Swearing in the new Listings will wait Mattole protests continue Both Pacific Lumber logging in the Mattole River Valley and protests against the company's activities heated up last week as several trees were felled and protesters and loggers engaged in a dangerous game of brinksmanship. PL maintains that the protesters are intentionally putting themselves in the fall zone to prevent trees from being cut.
Protesters claim that they are being endangered by reckless fallers.
The protesters are trying to stop logging of old-growth fir trees on Timber Harvest Plan 475. Soma said that the protester's main aim was not to endanger themselves or others, but to talk to loggers about what they were doing. He said that so far five protesters have been arrest ed and more than 40 trees harvested. Local residents opposed to the harvest have stationed themselves at gates to the site. Mattole resident Naomi Wagner said that 20 or 30 residents were at the gates, trying to prevent or slow the passage of loggers and equipment.