Green | September 24, 2008 | 12 comments

Redwood Tree Sitters Descend after Agreement to protect Oldest Trees

source: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/National...

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TouchArt
New owners convince activists ancient groves will remain untouched
Evelyn Nieves | The Associated Press

9/23/2008 -

SCOTIA, Calif. — After more than 20 years of protests, the last two people living in the giant redwoods of Northern California were climbing down for good, convinced by the new owners of the forest that the ancient trees would be spared from the saw.

Still, the tree sitters looked rather lost.

Having lived nearly 200 feet off the ground for 11 months, Nadia Berg — who calls herself Cedar — seemed unsure of her footing on the lush forest floor of Humboldt County's Nanning Creek grove. Cedar had made herself at home in a tree dubbed Grandma, a massive double redwood joined at the base, and had grown accustomed to the whistles and whispers and ways of the woods.

"Being here, for me, hasn't been a sacrifice," said the 22-year-old Alberta, Canada, native, still in her harness after rappelling down Grandma last week for the final time. "I feel so honored that I could be here for the trees."

Berg's neighbor, Billy Stoetzer, a 22-year-old activist from the Missouri Ozarks, came down last week, too, after living for nearly a year in a hammocklike shelter in the branches of Spooner, a 300-foot mammoth at least 1,500 years old.

With that, the great timber wars of the North Coast came to an end.

It was a long, twilight struggle that redefined environmental activism and introduced the American public to a new type of civil disobedience — tree-sitting.

So quietly did the truce happen that almost no one involved can believe it. But the drawn-out, sometimes violent, battles between Pacific Lumber Co., the largest private owner of old-growth redwoods, and environmental activists who flocked here to save the trees, are history. Pacific Lumber has new owners, a new name — Humboldt Redwood Co. — and a new pledge to protect old trees, some of which were around before Jesus was born.

The end began a few weeks ago, when Michael Jani, the president and chief forester of the new Humboldt Redwood Co., hiked into the woods to meet the tree-sitters. "I went out, looked at the trees, looked at the stand of trees that were around them, and I explained to them that under our policy, we would not be cutting those trees," said Jani, a 35-year veteran of logging companies.

Protecting old-growth trees was part of the plan that Humboldt Redwood, largely owned by Don and Doris Fisher of The Gap Inc., submitted to acquire Pacific Lumber in bankruptcy court. Among other things, Humboldt Redwood promised to spare any redwood born prior to 1800 with a diameter of at least 4 feet. It also pledged to avoid clear-cutting, or cutting down trees in vast swaths, a practice that the timber giant aggressively practiced under its previous owner, Maxxam Inc.

Environmentalists are cautiously optimistic the company will do as it promises. So for weeks, the tree-sitters at the Nanning Creek and Fern Gully groves have been clearing out their encampments, removing their platforms and figuring out what to do with the rest of their lives.

"At this point, I'd like to focus on growing a garden," said an activist who goes by the nom de guerre Rudi Bega, as in rutabaga. The 28-year-old Idahoan is an 11-year veteran of the timber wars who helped recruit, train and organize tree-sitters.

Read rest of article at link above -
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From TouchArt and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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12 comments // Redwood Tree Sitters Descend after Agreement to protect Oldest Trees

  • mdvaden
    • 0
      mdvaden  
    • Image

    • The tree-sittting angle seems pretty dramatic and apparently is a desireable tool for publicity.

      But I'd like to know what the tree-sitters would do as an alternative, if they felt the need to protect trees that should not be climbed at all, such as redwoods scaled by researchers.

      Here is a page that does not supply a right or wrong conclusion, but introduces a rarely addressed aspect of Wear & Tear to ancient redwoods:

      http://www.mdvaden.com/redwood_climbing.shtml

      As far as some residual impact to ancient redwoods, it's rather indisputable that research climbing has an impact. The main consideration would be whether or not the climbing should diminish or increase.

      If tree-sitters were to decide to act regarding trees climbed for research, what alternatives would they choose, that could generate the same publicity or spectacle, to accomplish their goals?

    • 3 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • I thank god every day for people who are willing to put their lives on the line for our mother.

      Thank you Touch art for posting this.

    • 3 years ago
  • PlatoTacius
    • 0
      PlatoTacius  

    • Their size and scale, compaired to what the eye is used to viewing, is what is spectacular about the great trees. It's refreshing to see the sitters going to the lengths they do in order to make the impression that, obviously gets results...that's staying power...very dedicated...

      Thank you, sitters...and thank you, TouchArt, for posting this...

    • 3 years ago
  • TouchArt
  • dissimulator
  • SeaJade
    • 0
      SeaJade  

    • Eternal thanks to those who have cared for these extraordinary trees! All forests are of great importance to the integrity of our natural world, without trees our planet would become desert over a short period of time (relatively speaking). They also assist in the reduction of carbons and could make a significant difference to our "global warming" problem. If you have never taken a stroll through the redwoods and sequoias, I highly recommend you do - they are magnificent and you will be awed by their beauty as well as their age!

    • 3 years ago
  • GammySparkles
  • GammySparkles
  • onechance
  • SeaJade
  • onechance
    • 0
      onechance  

    • Let's hope they live up to their promises. Some of the trees are older than the supposed "jesus"! That's pretty dern old me thinks.

      Great work guys.

      If you'd like to keep up on this issue and if you (for any reason) need to talk to the company here you are:

      Email contacts for questions and comments
      Forest management:
      Mike Jani - President and Chief Forester, HRC
      mjani@hrcllc.com

      Logs and lumber purchasing:
      Marty Olhiser - Senior Vice President, MFP
      molhiser@hrcllc.com

      Other business related:
      Richard Higgenbottom - CEO
      rhiggenbottom@hrcllc.com

    • 3 years ago
  • TouchArt
    • 0
      TouchArt  

    • Tree sitter article continued.

      Since tree-sitting as a long-range protest began here in the late 1980s, hundreds of protesters have converged on this rugged corner of the state to take turns squatting in the redwoods, and hundreds of "bottom liners," or support crew members, have helped them from the ground. They have lugged in food, water and other supplies, emptied waste buckets and provided company.

      Tree-sits were just part of the fight that began almost as soon as Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, chairman of Maxxam Inc., acquired Pacific Lumber with junk bonds in 1986. Blockades of logging trucks, sit-ins at company offices, lawsuits by environmental groups and rallies attended by tens of thousands of protesters were part of the mix.

      Several battles made international headlines. They included the 1990 car bomb blast that nearly killed Earth First! Leaders Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney; the pepper spray swabbing of protesters' eyes by Humboldt County deputies in 1997; the 1998 death of an activist, killed by a tree cut down by an enraged logger; the marathon two-year tree-sit by Julia "Butterfly" Hill that ended in 1999; and the buying of 10,000 acres of the Headwaters Forest from Pacific Lumber by the state and federal government in 1999.

      The car bombing put the timber wars on the map. Cherney and Bari were driving in Oakland, Calif., recruiting volunteers for protests they dubbed Redwood Summer, when a bomb exploded under the front seat of their car, shattering Bari's pelvis. Oakland police and the FBI accused them of transporting the bomb for use in an ecoterrorist attack.

      Twelve years later, in 2002, five years after Bari died of cancer, the pair won $4.4 million in a lawsuit; a jury ruled that their civil rights had been violated and their names defamed by the local and federal authorities who arrested them.

      "This has been a long-term campaign with a tremendous amount of high-water marks," Cherney said of the timber wars. As for the end of the fight with Pacific Lumber, he said: "I have a healthy dose of skepticism. But it does feel like a great weight has been lifted from the shoulders of southern Humboldt County to have Maxxam gone."

    • 3 years ago
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