Guys. Get jobs. Buy your own socks.
North Coast Earth First! September 2007 Update
North Coast Earth First! No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!
September 2007
in this issue
:: Nanning Creek
:: Fern Gully
:: NCEF! teach-in for Americorp youth group
:: North Coast Earth First! Media
Hello Friends!
September 15th marks the end of marbled murrellet nesting season, which also
means the beginning of Old Growth Redwood logging season. The marbled
murrellet is a small, endangered seabird, which needs the Old Growth
Redwoods to complete its nesting cycle. As September 15th approaches,
activists prepare for potential attacks on Old Growth Redwood groves....
Nanning Creek
Raids and arrests signify potential attack
Near the beginning of this month, activists from the Nanning Creek/Spooner
affinity group discovered that Pacific Lumber Co. had hired their extraction
climbers to remove platforms and gear from the tree-village. Two people were
cited and released, after being detained by Pacific Lumber Co. management,
in the first few days of September. Activists are bracing for a potential
attack on the tree-sits, and logging in the area, once the end of marbled
murrelet season has passed, on September 15th. Some long-time activists say
that the "Spooner" tree is the largest Redwood they have ever seen, some 298
feet tall and 14 feet in diameter at breast hieght (d.b.h.). Your help is
needed to save Spooner and the grove surrounding this magificent Old Growth
Redwood tree.
Spooner Tree-Sit Raided
NCEF! teach-in for Americorp youth group
Tour of Pacific Lumber mill reveals interesting comments
On August 5th, 2007, NCEF! activist and organizer Shunka Wakan did an
hour-long presentation to a group of 23 eleventh-graders from Maine, who
were taking part in an Americorps Vista Trekkers program. The talk was
well-received by the students, followed by a question and answer session at
the end, and a howling picture to memorialize the event. The next day, the
students toured the Pacific Lumber Co., during which time they were told
that PL had decided to stop logging Old Growth! The Americorps director e-
mailed a question regarding the comments back to NCEF!, saying that, "The
man they spoke with said PALCO had decided not to cut down any old growth
trees. He later said that they would cut down 100 year old trees but not
500-1000 year old trees." NCEF! activist Shunka Wakan began calling Pacific
Lumber Co. to answer the students' question, yet was unable to speak with
anyone directly, and PL has refused to return his calls. These facts have
been forwarded to some local media outlets, and we hope to get a public
response from Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Co. soon. Either Maxxam/PL has decided
to stop logging Old Growth and didn't bother to make a public announcement
about it, or we've caught them lying to the youth! We'll keep you posted....
North Coast Earth First! Website
Fern Gully
Freshwater tree-sits persist
Standing above Garfield Elementary school, in the community of Freshwater,
the Fern Gully grove contains several Old Growth Redwood trees, threatened
by the greed of Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Co. Activists have been occupying Fern
Gully for almost four years now, and it looks like the non-violent civil
disobedience campaign will be ongoing for another year, now that Maxxam/PL
has extended the timber harvest plan for yet another year beyond its normal
three-year duration. Many people feel that this grove should be protected,
not only for the trees themselves and the wildlife which depend on it for
their livelihood, yet also for the generations of children who will be
cycling through Garfield Elementary School for many years to come. Should
the children have the rare opportunity to see an Old Growth Redwood grove
every day at school, or be forced to look at yet another Maxxam/PL clearcut?
Action is needed to permanently save this grove, for its intrinsic value and
for the youngsters!
Fern Gully Website
North Coast Earth First! Media
Earth First! media center needs your help!
The NCEF! Media center is a vital resource to forest activists in northern
Humboldt County, yet we're struggling to stay afloat. A series of postings
have been recently published on Tribe.net, calling out for substantial
support to keep the NCEF! Media office going. For $5,000, we could pay the
rent and phone/DSL for a full year, with a couple hundred left over for
miscellaneous expenses. We know that $5,000 is a lot of money to most of us,
yet there are many people to whom this is not an extraordinary amount, and
so we are appealing to everyone who might have, or know someone who has,
that kind of support to spare. For those of us who are on the ultimate
shoestring budget, there's still the $10-a- month support plan, which you
can sign up for on our website and have $10 monthly donations automatically
made via PayPal. We'd love to find a year's worth of support, so that we
don't have to bother people with fundraising all the time, yet we're willing
to do what needs to be done to keep this support center open and
functioning. Please help if you can! Earth First!
North Coast Earth First! Donations Page
The tree-sitters have requested rain gear, which includes wool sweaters and
socks!
Donations can be sent to the following address:
NCEF! Media
920 Samoa Blvd., Suite #221
Arcata, CA 95521
Thanx so much for your interest in and support of North Coast Earth First!
and non-violent civil disobedience and direct action campaigns worldwide!
Earth First!
Forever Wild,
Shunka Wakan
4 comments:
It's not funny! We do need socks, but if you give them to Shunka, he'll probably return them to the store you purchased them at for cash...
EPIC, Trees Foundation, etc. cannot support direct action, it is up to the community(as in YOU) to step up and help us. We do not recieve direct funding for treesitting...period. It would be legally challenging to this, and it is something we never expected from EPIC, Trees, even NCEF! Media.
The issue is NCEF! Media presented themselves(sorry, himself) as support for direct action, in all aspects, not just including media. When you gave Shunka a donation at the co-op, he said it was for forest defenders. It NEVER was! Even his sad attempts at media outreach were not part of a group consensus. Therefore Shunka represented what Shunka wanted to represent, which to the community was frequently violent.
Luckily, all of that seems to be over. Shunka should leave town now!
Oh yeah, I'd return the socks to the store, sure Jeff.
I've sent lots of stuff out to the woods over the years, and an Earth First! office has always been a part of the overall campaign.
Do I ask you how much donation money you put into your gas tank for purposes other than supply runs?
I received a donation check for $400, for Nanning Creek; I made a photocopy of the check, took it to the bank, deposited it, waited for it to clear, withdrew the cash, and then handed it, along with the photocopy of the check, directly to tree-sitters. It's my understanding that they, in turn, handed some of the money to you; you're not in a tree, yet you accepted the money, even though you and your g/f should have your own sources of income.
Within the next few days, one of those same tree-sitters was looking all over for a sleeping bag; now why is it, when $400 just came in, that a tree-sitter is looking all over town for a sleeping bag? Maybe because this person handed you the cash, so that you could fill your tank with gas and possibly your face with food?
Jeff is a trash-talker of the worst kind, spewing his poisonous lies all over the internet, slandering people in public, all the while acting like Mr. Nice Guy to those who don't know his darker side.
Wake up, Jeff!
Who needs the feds with people like you around?
P.S. You can stop acting like a cowboy any day now, by dropping the "get outta town" garbage. You're not going to run me out of town, and the more times you tell me to leave, the longer I'm going to stay.
Shunka, though I laughed in the title of this post - I do not think any of this is funny.
I do not think it is funny the way higher ups have used people - like you - for their own purposes. They have professed to care about the trees, but for them it is really about money and power.
And publicity. Publicity brings in money, and gives them power.
They took you guys in and used the treesits. They sent those kids in to have their eyes peppersprayed. KNOWING what would happen. Maybe prepping them, telling them how courageous a thing it was that they were doing - then they used them, used the footage, used the PR, and then the suit afterwards to garner a longer life from the incident.
They use the Foundations to get money, they use lawsuits to get money, and they do not even have the courtesy and dignity to make sure that those who treesit have socks and sleeping bags.
They talk to you about how bad "corporations" are, but if you take away the words, they are every bit as bad as everything they profess to be against.
You have seen it. But do you SEE it?
One of the people who fell for it all lost his life. But those who played the pied piper's tune now own Timber Land and plan to CUT THE TREES.
Uhh - guys, there's a companion post to this at watchpaul. Only rarely do people comment on this blog which is intended more as an article archive for watchpaul.
I'm transferring your comments over to the other postr, they'll be duplicated. So you can comment more here or there, or both.
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