau of Land Management isn't gonna listen to you if a timber company is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars," says Ben, an anonymous Earth First! activist who participated in the "Elliott Free State" blockade. "Forest defense is direct democracy: participating in the world you want to see."
In four days, law enforcement managed to extract all of the protestors from trees and locks. "As soon as we learn a new tactic, they learn it too," says Ben.
"I think a lot of them are just misinformed," says Brant (full name withheld), who runs a trucking company that hauls woodchips for Roseburg Forest Products. "The idea that we're running out of trees—they're like potatoes; you can plant more."
In keeping with state laws intended to protect the endangered species that inhabit Oregon's forests, clear cutters must leave "habitat trees" on every acre of land.
"There's so little natural habitat left for any animals at all. Humanity is destroying the planet, and if we don't stop really soon we won't be able to sustain ourselves," says Ben.
Post-cut, logging companies must raze the ground with fire and herbicides to control pests and undergrowth that might inhibit new tree growth.
"Really the most important war we can fight is inspiring other people to do what they think is right. I'd like to think that we did that," says Ben.
A mill that processes Roseburg Forest Products timber into plywood, particleboard, stud lumber, and melamine, in Dillard, OR. "They're designed to run 24 hours, seven days a week, and if they're not they're losing money," says Brant.
The company survived the housing market crash by cutting some night shifts, though the mill continued running seven days a week. Brant's trucking company, which works exclusively with timber products, had to take trucks out of commission when business dropped by 50 percent last year. "We're directly tied to housing," says Brant.
Business is back up to 75 percent, and Brant sees new markets for chips in Asia. "Chips are good for cardboard. We ship them to Japan. They use them to make boxes, put the electronics in, and ship 'em back."
Mills use every part of a log. "Hog fuel"-- pulp and undergrowth that don't have value on the market--is burned to provide electricity for mill operations. "Everyone's gotten more efficient," says Brant. "That's the only way to survive."
The economy of Douglas County is fueled by logging, and industry that has long failed to support community development. "I'm 33 years old, and the population hasn't grown here since I was born," says Brant.
Brant blames environmental regulation in part for the long-term economic depression in logging communities, where unemployment is normally twice the national average. "The spotted owls were the first big thing that kind of wiped out the logging industry. Now there's other factors. There's a lot of federal land inside this community, and when it was logged portions of the money would come back to the community in "timber receipts." Since they're not logging it, it doesn't come back."
Vance works nights at the mill and remembers when "Pappy" Ford, father of Roseburg Forest Products' current owner, rebuilt the mill to accommodate smaller timber because of changing laws and declining supply. "They used to be two, three log trucks--old growth, they call it--but Pappy sold that land and moved the mill across the road," says Vance.
Vance lives in old company housing, built in 1927, just down the highway from the current mill. Brant calls this area "felony flats." "This is our Hilton," says Vance. "We don't have a sign or anything."
Across the border, Humboldt Earth First! activists have maintained a sit in the McKay Tract, a grove of old and second growth redwoods near Eureka, CA, since late 2008. The land is owned by timber company Green Diamond, the largest landowner of redwood trees in the world.
"Their current plan is to clear-cut all trees that they own over 50 years old," says "Snuffles," an anonymous Humboldt Earth First! sitter. "Jello," a Cascadia Earth First! activist who sometimes sits in Humboldt, ascends into the canopy.
Sitters have tied in dozens of trees, so that activists are able to traverse from platform to platform without descending.
"Snuffles," pictured here traversing, has lived on and off in the sit since it went up. He uses aliases and masks his face for media, as do some of the other "treetopia" residents, so that his real identity will not be associated with the illegalities of tree-sitting (trespassing, primarily).
Sitters rest in "dream catchers," webs of rope cradled by sturdy branches in the upper canopy. "Tree-sitting doesn't necessarily save a lot of trees," says Snuffles, "but living in trees itself is a pretty radical thing. If we could get more people to live in trees and have a relationship with trees and the wildlife around them, it would be a great thing."
The tract has survived in part by the efforts of the sitters, but more likely, says protestor "Snuffles," because of the housing market crash. Timber company Green Diamond is in no rush to extract the entrenched sitters without a market for timber.
