When A Tree Falls In The Forest …

THE MATTOLE RIVER starts out as a small stream in northern Mendocino County, California, and heads northwest until it runs into the Pacific Ocean 10 miles south of Cape Mendocino. The oldest surviving inhabitants of the Mattole watershed are the native salmon that spawn here.

According to Native legend, handed down by the Sinkyone Indians who lived along the Mattole until they were wiped out by white settlers in the 1860s, an agreement was made between the salmon and the Indians that allowed them to feed on the salmon as long as their home in the river was kept intact. And the salmon remained a totem to the native people.

Soon after World War II, the housing boom that "built California" brought a flood of loggers into Northern California who were looking for virgin stands of Douglas fir trees. Most of the conifer forest along the Mattole was stripped in search of the high-value hardwood.

While the impact of the logging was immediately evident in the visible devastation of the forest -- local pilots would later call the area along the upper Mattole "the big scar" -- it would take years for the damage to the river and the salmon to be noticed. But the erosion from bulldozer logging and the construction of hundreds of miles of logging roads along the slopes of the Mattole brought the salmon population -- its habitat severely degraded -- to the brink of extinction.

The California Department of Fish and Game at one point essentially wrote off any chances of the river -- and the salmon -- returning; but local residents who live along the Mattole refused to accept that conclusion. In 1982, they started using a simple "hatchbox" technique developed by residents of salmon watersheds in Alaska, and the delicate process of the restoration of the Mattole salmon had begun.

While the salmon population in the Mattole is slowly coming back, a second wave of logging now taking place in the area -- including "clear cutting," the scorched-earth method of logging that cuts down vast sections of forest at a time -- threatens the restoration of the river's complex ecosystem. Rondal Snodgrass, a longtime Mattole resident active in the river restoration project, invited me to hike into the forest to take a look at a recent logging operation near the Mattole.

There is no way to prepare for seeing firsthand the devastation of a clear cut. In just two weeks of logging, a cool forest of ancient Douglas firs that had existed for centuries was turned into a hot desert of stumps. Only a thin row of trees remained standing in this 76-acre bowl which had been excavated like a giant tomb.

The remaining trees are supposed to provide a "wildlife corridor" for old-growth species such as the spotted owl and the red tree vole, who make their home in these woods. The fact that even these few trees are still standing is a small victory for Snodgrass and other local residents who engaged in a lengthy court and settlement battle with the Eel River Sawmill to ensure that at least a fragment of the old-growth habitat in the area was left intact.

Walking among the remaining stumps, some from trees several hundred years old, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, as if I were standing amid the aftermath of a massacre. When I wondered aloud about the pain I was feeling -- and whether or not it was rational -- Rondal compared my reaction to seeing for the first time the photographs of the My Lai massacre at the hands of U.S. troops in Vietnam. "People began to feel and think 'this is wrong' ... It doesn't matter how you rationalize a village massacre -- it's still a village massacre."

It is a similar kind of gut-level, or intuitive, reaction to the human carnage of Vietnam that is at the heart of a revolution of conscience now taking place in response to the destruction of the forest in Northern California and the rest of the Pacific Northwest. "I believe we have a deep genetic connection to the forest," said Rondal. "We relate to a forest the way a dolphin relates to the sea. And we're seeing our homeland destroyed."

THE PACIFIC LUMBER COMPANY (also called PALCO) used to be the perfect timber company, and Scotia, California (population 1,200), the perfect company town. The Saturday Evening Post described it in 1951 as "paradise with a waiting list." Started in 1869 and run for generations by the Murphy family, PALCO had gained the respect of environmentalists for its conscientious logging practices -- "sustained yield" (or cutting only as much timber as can be grown in a specific time period), "select cutting" (taking out only certain mature trees while leaving the rest of the forest intact), and no clear cuts (to prevent flooding and silting of salmon-populated streams).

But that was all before Charles Hurwitz got hold of the company. In 1985, the former Wall Street whiz kid turned corporate raider bought out the company from its stockholders, after securing some $750 million in "junk bonds" with the help of the (now-dethroned) junk-bond king himself, Michael Milken of the New York brokerage firm Drexel Burnham Lambert. (The legality of the takeover is still being challenged in the courts, including a class-action suit brought by former shareholders.)

Almost overnight, Pacific Lumber Company went from being a family-owned business to being part of one man's corporate portfolio (which has included McCulloch Oil and the Simplicity Pattern company). For environmentalists, PALCO suddenly became their worst nightmare. Hurwitz immediately doubled the rate of cutting in the forest and began targeting the company's vast acreage of old-growth redwood trees, which makes up the largest virgin redwood forest not protected by national and state parks.

No doubt was left as to his motivation; shortly after he took over the company, he told Pacific employees his version of the Golden Rule: "Those with the gold, rule."

Afraid that the dramatic increase in cutting would eventually spell the end of the mill, about 200 employees tried to buy back the company from Hurwitz as part of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in order to return to sustained yield. But Hurwitz was not about to play the "willing seller" needed to complete the deal, and instead increased production even more (500 workers have been added since the Hurwitz takeover).

"I never had any real feelings about corporations before [the ESOP], " says Pete Kayes, a PALCO employee for 11 years who participated in the attempted buyout. "But watching Mr. Hurwitz has made a believer out of me. Whether it's here or somewhere else, the issue remains the same: Do corporations run this country or do people run this country?"

THE STORY OF PACIFIC LUMBER COMPANY is a microcosm in many ways of what has happened to the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest in the last decade or so. Not unlike the dwindling family farms in the Midwest -- where respect and care for the land are simply part of doing business -- the small, family-owned timber mills in the region have been nearly edged out by large corporations more interested in quick profits than in sustaining jobs, communities, and the forest.

Companies (with names such as Louisiana-Pacific and Georgia-Pacific) that began in the Southeast and cut their way across the country are now logging the last vestiges of the ancient forests that many believe are part of the Earth's complex natural system -- as important to the health of the planet as the Amazon rain forest in Latin America. And they are doing it at an alarming rate. In Mendocino County (historically one of the biggest logging areas), all but two mills have been closed due to overcutting during the last decade.

And the wave of the future of the timber industry here does not bode well for either the forest or the workers. As the old-growth nears depletion, the corporations are converting from the traditional milling of lumber to manufacturing "chipboard" (wood chips molded and glued into the shape of a board). This requires a much shorter "rotation" for re-entering the forest to log -- 20 to 40 years instead of 80 years or longer. And some companies are growing "monocultural tree farms," meaning forests made up of rows of the same tree, that are harvested like giant corn stalks. This means more automation and fewer jobs, industry critics say, as well as the end of an entire ecosystem.

"You listen to [the industry] and they'll tell you that they have this one tree that grows big real fast, " explains Pete Kayes. "Let's face it, folks -- the forest didn't exist because of that; the forest exists because of diversity. "

Industry spokespeople say the shorter rotation is simply an attempt to stay competitive. "The marketplace has developed to the point, from a technological standpoint, that you don't need big trees anymore to make products for housing," Bob Morris, of Louisiana-Pacific, told a local Eureka Times-Standard reporter.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Forestry (CDF) -- the state agency that is supposed to monitor the timber industry to ensure that it follows forestry guidelines established by the state in 1973 -- has largely looked the other way. (A judge found in 1987 that CDF had been "rubber-stamping" timber harvest plans (THPs) required by state law, and deliberately preventing other state agencies from consulting with the industry on the protection of old-growth-dependent wildlife species.)

At the federal level, the U.S. Forest Service has been selling old-growth public lands at an alarming rate -- 70,000 acres a year -- to timber corporations who have depleted all their private timber lands because of overcutting. The Ancient Forest Protection Act now pending in Congress would establish a national ancient-forest reserve in Oregon, Washington, and California.

THIS LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY BETWEEN the timber industry in California and the state is what prompted many local citizens and environmental organizations to get involved -- monitoring timber harvest plans and taking the corporations to court when necessary. And they've been fairly successful. A landmark case in 1985 (brought by the Garberville-based Environmental Protection Center) set a statewide precedent in applying restrictions on the "cumulative impact" of logging on the environment. But even with that kind of mandate, area environmentalists say that the timber industry has continued to try to exempt itself from any restrictions; and that the court process is simply too slow to stop the logging frenzy now taking place. So a coalition of environmental organizations is backing an initiative called "Forests Forever" to be considered on California's November ballot, which would strengthen current law on forestry practices.

Meanwhile, this past spring members of the radical environmental group Earth First joined with other environmental activists in organizing "Redwood Summer," an ambitious series of public protests along California's northern coast.

The summer-long campaign was originally called "Mississippi Summer in the Redwoods," inspired by the voter-registration campaign during the civil rights movement. Organizers did not take the reference lightly; they knew they would likely run into heated opposition in the heart of timber country, where entire communities still depend on the timber industry for their survival. But violence erupted even before the summer of protest was under way.

On May 24, a pipe bomb exploded in the white Subaru station wagon driven by two Earth First activists and key Redwood Summer organizers -- Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari -- who were on their way to a speaking engagement in Oakland. Cherney received only minor injuries; but injuries to Bari, including a shattered pelvis, could leave her permanently disabled.

To add insult to injury, Cherney and Bari were placed under arrest for "illegal possession and transport of explosives" (charges were dropped on July 18 for lack of evidence). The ensuing "investigation" by the Oakland police and the FBI of the two environmental activists, as well as several others involved in the planning of Redwood Summer, was a chapter straight out of the history of U.S. covert operations against domestic activists (such as the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement). "I don't know who is writing this script," Bari told a local radio reporter from station KMUD in Garberville. "But if I were watching this in a movie, I would think this script is too preposterous to believe. First I receive multiple assassination threats, and then I get blown up by a car bomb; and by the time I make it to the hospital, I'm under arrest for blowing myself up."

As Sojourners went to press, there was no hard evidence linking the bombing with either the timber industry or a government covert operation. But a congressional subcommittee has begun investigating the FBI's handling of the case. Meanwhile, the police department in the timber town of Willits has decided to open its own investigation of the bombing. "Whoever did this, regardless of who they are or what embarrassment it may cause, is going to be arrested," pledged Willits Police Chief Bob Foster.

While the car bomb attack sent shock waves through the activist community, it only deepened the commitment of Redwood Summer organizers -- including Bari and Cherney -- to ground the campaign in nonviolence (all participants were required to go through nonviolence training). "If we are going to survive on this earth, we need to find a different way of living on this earth," Bari told Sojourners. "And that way of living has to include nonviolence -- nonviolence toward the earth and nonviolence toward people."

So armed only with a nonviolent code and a belief that the fate of the forest -- and possibly the planet -- was in their hands, close to 4,000 environmental activists prepared to defend the forest (like the Lorax, the Dr. Seuss character who "speaks for the trees") against corporate "liquidation logging." Meanwhile, entire communities of families who are dependent on the region's timber industry for their economic survival were digging in, ready to defend a way of life that goes back generations.

IT WAS THE SECOND LARGEST GATHERING in the history of Fort Bragg, California (population 6,100), a coastal mill town about 130 miles north of San Francisco that is home to the Georgia-Pacific Lumber Company. Close to 2,000 Redwood Summer participants converged on the town July 21 to protest the logging practices of GP, the biggest wood-products company in the world. And about a thousand supporters of the area's timber industry were on hand for a counter-rally, a company-picnic-style protest held a dozen blocks away at the Fort Bragg High School football field (home of the "timberwolves").

The timber supporters, wearing yellow T-shirts (to signify solidarity with the industry) and carrying signs proclaiming "Families First!" and "Save My Daddy's Job," stayed clear of the Redwood Summer protesters for much of the day. They even said a pledge of "non-communication" in unison together ("... even if I have the urge to talk, I will not, so help me God ...") led by the timber rally organizers.

Yet despite the pledge not to talk, many of those logging families and supporters who ventured across town to take a closer look at "the other side" could not help engaging the environmentalists in some often-heated dialogue. The following is one of several exchanges overheard as I walked along Main Street.

"What do you think we're supposed to do when we don't have the jobs to support our kids?" asked Michelle Harrison of one Redwood Summer protester at Fort Bragg. "It's all my husband knows how to do. It's all our family is supported by. What are we supposed to do when we don't have any money coming in because they've laid off the workers? What about the families that are going to go hungry because they don't have a paycheck, and my kids don't have clothes because my husband doesn't have a job?"

"I don't know," confessed the protester, who looked a little overwhelmed by the emotion in the questions.

"You don't know?! See, you don't think of that!"

"Would you sacrifice your kid for a spotted owl?" asked Michelle, as she clung to a baby stroller holding one of her two children. "Well, if you would, that would be just nuts," she says when the protester hesitates. "Just nuts!"

It was hardly a dialogue, given the one-sided nature of the exchange, but it may have been the first real glimpse for one protester of the reality faced by logging families such as the Harrisons, who fear that they -- not the spotted owls -- are the region's forgotten endangered species.

Peggy Betzholtz, a United Church of Christ minister in Eureka, believes it is important for environmentalists to understand and respect the fear of economic change on the part of logging families. "We have to be able to take on that fear -- and the inherent violence of the situation -- ourselves, if we want to be a force for reconciliation."

THE POLARIZATION BETWEEN THOSE WHO want to keep the forest intact and the loggers who want to protect their jobs is due in part to a continuing misinformation campaign waged by the industry against the environmentalists -- especially Earth First. Forest Forever has been labeled "the radical Earth First initiative" by the industry, even though Earth First neither wrote it nor necessarily endorses it as a body.

This past spring, Earth First leaders in Northern California and southern Oregon, led by Judi Bari, publicly called for an end to tree spiking (placing metal spikes in trees to deter logging), "to stop fighting the victims and concentrate on the corporations themselves." Soon afterward, a fake press release, supposedly issued by Arcata Earth Firsters angry with the statement, mysteriously appeared in area mills.

"We intend to spike trees, monkeywrench, and even resort to violence if necessary, " stated the fake release, which served to reinforce the myth in this region that Earth First members are all violent, militant extremists who will stop at nothing in defense of the earth. The local Eureka Times-Standard newspaper obliged, running a front-page story based on the fake release.

Environmental leaders here have offered repeated assurances that they have no intention of shutting down the timber industry altogether. "I'm not saying don't log," says Judi Bari. "I'm saying don't destroy the forest when you log." Still, many logging families have chosen to believe industry statements that "the extremists can't be trusted."

That may be due in part to the fact that while it was suspended during Redwood Summer, area Earth First leaders still endorse the "time-honored tradition" of sabotaging logging equipment (which they call "the machinery of destruction"). For logging families such as the Harrisons, who have been on the receiving end of this tactic, it simply means destruction of what little they have.

"Sabotaging expensive equipment just isn't right," said Michelle Harrison, whose father's three logging trucks had been vandalized. "That's just not the way to stop things."

Beneath the misinformation are the tremendous cultural differences that have divided these two groups along the North Coast for more than two decades. Many of those who fled the materialism of the cities in the late 1960s and early '70s, and headed "back to the land" (or "back to the garden," as the song "Woodstock" goes) to live more simply in the hills of Northern California, are at the heart of the environmental movement here.

The battle around logging practices in some ways is just the latest symptom of an uneasy coexistence between this "alternate culture" and the region's older residents, whose roots here go back generations. While there have been a couple of occasions to join ranks -- against unpopular housing codes and the infringement of civil liberties as part of California's "Operation Greensweep" (an annual counterinsurgency-type campaign against the growing of marijuana carried out by National Guard troops running roughshod through these hills) -- the "back-to-the-landers" are still largely considered outsiders.

And the appearance of some of the Redwood Summer demonstrations -- the rally and march at Fort Bragg reminded some participants of the "be-ins, " or countercultural festivals of the '60s -- seemed only to play into the stereotypes held by those in the logging communities that the protesters are simply protesting for the sake of being countercultural. "They're here because it's a cause, and it's against the establishment -- that's the only reason," said one industry supporter at Fort Bragg. "Nine out of 10 of them don't care about trees or anything else," added another.

Redwood Summer organizers say that the way people dress or wear their hair shouldn't get in the way of dealing with the issues. "A lot of cultural values are called into question here that don't have anything do with the environment or trees," says Ed Denson, who helped organize Redwood Summer. "Yet it's right there underneath everything."

Appearances aside, probably the most significant cultural difference between the loggers and the environmentalists involves vastly divergent ways of thinking about nature -- and how and where humans fit in. Many loggers wonder why so much fuss is created over the saving of "old-growth" habitat areas and species (especially when their jobs may be on the line), while many environmentalists believe that animals such as the spotted owl are critical to the "biodiversity" needed for a healthy planet -- and our survival. In other words, environmentalists tend to have a "biocentric" approach to nature while loggers have more of an "anthropocentric" approach.

I FOUND IN TALKING TO SEVERAL longtime timber industry supporters in Fort Bragg that at least part of the environmentalists' message -- that the short-term, quick-profit logging practices of the timber corporations will eventually cause the loss of more jobs than would reforms -- appeared to be hitting home. Some expressed uneasiness about whether Georgia-Pacific was more interested in profits than in sustaining jobs and the forests.

Tim and Jill Stillwell, who were waiting in their white pickup truck for the Redwood Summer protesters to process down Main Street as the sun was setting, had tied a yellow ribbon to their antenna like most other folks in town; but that show of solidarity by no means meant unconditional support for Georgia-Pacific.

"I wish it was more like a family operation, " Jill said of GP. "It used to be family-run; but GP in my opinion is more there to make the money. And a family-run business is more interested in the community and keeping jobs than merely the money. Since GP's got [the mill], they keep laying off people and laying off people."

"The rate they're going now, I give them three to four more years, " said Tim. "GP goes into the forest, and anything bigger than a two by four, they take it. They gotta stop doing that ... When this mill goes, what's this town gonna do?"

Like other mill towns along California's North Coast, Fort Bragg seems to be bracing already for the inevitable logging bust by gearing more toward tourists. "They know the mill may not always be here," said Sharon Banyard, an insurance agent in Fort Bragg. "If the mill closes, we'll turn into a North Coast Carmel."

But those now dependent on the mill for their livelihood know that tourism alone would not replace the amount of jobs now created by Georgia-Pacific. And many lack the skills necessary for other types of employment.

"Most people in the timber industry here know nothing else," said Beatrice, whose husband drives a logging truck. "If they shut down the logging and the mills, we couldn't survive here. We'd have to go somewhere else."

"You can't expect a 55-year-old man to go out and learn a new trade with no education," added Kathryn, whose family goes back four generations in Fort Bragg, to 1866.

It is this tension around the uncertainty of the future that keeps many loggers and those dependent on the timber industry -- even those who are sympathetic to the concerns of the environmentalists -- from supporting a significant change in logging forestry practices. "I would like for there to be a forest after I'm gone," said E. "Smokey" Sifford, the night watchman at a small timber mill near Fort Bragg. "But I understand people have to make a living. This is timber country -- always has been. "

DWAYNE POTTER WAS A TREE "FALLER" just like his brother, father, and uncle. But after 15 years, he decided to call it quits earlier this year. As he talked about his decision to leave his work as a logger, I felt as if I were listening to a combat soldier who had decided to walk away from the front lines of a seemingly endless war.

"Every year it's getting worse," said Dwayne, who was standing on the edge of the Redwood Summer crowd. "I just refused to work with them any more. Most loggers I've talked to feel the same way -- that clear cutting is wrong and that we gotta go at it a different way. We definitely need to make a change.

"It's just greed, that's what it is," continued Dwayne. "It's really a shame. Where is our real love in our hearts -- for our children, for us, for the forest? I'd like for there to be a forest for my children and their children to enjoy rather than just brush.

"They say they plant five trees to every one they take. Well, what they don't tell you is that only 7 percent of those trees make it to full maturity -- snow may freeze them out or they are eaten by animals -- these are the things they keep hidden."

Dwayne said it took two-and-a-half years -- a period in which he stopped drinking and doing drugs -- to come to a realization that he had to get out of the timber industry. "I just couldn't participate in that anymore -- clear cut after clear cut -- and I decided I had to do something good."

Dwayne and his family are now on welfare, but he has submitted a proposal to Fort Bragg's town council to start a city-wide recycling project. In the meantime, he volunteers at the local environmental center two days a week and recycles iron from the landfill. "We should be trying to help save the earth rather than doing everything we can to destroy it."

When I asked if he knew of any other loggers who had followed his example of getting out and making a change, Dwayne said they seem too afraid of the consequences. "They just stand there and laugh when I won't tie a yellow ribbon on my antenna. And when I explain to them why I won't, they just say, 'Well, that's right, but we can't just go on welfare.'"

AS THE MARCHERS PROCEEDED DOWN MAIN STREET in Fort Bragg, there was some heckling from the sidelines; but mostly the timber supporters just watched and stared as a flatbed truck carrying a reggae band led the marchers slowly toward the middle of town.

"This isn't the small town I grew up in," said one local resident who was watching the procession.

The intersection of Redwood Avenue and Main Street -- across from the Georgia-Pacific main gate -- is where the two sides finally confronted one another. As the marchers reached the heart of town, the "yellow ribbon" counterprotesters swelled around them; and their anger which had been growing all day finally spilled onto the main square.

Hundreds began chanting "Go Home! Go Home!" to the marchers, while some of their more rowdy and inebriated ranks yelled obscenities from the second story of a corner bar. Meanwhile, the Redwood Summer marchers who now packed the middle of the square began singing "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land" (from the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters ...) in hopes of diffusing the tension.

At one point in the standoff, Darryl Cherney offered the Redwood Summer "stage" (the flatbed truck in the middle of the square) to any logger who wanted to speak. A logger for Louisiana-Pacific accepted the invitation and spoke over the heckling not by Redwood Summer marchers but by industry supporters, who were evidently still taking the "non-communication" pledge seriously and disapproved of his decision to address the crowd.

And a few minutes later, Dwayne Potter got up on the stage and began to explain, for the first time in public, his decision to quit his job as a logger "to support what I believe in." His story was interrupted by roars of approval from those with Redwood Summer, and while he was jeered by those who called him "traitor," the industry supporters seemed to be quieted by what he had to say.

"Let's don't wait 10 to 15 years as with AIDS to do something," he told the crowd. "Let's get talking now -- tomorrow is too late. Everybody's pointing fingers and that's no good; we need to all sit down with a clear head, stop blaming one another, and talk about this. "

A group of citizens from the Eureka-Arcata area of Humboldt County have been doing just that. Since June, the "Middle Ground" coalition -- environmentalists, community and religious leaders, and even a few timber workers -- has been meeting in the "safe space" of a Eureka church to listen to each other's views and to strategize ways of diffusing what some feared was a brewing civil war.

"We may seriously differ on these issues, " says Ruth Ann Cecil of Arcata, one of the founders of Middle Ground. "But as long as we're dealing with each other as human beings, there's a basis for working together for what we do share -- which is a peaceful Humboldt. "

WHILE THE TIMBER INDUSTRY HAS LARGELY succeeded -- until now -- in keeping the timber workers and the environmentalists divided, there is much common ground between these two sides.

There is an emerging consensus that if the timber industry is going to survive at all, it's going to have to return to a "sustained-yield" rate of logging. And there is across-the-board criticism of corporations such as Louisiana-Pacific that export whole logs to other countries instead of processing the lumber at home and thereby creating more jobs.

"If they kept logs here and didn't ship them out, we wouldn't have nearly the log shortage that we're gonna have," said "Smokey" Sifford. "The more they ship to Mexico and elsewhere, the more they cut us down."

"All it boils down to is corporate greed," added a mill worker at Simpson Paper Co. in southern Humboldt, who said that wood chips are also exported instead of keeping another pulp mill in operation at home. "We got to start looking out for our own," he said.

But these workers have little voice in bringing about a change in industry practices. Unions for the most part have never gained a foothold in this part of timber country. Wages and benefits at the mills generally are kept at union levels or better to try to remove any incentive for organizing one.

And despite the growing feeling on the part of both timber workers and environmentalists that things need to change, there is much skepticism about the industry's willingness to veer from its current "cut and run" course of logging operations.

"I think it would be wonderful if we could all sit down and work things out, but the fact is that the corporations aren't about to do that," says Judi Bari. "That's why we've had to resort to protests and other tactics -- to send them a message that we're unwilling to be treated like a Third World country, which is exactly what they do. They're from out of the area, they extract the resources, they exploit the labor, and then they leave."

After Louisiana-Pacific announced this past spring that it would close down yet another mill in Mendocino County -- this one near Ukiah -- one of the 200 mill workers who was about to be laid off approached Bari about organizing public opposition to the mill closing. Bari agreed and quickly banded together a coalition of loggers, mill workers, and environmentalists, who then demanded that the county's board of supervisors use its power of "eminent domain" to seize all of LP's timber land in the interest of the county's citizens.

"We were taken seriously," says Bari. "One of the supervisors met with us in a public restaurant and publicly discussed how we could go about doing this, while everyone else in the restaurant stood there with their mouths open."

There are other signs of an emerging coalition between labor and environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest. Gene Lawhorn is encouraging other workers at the Northwest Forest Products company in Eugene, Oregon, and other mills in the region to help hold the industry accountable for how they treat the environment.

"It is the workers who pay the highest price for environmental decimation," says Lawhorn. "When the ancient forests are all gone, there will be no jobs and no ecosystem. It's a lose-lose situation."

BARI'S ABILITY TO BRING TOGETHER loggers and environmentalists is believed by many to be the primary reason she has been targeted by the industry. The high-profile initiative to try to seize LP's timber land may have been the last straw, as far as the industry is concerned.

"I think the day they decided they had had enough of me is the day we displayed that worker coalition," said Bari, who began receiving more and more death threats after that. "I think as we become more effective, they use more violence to keep us down."

Unfortunately the hate campaign against Bari did not end with the car bombing that left her disabled. In August leaflets appeared in Bari's hometown of Willits (where she has said she plans to return as soon as she's able) offering a keg of beer to "the stud" who burns her out of her home (and a six-pack of beer to anyone who burns down any of the "hippie cabins" in the same area). The name at the bottom of the leaflet was the "Stompers, " an anonymous hate group that has identified itself only as "Humboldt County employees of the Forest Products Industry."

Other environmentalists have been targeted as well by hate-group activity in the region. A dirt-bikers' group calling itself "The Sahara Club" regularly publishes the names and phone numbers of environmentalists in its newsletter for those "interested in putting a damper on their activities."

SOON AFTER DWAYNE POTTER SPOKE, the Redwood Summer protesters sang "Amazing Grace" and began walking slowly back down Main Street to their original rally site. With the help of more than 300 police who formed a buffer between the two sides, the day had remained largely nonviolent. And everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief -- the town was still intact and no blood had been spilled.

For some of the older Redwood Summer crowd, the day was a historical flashback to earlier protest movements. "Those red-faced, infuriated people lined up along the streets were straight out of the civil rights movement," said Rondal Snodgrass, who marched in the "Freedom Summer" demonstrations in the South in the 1960s. "You're marching into a town, and here are these people -- heckling and shouting at you -- who are solidly against change."

This time, however, Rondal was marching with his family. After saying a prayer together with other families from the Mattole watershed, they joined the procession, sticking close together to offer protection for one another. Rondal's 12-year-old son, Seth, stuck close by at first; holding his father's hand. But about 15 minutes into the march, his fear of the people lining the street began to disappear. That evening on the way home, he said he'd never felt so much power as when he was marching alongside the throngs of Redwood Summer protesters.

The involvement of so many youth -- especially college students from throughout California and the Pacific Northwest -- was a welcome surprise to Redwood Summer organizers. For many, it was their first public witness ever.

Ed Denson, who had been called the "grandfather of Redwood Summer, " said he had wondered where the young people were. "I'm so glad to see them. We really worried about whether our generation -- which is aging after all; I'm 50 years old -- would be the last generation of protest. "

"My generation grew up thinking that everything's all right -- just get yourself a job, and you'll be fine, " said Redwood Summer organizer Mickey Dulas. "But this next generation of youth has heard from the very beginning that there is an environmental problem. "

But the older generations have by no means left the scene. "We still have 20 or 30 good years of protest ahead of us," insists Denson. There's even a group in southern Humboldt County called "Grandparents for Old Growth," which I found vigiling in front of Pacific Lumber's headquarters in Scotia.

THE DEBATE AROUND LOGGING PRACTICES in Northern California is reaching a fever pitch as election day -- the day of judgment for the Forest Forever initiative -- approaches. Both environmentalists and the timber industry have stepped up the rhetoric in a campaign that overshadows the race for governor in timber country (and the issue is so hot, both gubernatorial candidates have declined to comment).

For its part, the industry has cranked up its campaign of deception a notch by coming up with its own counterinitiative to Forest Forever. Dubbing the new initiative "Big Stump," environmentalists say it will actually ease existing logging restrictions.

And environmentalists have now taken the campaign against timber practices to the doorsteps of timber companies and executives. At press time, organizers of Redwood Summer were calling for "Corporate Fall, " a series of protests targeting specific corporations that began with a September 27 protest at the Maxxam Corporation (Charles Hurwitz's home base) in Houston.

Meanwhile, the state's division of forestry (CDF) has a new director who has vowed to end its cozy relationship with the industry and to implement reforms; and there are signs that the relationship may indeed be changing. The state recently denied a timber harvest plan submitted by Louisiana-Pacific to cut 240 acres in Mendocino County that was just logged in 1977, saying the trees were too young and would yield nearly 15 times more timber if they were left standing 40 years. For the first time, the state not only told the industry what it could cut but when it could cut it.

Those in the industry, such as mill owner "Bud" Harwood of Harwood Wood Products in Branscomb, have pointed to the changes at CDF as reason enough to reject Forest Forever as unneeded. Harwood affirms the need for a change in the way the 1973 forestry law is interpreted, but says the initiative is like "taking a meat axe to the problem."

Backers of Forest Forever, however, are skeptical of the change and CDF's suddenly active role just weeks before voters go to the booths. "They've had the opportunity to institute a sustained-yield policy since 1973, and have failed to do so," Forest Forever's Cecelia Lanham told Sojourners. "We don't think things are going to turn around overnight with all the pressure that's coming from the industry to maintain the status quo."

Whatever happens on election day, awareness has been raised in the state -- and elsewhere in the nation -- about the critical role of the forests in sustaining the environment. "People in Southern California who have been concerned about rain forests elsewhere now know there's a rain forest right here in our backyard that needs protecting, " said Lanham.

And there are signs that Redwood Summer -- in addition to helping to raise these issues to the surface -- empowered some local residents to take a stand for the first time against the timber industry for the sake of their communities. In Elk, California (population 250), residents have feared a logging operation near the town's two wells could pollute their only water supply with silt. For several consecutive days in late August, nearly 40 residents held a "town breakfast" in the middle of the road leading to the logging site. One of the protesters, who called themselves "Breakfast First, " was a 46-year-old logger who risked his job by participating.

The same logging industry that is the sole source of livelihood for many communities had taken one community to the edge of extinction -- and town residents were forced to act as a matter of survival. "When you see the stream running through your watershed turn brown, " explains Ruth Ann Cecil, "you react as if it's your own blood flowing. And it's that strong sense of place that is going to save this planet."

Brian Jaudon was news editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.