A Bit of History

Maxxam Corporation, based in Houston, Texas, bought out Pacific Lumber Company(PL), in Humboldt County, California, in 1985, using sly negotiations and junk bonds. Since then, Maxxam/PL has been aggressively clearcutting the Old Growth Redwood and Douglas Fir groves on their 210,000+ acres of land, liquidating their assets, and have now begun to sell off their acreage to other entrepeneurs. This is all part of their intentional, destroyed-by-design plan to file bankruptcy on Pacific Lumber Co., so that Maxxam Corp. can get out of their massive corporate debts. Maxxam/PL is constantly talking about going bankrupt, complaining that they are unable to pay the interest on thier debts; their next payment of $26 million in interest on their $867 million debt is coming up soon. Maxxam/PL is constantly using this "bankruptcy card" to apply pressure on the government to allow them to log more and more each year, using layoffs and closing down mills as leverage to gain sympathy for their business, and to demonize environmentalists and regulatory agencies who try to slow down the slaughter.

North Coast Earth First! sprung up right around the time of the takeover, and began doing acts of civil disobedience to bring attention to the increased logging rates of PL under Maxxam's rule. People locked themselves to gates, to each other, to old junk cars, and to other creative roadblocks in the woods, to physically get in the way of Maxxam's aggressive logging practices. In the cities and towns, NCEF!ers locked themselves to each other around tree stumps, in congressman Frank Riggs' office, at the Pacific Lumber Co. headquarters, in Scotia, CA, and were tortured with pepper spray applied directly to the eyeball by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Dept. deputies. With the help of actor Woody Harrelson, a group of NCEF! activists hung a huge banner from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which said, "Charles Hurwitz, Aren't Ancient Redwoods More Precious Than Gold?"

For year after year, "Redwood Summer" was organized, by people such as Judi Bari, and thousands of people from all over the world came to help save the Headwaters Forest, a 60,000-acre area of Old Growth and second growth redwoods. Mass arrests, lockdowns, sit-ins, creative roadblocks, rallies, concerts, huge puppets and guerrilla theatre characterized the movement to save this magnificent area, and, in the end, approximately 7,500 acres were saved in an agreement called the "Headwaters Deal." Known sarcastically as "The Deal" by activists, this negotiation between federal and state governments, and Maxxam/PL, put $480 million into Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz's pocket, and came with the insidious "Habitat Conservation Plan"(HCP) and "Sustained Yield Plan"(SYP), which are total misnomers, and include "Incidental Take Permits"(ITPs), which allow Maxxam/PL to kill, or "take," endangered species. No one else gets a permit to commit felonies, so why should Maxxam or any other corporation?

Judi Bari was an amazing organizer, with a developed skill in connecting with the timber workers, herself having a history in union organizing. Judi Bari was car-bombed in 1990, in Oakland, CA, and she and Darryl Cherney were framed for supposedly carrying the bomb themselves, and labeled as terrorists. Bari and Cherney sued the F.B.I. and Oakland police for violating their constitutional rights, and, after twelve years, the case went to jury trial in federal court in Oakland. Judi died of breast cancer in 1997, and did not live to see the victory of the case that she spearheaded after the bombing. Learn more by visiting her website....

As the years progressed, "tree-sitting" became a popular form of non-violent civil disobedience, with activists living up in the tree-tops, 100 feet in the air and higher, to physically slow down the destruction of Old Growth Redwoods and Douglas Fir trees. In 1997, Julia "Butterfly" Hill took tree-sitting to new heights, by sitting up in an Old Growth Redwood named Luna for 2 years and 8 days, without touching the ground once, until Maxxam/PL eventually agreed to save the tree permanently, in exchange for approx. $50,000 and Julia's voluntary descent from the tree. The Luna tree-sit was not considered a North Coast Earth First! action (you can read the full story in her book, The Legacy of Luna), yet her extended action/vigil brought international attention to the overall movement to save the remaining unprotected Old Growth Redwoods, a movement made up of a coalition of many different groups, coming from many different backgrounds, perspectives, and approaches.

Tragedy struck on September 17th, 1998, when an Earth First! activist from Texas, a 24-year-old man named David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain, was killed when an enraged Maxxam/PL logger began intentionally falling trees in the direction of a group of NCEF! activists. The logger was caught on videotape, threatening to fall trees in the activists' direction, and he did just as he said; within an hour's time, Gypsy was dead, hit by a falling tree, deliberately dropped in the known vicinity of the activists. The logger was never charged, and was never really a suspect; in fact, the Humboldt County homicide detective, Juan Freeman, actually recommended to the former District Attorney, Terry Farmer, that involuntary manslaughter charges be brought against the NCEF! activists. Charges were never filed, against anyone, and a civil suit was brought and won, in an out-of-court settlement, by Gypsy's mother, and the "Forest Peace Alliance" was formed. We have yet to see peace in the forest, however; non-deputized contract climbers continue to rip activists from the tree-tops, although some headway along those lines has been made in recent S.L.A.P.P. suit settlements.

Which brings us up to today, with two distinct and ongoing "tree-villages"(areas with several tree-sits going on, usually linked together by ropes that go from tree-top to tree-top, allowing activists to "traverse" from tree to tree without having to touch the ground). The two areas are known as "Nanning Creek" and "Fern Gully," both containing threatened Old Growth Redwoods, and both in need of your help, which can come in many forms. Contact us to find out how you can help, based on your situational circumstances, resources, ideas, proximity, etc. Each person has their own unique way to get involved and contribute to this movement, and to the broader movement to resist the multinational corporations and corrupt governmental agencies that are destroying the natural environment and our freedoms as children of the Earth.