Opponents of Oregon’s timber industry are hoping a
small court victory will energize their cause. On Aug. 5, five
activists fended off federal trespassing charges stemming from
protests at the Warner Creek fire sale in the Willamette National
Forest (HCN, 9/2/96).
For almost a year, hundreds
of protesters blockaded a Forest Service road into the sale. Then
on Aug. 16, last year, the agency declared the area closed and
raided the protesters’ barricades.
Lane County
District Court Judge Bryan Hodges dropped trespassing charges
against one woman when he found she was just 17 years old when
arrested. Hodges acquitted a second protester because the
government failed to prove the man had been given enough time to
leave the property. The remaining three defendants were convicted,
but not fined.
Sierra Club activist Tim Ream
called the ruling “a shot in the arm” for protesters. “They stayed
on that mountain 11 months,” he said. “There were hundreds of them,
and the result is no one was sentenced. That’s a strong statement
that (the protesters) were right.” – Peter
Chilson
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A small victory for logging protesters.
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