From the Jul 1 – Jul 7, 2004 issue

News

Log Jam

Activists Take on Feds as the Bush Policies Endanger Northwest Public Lands.

by Langdon Cook

Like a good neighbor, I brought the new folks on the block a cherry pie the other night. Greenpeace had moved in down the road from my cabin--camping out to protest old-growth logging on federal land. The activists were having a fireside meeting with staff and supporters to plot strategy in the escalating war over timber sales in the area. However, my home-baked pie notwithstanding, some locals had a different welcome in mind. Just beyond the firelight, the shadow of a pickup sped past, then gunshots peppered the night.

Indeed, some people are not happy about Greenpeace's presence--like the sheriff of Josephine County, who referred to them in a letter to the editor of the Grants Pass Daily Courier as "common criminals."

But they seem like an uncommon bunch to me: organic goat farmers from the nearby Applegate Valley, media-savvy politicos from D.C. and San Francisco, tree-climbing Aussies, and a host of neighboring supporters from Medford, Ashland, and Grants Pass, all united to save the last remnants of unprotected ancient forest in the Northwest.

It's generally accepted that only 10 percent of the Pacific Northwest's ancient forest remains--compared with 20 percent globally--and some scientific studies put the figure closer to 5 percent. Such numbers only hint at the collateral damage wrought by road-building, erosion, and habitat loss.

The Clinton administration tried to address controversial logging practices and economically stagnant timber communities with its Northwest Forest Plan in 1994, a blueprint for peace in the woods that protected some old-growth reserves while opening up other land for harvesting. The plan has earned mixed reviews from both environmentalists and the timber industry, with the one calling for a complete ban on old-growth logging and the other feeling cheated out of its accustomed supply of taxpayer-subsidized trees. Now, with a new administration looking back fondly to the pre-Clinton days of resource extraction, the 10th anniversary is being marked by new timber sales and renewed hostilities throughout the region, and the coastal mountains here in southwest Oregon are the central battleground at the moment.

Thanks to a writer's residency awarded to my wife, we happen to live behind the frontlines of the latest timber wars. The residency cabin is situated in the Rogue River Canyon, on the edge of the Zane Grey Roadless Area--at 46,464 acres, the largest forested roadless area overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the country. It's a remote location in rugged country, meant for solitude and literary inspiration.

Greenpeace moved into the neighborhood on Memorial Day weekend and set up its first U.S. "forest rescue station"--complete with green geodesic media domes and a red, solar-powered command-and-control tent--to protest the upcoming Kelsey-Whisky timber sale. Named for two creeks that drain into the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River, one of the nation's premier outdoor playgrounds, this sale covers about 1,700 acres of the river's headwaters, including 930 acres of old growth. "We're here to educate the public and do direct actions," coordinator Ginger Cassady says cheerfully.

The first such "direct action" came on June 15, when three Greenpeace activists employed a cargo container to block a nearby logging road, where a separate timber sale was underway. The activists--two inside the container and one chained to the outside--were arrested, and the BLM took the opportunity to scold Greenpeace and revoke its camping permit, serving the organization with a much-ballyhooed 48-hour eviction notice. The local press ran blaring headlines about the agency's tough talk but Greenpeace called the federal agency's bluff and stayed put.

Handcuffing nonviolent protesters and dragging them off public land doesn't look too good--particularly when the citizenry, both urban and rural, has repeatedly said it wants to stop logging old growth. One poll, conducted by opinion research firm Davis, Hibbits & McCaig, indicates nearly 70 percent of Oregonians are opposed to harvesting ancient forest on federal land.

District BLM spokesperson Karen Gillespie calls the Kelsey-Whisky sale a "landscape enhancement project." When the BLM asked for public comment on the draft proposal, 144 citizens responded, with 95 percent opposing the commercial harvest of old growth. The BLM came back with a revised plan that increased the cut and still included old growth. Apparently the four comments in favor of harvest were quite persuasive.

To the BLM's credit, much of Kelsey-Whisky does look like "landscape enhancement." There are ridge-top thinning zones for fire prevention, selective cuts to benefit certain species of pine, and a wetlands project for enhancing wildlife. But it doesn't take a forestry degree to see that what the agency refers to as a "regeneration" cut in one unit is really just an old-growth giveaway. Classic, moss-draped ancient forest will be felled in a swath running all the way down to the east fork of Kelsey Creek, with only six to eight trees remaining per acre. Some of the Douglas firs to be cut would require three or more tree-huggers joining hands to receive a proper embrace. I tell Gillespie, the BLM spokesperson, that the inclusion of such parcels, owned by the public, means the loss of BLM credibility in the minds of many citizens. Won't this make legitimate "enhancement management" even more difficult to pursue? She says the agency is bound by the Northwest Forest Plan to provide commercial timber to the local community. It's worth pointing out, though, that nowhere in the plan is cutting old growth mandated.

So far Greenpeace appears to have outmaneuvered the BLM, at least in the public-relations skirmish. Despite threats of law enforcement actions, the encampment remains; and a week after the 48-hour ultimatum, protesters blocked another sale, eliciting a weak response from the agency. At the end of the month the activists plan to take down the camp and move to another threatened forest further south in Oregon.

Meanwhile the Kelsey-Whisky sale is still being prepared for a timber auction later in the summer, and Greenpeace says it will be back when--and if--ancient forest goes on the block.