Frustrated by their inability to appeal two
old-growth logging sales, environmentalists in Oregon have taken to
the woods. More than 30 people have been arrested since Sept. 11 in
protests against the Sugarloaf logging operation in southern
Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest (HCN,
9/19/94).
Farther north, in the Willamette
National Forest, 20 to 30 people have set up camp while awaiting a
salvage logging operation at an area burned by an arsonist in 1991.
The activists plan acts of civil disobedience to halt logging at
Warner Creek.
In both cases, courts dismissed
appeals of the timber sales, citing legislation barring legal
challenges. A 1989 bill insulated the Sugarloaf sale from appeal,
and though much of the Warner Creek area was protected under
President Bill Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan, the court said it
fell under a recent ban of challenges to salvage sales. “Now we
have nothing left but the court of public opinion and acts of civil
disobedience,” said Tim Hermach, of the Eugene-based Native Forest
Council, in the Oregonian.
To counter protests,
the Forest Service has sealed off more than 35 square miles around
the Sugarloaf sale, with round-the-clock guards in what one agency
official described as “the largest (operation) I’ve ever seen.” A
new gate blocks the road leading to the Warner Creek site, and a
Willamette National Forest spokesperson says that anyone
interfering with logging operations will be arrested. Activists
have announced that protests will continue.
*
Warren Cornwall
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Civil disobedience heats up in Oregon.
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