It's easy to see. They are trying to raise funds to buy back at a fair market price all 14,000 acres that Pacific Lumber holds in the Mattole. Once repurchased, the property would be put into a community land trust designed to safeguard the health of the forest and its watershed while allowing locally based logging to proceed at a sustainable pace. We have community standards to live by. Meanwhile, about 30 activists remain out in the woods at all times.
Many more locals are ready to resume blockading the logging roads at the drop of a hat.
While Pacific Lumber is expected to try and resume heavy logging when the rains abate in May or June, the defenders of the Mattole are considering inviting forest activists from around the country to join them this summer. We have 15 years of direct action experience. We know how to do a non-violent direct action campaign. We will dig our heels in until they leave the forest. This story appears in the February 2001 Houston Peace News.