Redwood Summer is designed to slow down the logging of redwoods in California, and to stop completely the harvest of the socalled old-growth redwoods, those 160 to 1,000 years old. They are a rapidly dwindling resource. Of the estimated 2 million acres of redwood forests in California 200 years ago, only about 85,000 virgin acres remain. According to the Department of Forestry about 62,000 of those acres are protected in parks. Almost half of the rest–about 10,000 acres–is owned by one company, Pacific Lumber. Throughout the state about 150 old-growth redwoods, some valued at $10,000, depending on size and quality, are felled each day. In nonvirgin forests the rate of clear-cutting-wholesale leveling of huge forest tracts–has almost doubled since 1980. The industry’s importance to the local economy is inestimable.
The redwood forests are unique ecosystems, and environmental activists argue that they’re essential to the smooth functioning of the planet. They are home to a world of wildlife, including the northern spotted owl, which the Interior Department designated a threatened species late last week, further complicating the picture. Fish habitats and water have suffered greatly due to logging. Eroding sediments from clear-cuts and road building pollute mountain streams. The loss of these temperate rain forests, combined with the loss of other rain forests around the world, is inextricably linked to global weather changes and species extinction. “What we’re really admitting is the forest is the matrix of the ecosystem,” says activist Andrea Luna. “If you take away the forest you destroy the whole ecosystem.”
This is essentially a familiar scenario in the environmental wars, but it’s been heated up by some peculiar circumstances. Pacific Lumber, the largest private redwood landholder in the state, was until several years ago a model logger, selectively cutting at a moderate rate. In 1986 the company was bought out by Los Angeles-based Maxxam Inc, in a deal set up by financier Michael Milken and financed by almost $750 million in junk bonds. Opponents argue that a heavy debt burden has led to excessive cutting. Whatever the reason, PL admits that it now harvests twice as much lumber as it did in 1985. “Some of the increased revenue from the timber harvesting was used to pay off debt,” says PL spokesperson Jeff Raleigh. “But a major portion of the increase was used for capital expenditures.”
Adding still more pressure are three forestry-policy initiatives that will appear on the California ballot this November. The most far-reaching, nicknamed Forests Forever, would severely restrict the industry’s ability to harvest its stock of old-growth redwoods. With cutbacks looming, “they’re putting their foot to the pedal and cutting everything,” says Steven Antler, a pro-environmental attorney. In an effort to buy time until the vote and to raise public consciousness, Earth First conceived Redwood Summer several months ago. About 200 volunteers plan to spend the next few months camped out in the woods engaged in acts of civil disobedience, like a recent “woods action” in which eight Earth Firsters played cat and mouse with Louisiana Pacific loggers. The idea was that the loggers might hold off felling huge trees if they knew there were people somewhere in the forest. They did, for about a day.
‘Record numbers’: Forty-four demonstrators were arrested at Samoa last week. The industry argues that Redwood Summer is a nuisance, and that it takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. LP is currently cutting only “second growth” redwoods, 60 to 80 years old. “We are replanting at record numbers, and in California right now there is 20 percent more growth than harvest,” LP spokesman Shephard Tucker says. (That figure covers all species of trees, of all ages, in all harvested California forest lands. But, according to the Department of Forestry, harvesting in the main redwood region–Mendocino and Humboldt counties–currently exceeds growth.) “When can we get on with growing and cutting trees?” Tucker asked last week, as Redwood Summer demonstrators did their best to impede traffic in and out of the Samoa mill. For Earth First and the volunteers who plan to spend the summer bedeviling the industry, desperately trying to hold off the chain saws until the initiatives come to a vote, the answer is: not yet.
