Cascadia Rising!
Pictures from Cascadia Free-State: six month blockade of the Warner Creek Salvage Sale

Savaging the Northwest

Forests of pine and fir blanketed the hillsides, great cedars filled creek beds, the rivers were crowded with salmon, sturgeon and trout, the wolf and the bear roamed free. Then came the saws. A century later, less than 5% of our native forests are left, native fish runs are collapsing, wolves have been wiped off of 95% of their range, and the bear are running for cover.Welcome to Cascadia! Now, the remaining (public land) old growth that we have fought so hard to protect in the past decade is threatened by "Logging Without Laws".

From the Blue and Wallawa Mountains of Northeast Oregon to the Olympic Peninsula, the Siskiyous to the North Cascades of Washington, the clear-cutting "salvage" rider is wreaking havoc on the last of the Northwest's native forests. Signed into law by President Clinton on July 27, 1995, the rider mandates that public forests be cut "to the maximum extent feasible ...not withstanding of any other provision of law." All criminal and civil laws and international treaties are suspended for the sake of limitless logging. The law singles out the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act, Competition in Contracting Act, Endangered Species Act, (and whatever the 6th law I missed was). The rider also eliminates the public participation process and any administrative or judicial challenge. This thoroughly undemocratic peice of legislation has thus been termed "Logging Without Laws".

The rider was added on to a "budget-cutting" Rescissions Bill, but it will actually cost taxpayers money. The rider states that "timber sales...shall not be precluded because the cost of such activities are likely to exceed the revenues." The Forest Service is also authorized to hire private contractors (from the timber industry) to prepare and advertise sales. The General Accounting Office has estimated the "Logging Without Laws" Rider will cost the taxpayers over one billion dollars. Much of this cost comes from the subsidization of access roads for logging.

Following large-scale wildfires in 1994, the Emergency Salvage Timber Program was justified by the timber industry and some members of Congress as an effort to expedite cutting of burned and diseased trees. But the language of the rider was so broad that any tree "susceptible to fire or insect attack" and any "associated trees" can be cut. The timber industry talked of a "forest health crisis" and the need to log forests to protect them from future "catastrophic fire and infestation", but forest scientists agree that "there is no csientifically sound reason to engage in salvage logging and many reasons not to." Some have stated that to significantly reduce the odds of catastrophic fire one would have to pave the forest. Salvage logging is extremely detrimental to a forest recovering from fire. Also, the tree farms that follow the salvage clearcuts are much less resilient than native forests to fires, disease and pest infestation.

"It doesn't take a cognitive giant to see that if logging was really in the interest of the forest it would not be exempted from environmental laws." -Derrick Jensen, Forest Voice Primer '96.

Another section of the rider mandates the cutting of the Section 318 Timber Sales. The 318 Sales were created in 1989, when Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) attached a rider to an appropriations bill mandating the cutting of ancient forest. Some of the sales were stopped by court injunction and later protected by Clinton's Forest Plan (Option 9). Now reÐreleased by the "Salvage Rider", those 318 sales must be cut in the terms of their original contract; no stream buffers or any other environmental protection. Many of these sales had been given a "Jeopardy Determination" by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the National Marine Fisheries Service, meaning that logging and attendant road-building would probably cause the extinction of endangered Spotted Owl, Marbled Murrelet, Coho salmon and Sea-run Cutthroat Trout in their watersheds. Still, the timber industry wasn't satisfied. The day after Clinton signed the rider into law, the industry went to court, arguing for an even broader interpretation of the "Section 318" clause. Federal Judge Michael Hogan ruled on January 10, 1996, that the rider releases ALL timber sales offered since October 1989 that had been stopped for any reason!

All across Cascadia, we are seeing green native forests fall under the guise of "harvesting dead and dying timber." President Clinton and some members of congress are considering reforming the rider. Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) has introduced legislation to repeal the rider which has over 108 co-sponsors in the house, and may have a matching bill in the Senate. But logging without laws was going on decades before the salvage rider was introduced. Judge William Dwyer, in 1991, ruled that the Forest Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service were guilty of "deliberate and systematic refusal...to comply with the laws of pretecting wildlife." REFORM OR REPEAL IS NOT ENOUGH! Logging Without Laws in any form must be resisted! Industrial resource extraction on our public lands must end!!

Cascadia Forest Defenders Launch Direct Action Campaigns Across the Northwest

People throughout the region have answered the call to defend Cascadia. It's time for the pockets of resistance fighting for truth, justice and wilderness to work together in the fight against corporate greed and government lawlessness. Cascadians have blocked Forest Service Road 2408 at Sugarloaf. Residents of the hard hit Tiller district to logging.

This cluster of five sales exemplifies the tragedy unfolding in the Umpqua and may set the stage for confrontation between environmentalists and the rapacious timber barons of Douglas County. A total of 921 acres are slated for clearcutting in First, Last, Cowboy, Nita and South Nita. Together, the sales are projected to produce 36.8 mbf. All are located in key watersheds and LateÐSuccessional Reserves (LSRs) as designated under Clinton's NW forest plan. They are also located in or near designated roadless ESOGs (Ecologically Significant Old Growth). Umpqua Watersheds calls these sales the last stands for wildlife in the Tiller Ranger District, impacting the spawning grounds for the Coho salmon, cutthroat, and winter steelhead.

All five of these sales are held by Scott Timber, the timber purchasing arm of Roseburg Forest Products, arguably the greatest beneficiary of the salvage logging rider in Douglas County, and along with Boise Cascade, in the entire Northwest. Roseburg has a sordid history of environmental and labor abuses. Recently, activists monitoring the Yellow Creek timber sale on BLM land near Roseburg were assaulted by loggers. The day before the loggers had been docked $150 in pay when chatting/interacting with forest monitors in the area delayed logging operations. The incident has been distorted in the local media and shrugged off by the local cops, giving the activists an early taste of what dealing with the industryÐpoliceÐmedia of Douglas County promises when direct action and civil disobedience erupt in the area. The first civil disobedience occured at a rally January 18 at the North Umpqua Ranger Station, where it is rumored employees are sympathetic towards efforts to save their beleaguered forest. Over 20 environmentalists protesting lawless logging were cited and released after trespassing a hastily slapped on closure surrounding the office.

For detailed, upÐtoÐdate information on the tragic saga unfolding in the Umpqua, visit the Umpqua Watersheds' web site. There you will find information on how to order Last Chance for the Umpqua, a 5Ðminute video documentary containing graphic footage of the carnage at Honeytree and Yellow Creek shot in January of this year.

The Destruction of a Healthy Old Growth Forest Fragment* via the Salvage Logging Rider

The destruction I and my comrades observed at the Yellow Creek clearcut sale (Roseburg BLM district) in Douglas County did not prepare us for the atrocity that we witnessed at the Honeytree clearcut sale in the Umpqua National Forest. Here, perched above a 40 foot cliff face, cascading water falls, and a immense recent clearcut at the headwaters of Hipower Creek stood a grove of 350-year-old plus solid healthy giants. Hipower Creek is a tributary to Steamboat Creek, which flows into the wild and scenic Umpqua River. The diameter of these trees ranged from four to seven feet! This stand of ever-giving benevolent ones, vitally important to Hipower Creek's water purity, the threatened sea-run cut-throat trout and coho salmon, would have grown and filtered snowmelt for hundreds of years to come . . . they are no more. The ancient ones' bodies are stacked side by side like scenes of a mass execution. Hundreds of them. So many, in fact, over much of the clearcut you can not see the ground below.

This was a blow mentally, spiritually, and physically. None of the five of us, three of whom had grown up in Oregon, had ever seen such immense carnage of ancient old-growth Douglas firs. Now, virtually all of them have been taken away from us and future generations forever. Saddest and most disturbing, however, is that I can not say that other savage clearcuts happening now all over the Umpqua Basin are unlike the scenes I have just described; and I can not say that more atrocities will not happen to the Umpqua, or the Siuslaw, Alsea, Elk, Smith, Illinois, Rogue, or Chetco watersheds . . . because it will happen again and again under this "lawless savage rider" unless we the people, from the youth to the elderly, stand against these atrocities and say "No more!! You, people of Congress and the bloody timber industry will heed our cries of outrage and feel the fire of our spirit! Repeal this lawless logging rider now!" It is not time to give up! It is not too late! There are at least 10,000-20,000 acres of ancient forest fragments in one hundred clearcut sales still standing throughout Cascadia. We can not let them be chainsawed into oblivion without steadfast resistance. Viva our temperate ancient rainforests!
* forest fragments are, in fact, all that remains on BLM public lands.

News from from the Blues

The last homes of the homes of the Goshawk, Marten, Wolverine, PileatedÐ, Black backedÐ, and ThreeÐtoed Woodpeckers, Send's BigÐeared Bat, Bull Trout, and Salmon are under siege. The u.s. forest DisÐservice is planning timber $ales in some of the Blue Mountains' last intact roadless areas. In the Malheur N.F., plans are afoot to log the Aldrich, Todd, Reed Fire, Utley Creek, M&O, and Fox "timber sales," while in the Umatilla, the Buzzard timber sale is being planned. All of these sales are located in roadless areas which are providing essential habitat for numerous wildlife species. Some of these proposed sales Ð such as "Todd," located in a roadless "wildlife emphasis area" Ð include road building as well (5.8 miles of new road, 1.6 miles "reconstructed" road, and over 10 million board feet of "horizontal" forest). Cumulatively these forests of Eastern Oregon and Washington have been overlogged to an extent which not only violates Federal laws, but threatens ecological integrity and wildlife viability as well.

The populations of numerous species are in serious decline... Now with the industry dream bill pushed through congress, exempting the agency's "$salvage" hoax program from federal laws and citizen lawsuits, the agency has stepped up its assault on roadless oldÐgrowth areas throughout the forests. The legacy of this congressionally sanctioned destruction will haunt the forests, wildlife, and public well into the next century. YOUR help is needed NOW Ð Urgently! Ð to insist that this fraud be stopped.

For more information on timber sales and forests in the Blue Mountains, Umatilla and Malheur National Forests, contact the Blue/Wallowa CFD. Donations can be made to the League of Wilderness Defenders, HCR 82, Fossil, Oregon 97830.

We Must Move Ourselves to Defend This Land

Cascadia is under siege as the logging without laws apocalypse escalates. As of midÐJanuary 1996, over 190 of these sales had been awarded to the timber industry, and after January 19th's Hogan decision on the marbled murrelet, another 6300 acres of coastal oldÐgrowth is slated for destruction. HellÐbent on getting out the cut without legal restraint, timber corporations big and small are waging war on our National Forest and BLM lands. The only thing between the forest and the chainsaws are people, who are Cascadia Forest Defenders whether they call themselves so or not. At the thus far successful Warner Creek 5ÐmonthÐoldÐandÐ counting road blockade, it is the base camp and support network that sustains an effective campaign.

The Warner Creek base camp demonstrates that the physical bodies of people in the road the only thing preventing the clearcut destruction of ancient ecosystems in the Willamette National Forest. People and the blockade they maintain (believed to be the longest running blockade in U.S. history) defend Warner Creek. But what of the hundreds of other Wildland areas under the chainsaws? Over the years, the movement has organized base camps of resistance in time of need. Cove/Mallard, Idaho; Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia; Nevada Test Site, Arizona; Redwood Summer, Northern California; Coast Highway/Rainforest Defense, Southern Australia; and the No MÐ11 Link and Twyford Down road wars, United Kingdom, are a few prominent examples of campaign in which base camps have played, and continue to play, vital roles.

Base camps have arisen in every shape and size. Some are as simple as a small shanty town of tents. Others are quasiÐsophisticated villages with living and cooking shelters. What's important is that a base camp is located strategically and that it be secure because not only does the camp serve to defend the land, but it also guards the people within it from renegade attacks by Forest Service, BLM, police, and antiÐenvironmental, wiseÐuse thugs. The surrounding area needs to be carefully surveyed and mapped. People must be familiar with the camp and area, ready to spring into action at any given moment. Watchdog posts on the outskirts of the camp, a physical barrier (like a log wall), or a security camp will help people in alerting the core of the camp when the need arises. This is where whistles and noisemakers come in handy if twoÐway radios are not attainable. Documentation of "visits" is also key and is best accomplished with a video camera, however a still camera and tape recorder can suffice and are better than nothing. In the case of an emergency, mountain bikes, motorcycles, and cars can be used to reach help, while a cellular phone instantly sends word of fastÐbreaking events to support networks and media. Essential are devices that will keep people and the camp from being easily dislocated, i.e. lock down positions, tripods, and barricades.

Organizing a base camp is challenging and requires a core group of committed, trustworthy friends, supply lines for food, equipments and other outÐofÐcamp support. Once in place, however, a base camp affords activists a means to be not just a random, shortÐlived inconvenience to the Earth rapers and forest destroyers, but an enduring land occupation defending not just one timber sale, but potentially all the sales in the adjacent area. The base camp offers a creative space to strategically plan and launch actions from. In a real way, the camp also enables activists to spiritually connect with the very land they are defending.

A few short months separate us from the spring. This is when the peak of the destruction will ensue. Then, many more "salvage" sales will become active and the cutting will increase. Only a few short months to prepare. Can we come together as Cascadian activists, pool our resources, and set up base camps in every National Forest and BLM land tract in time to resist this wholesale liquidation of the region's last ancient forests? It is we who must occupy the land to keep Cascadia wild and free!

We Must End all Industrial Resource Extraction on Public Lands!

Some suggestions of proactive measures to demand when calling your political representatives, the media, public agencies, and forest supervisors with your rage:

Boundaries of the Heart

The borders of Cascadia are grey as mid-winter dusk. It runs in the minds of some down to the rough, low mountains of the Klamath/Siskyou drainages as far as Cape Mendocino to the Fraser River in the north, or maybe to the southÐeast coast of Alaska. To the east are the Columbia and Deschutes, Yakima and John Day, any number of firm lines out to the western slopes of the North Rockies. To us there are no hard black borders; our hearts are best to say where is Cascadia and who is Cascadian. We are of the Pacific Northwest, the Doug fir and hemlock, ponderosa, black bear, chinook and spotted owl. The cedar, orca, raven, and wolf. The mule deer, whiteÐtail, vole, marten and rhododendron. These are what sustain us and, for us and our descendants, what we must fight to sustain.--Molly Maguire

CFD supports an end to industrial logging and resource extraction on public land (Zero Cut) through an economic conversion to ecological restoration, reduced exports, reduced consumption & alternative fiber technologies.
North Cascadians
POB 10024
Olympia, WA 98502
(360) 352Ð6521
mescalit@elwha.evergreen.edu 		South Cascadians
POB 11122
Eugene, OR 97440
(541)465Ð8971
mickey@efn.org 		Blue/Wallawa Cascadians
HCR 82
Fossil, OR 97830