May 2005

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The Issue is Clear Cut: Protecting Old Growth Forest

Information from The Oxygen Collective, which "practices creative resistance through projects that address injustice in our communities and destruction in the natural world. We use a 40 foot biodiesel tour bus to create and enhance events, and then add live music, independent media, organic food, and large-scale, participative art projects." http://o2collective.org, oxygen@o2collective.org, POB 533, Ashland, OR 97520.

A bolt of lightning ignited a wildfire in 2002 that spread across the heart of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers area of southwest Oregon, burning around 500,000 acres of the Biscuit forest. This was the largest fire in North America that year.

The Illinois river after the fire. About 90% of the planned logging is in the Illinois watershed. Photo: Rolf Sklar

Forest Service scientists quickly pointed out that Biscuit burned in a mosaic and performed needed biological functions including reduction of fuels. However, within months, the Bush Administration released a plan to log the area. The Biscuit salvage logging plan (deceptively titled the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project by the government) encompasses about 20,000 acres (31.25 sq miles) and a proposed cut of 372 million board feet, equivalent to 74,400 logging trucks. This includes about 9,000 acres (14 sq miles) of previously protected old-growth reserves. The biscuit logging project is the first to threaten roadless areas since the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was created by President Clinton and would cause about 48,000 acres (75 sq miles) of roadless areas to be ineligible for future wilderness designation due to forest fragmentation. The logging plan for the area would leave just 1.5 legacy trees per acre, a virtual clearcut.

Salvage Logging is based on the idea that burned trees are wasted if not logged. The timber industry likes to promote the idea that logging fixes a forest: if a forest has burned, logging will help it re-grow; if a forest is at risk of burning, logging will help prevent it. The truth is that forests have repeatedly burned and regrown in these mountains for millennia, and the dead trees perform significant roles in any healthy forest. Commercial logging magnifies fire-risk by removing larger, fire-resistant trees, increasing fire ignition sources, leaving behind flammable slash, and cultivating hotter, drier, stands of smaller trees. Legacy trees are standing dead trees, and play a critical role in ecosystems. The entire life cycle of a tree is measured in terms of its years as a live standing tree, as a legacy tree, and as a fallen tree.

Days after this photo was taken, this old growth stand of legacy trees in the Biscuit was logged. Photo: Rolf Sklar

Why are dead trees so important to life? They: 1) Return biomass to the land. 2) Store and slowly release nutrients to the recovering forest. 3) Retain moisture throughout the dry season. 4) Provide shade and favorable sites for the germination and early growth of seedlings. 5) Stabilize soil. 6) Provide unique habitats for a great variety of creatures on land and in rivers. 7) Stabilize stream banks, and promote quality salmon and aquatic habitat.

To prevent the destruction of this habitat, environmentalists in Oregon are working with local communities to protect their land and watersheds, have filed lawsuits, and are engaged in an ongoing campaign of creative nonviolent direct action.

The March 14^th, 2005, all-women's action was the fourth major demonstration against the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project since logging began in the old growth reserve timber sale area in the second week of March. Twenty-two women were arrested, including Stacy Williams, an expectant mother in her ninth month of pregnancy, supported by her midwife and birthing team. Among the women surrounding her on the Green Bridge over the Illinois River were Harriet Smith, 85, Dot Fisher Smith, 76 and Joan Norman, 72, who went to jail for the forests for the second time that week.

Hanging off the bridge beneath them was Becky White, suspended on a small platform by a rope that crossed the bridge and blocked the convoy of Silver Creek Timber logging trucks from passing for more than seven hours. In addition to the eighteen women on the bridge, another three were arrested in a separate blockade a few miles up the road.

As of the third week of April, over 50 nonviolent activists had been arrested in blockades of logging roads, and local and statewide opposition to the logging is growing. Even Oregon Governor Kulongoski wrote a letter to the Forest Service arguing that it is a "violation of the public trust" to continue with old growth reserve and roadless timber sales before their legality can even be determined by the federal courts.

Additional actions are planned, including a second all-women's action on May 16, 2005, and a "Back to the WALL (Witness Against Lawless Logging)" bus caravan from Portland, Eugene, and the Rogue Valley on May 21, 2005. Nonviolent activists from around the world are invited to witness firsthand the beauty of the forest and to help prevent its destruction.

Meanwhile, in early May, 2005, the Bush administration rescinded Clinton's 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, potentially putting 58.5 million acres of wilderness at risk.

Two videos about the Biscuit forest issue and the ecodefense of the land have already been produced, and are available for activists around the country to show at local events and house parties. Contact the Oxygen Collective or Cascadia RiSiNG! Eco-Defense Network to lend support, get involved, and for more information: www.cascadiarising.org, action@cascadiarising.org, 503/493-7495, POB 12583, Portland, OR 97212.

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