Forest Service Arrests 22 Women in Oregon Protest

[chlamor]

Tuesday March 15, 2005 5:01 AM

By JEFF BARNARD

Associated Press Writer

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Twenty-two women were arrested Monday trying to block loggers from cutting down dead trees burned in a 2002 fire, and the U.S. Forest Service closed the area to the public to prevent further disturbances.

The arrests marked the third time since a federal injunction was lifted March 7 that protesters have tried and failed to prevent loggers from reaching an old growth forest reserve managed primarily for fish and wildlife habitat in the Siskiyou National Forest.

Forest Supervisor Scott Conroy ordered the 700-acre Fiddler timber sale, and Forest Service roads leading to it, closed to the public in the name of safety until July 1, by which time the logging is expected to be completed.

The closure order shut down a camp at the Green Bridge on the Illinois River where environmentalists have been holding rallies and protests for the past two weeks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4865871,00.html

[rodeodance]

1. warrior women at work in the forests (much better than the pic of condi

and Huges I just saw!!--spreading liberty around the world).

[burrowowl]

2. Amen!

Bro or sister!

[flvegan]

3. More on this at Indymedia

http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

3rd story down (with pix).

[leftofcool]

4. Oh hell yes................arrest those terrorist women

while crooks like Ken Lay walk the streets and potential terrorists slip across the holes in our borders.

Left of Cool

[Earth_First]

5. Right ON!

Thank you!

[SouthernDem2004]

6. What is wrong with cutting down dead trees from a fire? Did I miss

something?

[Stuckinthebush]

7. My question as well...

Cutting down dead, burnt trees sounds OK...what's the rest of the story?

[BeFree]

10. What's wrong?

Well, you need roads to get in to the trees, and road construction damages the ecology. Secondly, standing dead timber is used by many species for shelter and foraging.

I don't know about this particular area, but in some cases like this, not only is the deadwood logged, but any live wood is usually part of the deal.

Basically the intrusive measures taken by loggers does long lasting damage to forests, and it seems, this area, once respected for it's benefits to wildlife and clean water, is now gonna be raped and left fallow like so many other places.

[CabalPowered]

11. Salvage logging is possibly the worst thing you could do..

to a forest. Snags or burned trees create habitat and keeps the soil in place. If a forest is logged for salvage, the area is highly prone to landslides, soil erosion and will effectively delay the rebirth of a forest by decades.

[RedOak]

13. Snags are snagged on something

like other trees, possibly live, depending on the circumstances.

It is the tree roots and ground cover (which is very sparse in mature "old growth" forests that hold the soil in place. Loggers do not take the roots out, they are left in the ground.

And to a forest, "decades" are as the blink of an eye.

[CabalPowered]

14. A late succession forest will usually survive even the hottest fires.

Negating the need to do any salvaging whatsoever. While logging operations do leave stumps, the compaction of the soil from logging operations prevents water from penetrating the top soil and underbrush from sprouting. Furthermore, the habitat created by the snag invites wildlife into what would be a total wasteland. It has been proven time and time again that this "anchoring" is absolutely necessary for a forest to begin recovery.

If salvage logging is such a great thing to do..then why didn't we salvage Yellowstone? Hmmm? Salvage logging was illegal for a reason and it should've stayed that way.

[RedOak]

12. I too looked for further details

but could find none. It would be interesting to know what specific variety these dead trees are.

Dead trees are a hazzard to living trees around them. Eventually they are blown down and usually do dammage. Then there is again the fire factor of more 'fuel' for a fire.

"Pristine" sounds nice, but it is only a snapshot of the present; most forrests have gone through many cycles of natural destruction (yes, "Mother Nature is a bitch.") either by fire or disease through the past thousands of years.

[BeFree]

16. RedOak

You must be in the business, eh?

Most forests have gone through numerous 'events' and come out all the better for it. The only time they don't come out better is when the loggers are the event.

Given that just 4% of old-growth forests are still old-growth only because loggers have not been seen there, and these forests have withstood all these other events through the centuries, it behooves us to allow those few remaining forests a life of their own.

Forests don't destroy forests, only loggers can do that.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[Oreegone]

15. To answer those who wonder why this is bad

This fire left thousands of acres of orginal old growth trees because the fire burned through and didn't kill them, which is what fire does in a healthy forest. This is simply an excuse by the Bush Regime to go in and log all the old growth timber. They don't give a shit about the burned timber. This is a sensitive area that has a shallow top soil over solid rock. The forest may never grow back or maybe after many centuries. In the meantime it will pollute 2 of the most pristine rivers (salmon rich) in the United States.

Want to know the real story? Go to this site.
http://www.siskiyou.org/

[earth mom]

22. Thanks for posting the truth! I'd love to join these women in the fight

where do I sign up?

[chlamor]

17. More on this story

• The area affected by the fire and under consideration by this plan contains the largest intact roadless area on the West Coast.
• This area features several rivers and salmon-bearing streams and is an important refuge and spawning ground for salmon, in addition to many other species.
• This area was also proposed as a National Monument in 2000.
• It was designated as an area of global botanical significance by the World Conservation Union.
• It has been proposed as a  “World Heritage Site” and “Biosphere Reserve.”
• It contains three designated Wild & Scenic Rivers and 13 other eligible rivers.
• Mr. Sleeger’s summary contains some of the bare facts, but does not even hint at all the potential harm the Forest Service plan would cause to the area, as will be presented and supported later in this document.
• The actual damage to human property was minimal, with only four residences, nine outbuildings and one fire lookout burned. There were no deaths or serious injuries. Contrast that with the more than 3000 homes burned in fires in Southern California in 2003 alone.

 In true Orwellian fashion, the Bush administration and their puppet Forest Service are promoting such double-speak concepts as the “Healthy Forest Restoration Act,” which promotes anything but healthy forests, and the Biscuit “salvage” logging, which is anything but a salvage operation. This proposal serves several purposes from Bush’s perspective:

 

1.It offers potential short-term profits to a few players in the logging industry, which has contributed heavily to Bush’s presidency. Essentially, this proposal constitutes political payback using public assets including old-growth forests, and sacrificing salmon, clean water and many protected habitats and ecosystems in the process.

 

2.Even more importantly, the so-called “salvage logging” of the Biscuit fire area serves as a political device aimed at rolling back the environmental protection of our forests and natural ecosystems. The Bush administration wants to decimate our lands in the name of profit, and the Biscuit Fire recovery has been targeted as the political battleground for this more long-range plan. The logging is located mostly in two categories of lands that are generally off-limits to logging: roadless areas and spotted owl reserves. By pushing through this extreme and scientifically dubious plan and allowing logging in these protected areas, the Bush administration will set a precedent that allows logging virtually anywhere the timber industry wants.


http://www.siskiyou.org/campaign/information/biscuitreport.cfm
 

[chlamor]

18. Largest intact roadless area on the West Coast

Biscuit Logging

The Bush Administration's Biscuit Fire "Preferred Alternative" is an Extreme Answer to a Natural Event

Largest Forest Service Timber Sale in Modern Times:
• Logs 370 Million Board Feet of trees on about 19,500 acres (30.41 sq. miles) of National Forest.

• Over 70,000 log trucks would still be needed to haul the trees to the mills. Positioned end-to-end, they would almost stretch along the Pacific Coast from the Mexican border to the Canadian border.

Politics push the Envelope:
• The Siskiyou National Forest went from a reasonable proposal to an extreme roadless area logging plan after a Logging Study financed by Douglas County Commissioners (Oregon) was submitted to the Forest Service.

• The Forest Service took the unprecedented step of accepting this "old school" log, plant and spray plan as new information, slowing the time-sensitive DEIS process by months.

Massive attack on Northwest Forest Plan's Old Growth Reserves
•
Logs about 6,303 acres (173 million Board Feet) from Late-Successional Reserves which are designated for the protection of old-growth forests, wildlife habitat and biological diversity.

http://www.siskiyou.org/campaign/logging_plan.cfm

[XemaSab]

19. I worked there

doing bird counts a year after the fire, and lemme tell ya:

The older trees did not burn up. The stuff that burned badly was the regenerating clear cuts (new-20 years old). In the regenerating clear cuts the site looked completely nuked, in the middle aged stands many trees were burned but there were still many living trees and the smaller veg such as flowers were coming back nicely, and in the old growth stands YOU COULDN'T EVEN TELL A FIRE HAD BEEN THERE.

By going in and logging the dead trees, they are just creating the conditions for another, even more catastrophic fire that will leave the whole area completely bare.

It's a travesty that they are allowed to cut these trees. There are douglas firs that are 8 feet across up there.

These women are right to protest this cut.

[sandnsea]

24. Paging Firebee

He was on the Biscuit and several of these other fires in Oregon. He'll tell folks the exact same thing. They show folks the nuke zones on the teevee, not the old growth areas that burned nicely. Or, they won't tell folks that the fires got HOT in the regens which caused them to burn hotter in the Old Growth.

[Gregorian]

20. Thank god someone cares!

I've just moved to Coquille, Oregon. And I'm blown away by the clearcut mentality. It's maddening. In fact, I didn't sleep last night to the sounds of logging. They literally cut through the night. I've never seen anything like it. And clearcutting is legal here. They even have little signs that designate the clearcutting boundary.
I just got back inside after driving around trying to find where the logging was coming from. I've spent two weeks trying to find the source of all the noise. It's like termites- I can hear them eating away the forest, but I can't find them. If I could at least find them, I could start contacting people and ask questions.

Man, republicans with chainsaws is a nasty thing for the planet.

[bvar22]

21. Allowing logging of Fire Burned areas of National Forrests....

...provides financial incentive for mysterious fires in our National Forrests.

[Earth_First]

23. I agree...

Things that make you go hmmm...