Tree Sit Ecology Protest at Freshwater, near Eureka, CA 2003 - Earth First! - Complete Text of a Newspaper Article I wrote for the Humboldt State University Lumberjack. and Photographs...

HEADLINE: 8 arrested March 18th in Freshwater tree-sit. Trees chainsawed to death.

clearcut logging
Freshwater Clearcut Logging near Eureka, CA

This morning I drove to Beautiful Freshwater (near Eureka, California) to visit the Tree Sitters. There were 10 sheriff's cars and 5 highway patrol cars. I saw 3 people handcuffed and then put in a sheriff's van. One person down the road was handcuffed and in the custody of a different sheriff. This lady was wearing "press" dogtags and was complaining that all she was doing was taking photographs. There were about 40 people standing around, talking on cell phones and playing drums. I could hear the sound of chainsawing. Then a large tree fell over. It makes a tearing sound then a big thump and a wail arose from the people. When four highway patrol cars stopped in the middle of the crowd and turned on their spinning lights, I left.(I was afraid of the police...protect and serve...corporations) As I was walking to my truck I noticed another highway patrolman writing tickets. I asked a citizen what that was all about and he said "don't worry about getting a parking ticket, none of these people will pay them anyway". I am concerned about the highway patrol being there. THERE CLEARLY WERE NO HIGHWAY RELATED PROBLEMS THERE. What's up with parking tickets? We were in the middle of the forest.


Tree Sit Ecology Protest in Freshwater California Near Eureka. Photograph by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - EARTH FIRST! - Save the Redwoods

Tree Sit Ecology Protest in Freshwater California Near Eureka. Photograph by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - EARTH FIRST! - Save the Redwoods

Tree Sit Ecology Protest in Freshwater California Near Eureka. Photograph by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - EARTH FIRST! - Save the Redwoods

Tree Sit Ecology Protest in Freshwater California Near Eureka. Photograph by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - EARTH FIRST! - Save the Redwoods

...this part written later that night...
We went to a protest to defend redwood trees today. There are 8 people that are camping at the top of redwood trees to prevent loggers from chainsawing the trees. The owners of the forest (Palco/MAXXAM) hired a guy (eric schatz)to climb up the trees and forcibly evict the trespassers. Then the Humboldt county sheriff's arrest the tree-sitters and send them to jail. Yesterday, there were 7 tree sitters and the police arrested 3 people. Then, during the night, 4 people went up. The grand total of people INCREASED. The loggers started chainsawing at the bottom of a tree that had people camping in it. This action enraged the crowd. We feel that if a logger cuts down a tree with a person in it that it is dangerous to that person. The loggers cut away a 2 foot circle of bark all the way around the tree. Someone said that was called "girthing" and the purpose was to kill the tree. My wife decided that some medicine was needed for the tree, so we went to the hardware store and bought a bucket of "tree wound" compound. It is used to seal the bare wood after pruning. We drove back to the ecology protest and she (with help from others) spread the healing compound on the bare wood. I got to spend a lot of time talking to a knowledgeable fellow named "Atilla". He said that the MAXXAM corporation has to cut down redwood trees in order to pay the interest on a giant "junk bond" debt. MAXXAM, a texas corporation, purchased the Pacific Lumber Company about 10 years ago in a hostile takeover financed by "junk bonds" that they got from Mike Milken. (remember, Ivan Boesky and Mike went to jail for wall street fraud) I saw on the News tonight that our governor, Gray Davis, has ordered the highway patrol to work 12 hour shifts to help defend the state of California from "terrorist" attacks. GEE, WHY WERE ALL THOSE CHPs OUT IN THE FOREST TODAY ? WHAT TERRORIST ATTACKS WERE THEY DEFENDING US FROM ? Atilla also told me why there were large trucks that look like they carry sand. They are used to haul gravel to build logging roads. After I left the protest in the morning, I drove way back into the woods and noticed large orange trucks with PALCO on the doors. The reason Palco hired a subcontractor (eric schatz)to do "tree service" is to protect themselves from lawsuits in case anyone gets hurt.
How to get there: From highway 101 traveling North, Take the Myrtle ave exit in Eureka and drive to Freshwater road. Take a right and then an IMMEDIATE left onto Greenwood Heights road. Drive 2 miles. When you see all the sheriff cars, you are there. From Arcata, travel south on 101 to Indianola cutoff. Take a left and drive to Myrtle ave. Take a right on Myrtle. Left on Freshwater road.
Earth First!
Pile of Wasted Trees


Earth First!
Logging Road near Eureka, CA


Earth First!
View of Humboldt Bay from Greenwood Heights Road, Freshwater, CA
MEME gvan42 Trees

Great Books: The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey Illustrated by Robert Crumb


This Book Inspired the Ecology Organization Earth First!
Read it and be inspired too. 



Two members of the Ecology Group Earth First! were bombed by the FBI in Oakland. There was a Trial and the FBI agreed to award the Survivor a large cash settlement but denied doing anything wrong. Judi Beri died and  Darryl Cherney Survived. He has retired from Activism but still performs as the leader of a musical group. They sing satire protest songs...

Interesting Movie: Who Bombed Judi Bari? 
Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were falsely arrested for car-bombing themselves on May 24, 1990 while on an Earth First! musical organizing tour for Redwood Summer. They sued the FBI for violations of the First Amendment, claiming the FBI knew they were innocent but arrested them to try to silence them. Having survived the bomb but now stricken by cancer, Judi Bari, a leader of the movement to save California's old growth redwoods, gives her on-camera, deathbed testimony about the attempt on her life and her colorful organizing history with the radical environmental movement Earth First.
—Anonymous

Who Bombed Judi Bari? is an American historical documentary about an assassination attempt on the life of Judi Bari, an American environmental and labor activist, which occurred on May 24, 1990.[1]
While driving through Oakland, California on their way to a benefit concert for the Redwood Summer campaign to save California's coast redwood trees, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were injured when a pipe bomb detonated under the driver's seat of their car.[2] Bari, who was driving, was critically injured. Oakland police and the FBI approached the explosion as a terrorist incident, arrested Bari and Cherney, and tried to prove that they were transporting their own explosive device which accidentally detonated. The two were never charged with a crime. In 2002 they won a lawsuit and were awarded $4.4 million for civil rights violations by the FBI and Oakland Police Department.[3] The authorities allegedly did not investigate any other suspects.[1] Discovery during the lawsuit revealed crime scene photos that clearly showed the bomb was located under Bari's seat, not in the back seat as investigators had alleged.[1]
In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy another pipe bomb that had only partially detonated at a lumber mill about a week before the car bombing, which investigators agreed had been built by the same bomber. Attorney for Darryl Cherney, Ben Rosenfeld, had requested that an outside lab perform DNA testing on the Cloverdale bomb, which the FBI claimed it had never performed, a request which the judge upheld.[4]


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