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Ancient Redwood
Trees Cut On Gypsy Mountain
Tree Sitters Extracted; Four Arrested
For immediate release
Sept. 27, 2004
Contact: NCEF! (707) 268-5613
Humboldt county, California-Three forest activists were
forcibly extracted from high in the enormous radial branches
of a 600 year old redwood tree, lowered 150 feet to the ground
and placed under citizen's arrest by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber
(PL) employees on Saturday, Sept. 25 near Grizzly Creek Redwoods
State Park in coastal northern California. A fourth
activist was arrested on the ground. Immediately after the
tree sitters' removal, the grove of five ancient redwoods
and the massive giant known as "Aradia" were cut
down. The area is known as "Gypsy Mountain", named
in memory of young activist David "Gypsy" Chain,
killed on Sept. 17, 1998 when an irate PL logger felled a
tree directly onto him.
The Aradia tree had been occupied for over two and a half
years by activists who hoped to keep the trees standing until
the timber harvest plan ran out in January '05, or until legislation
such as the Heritage Tree Act could preserve the trees-some
as old as 1000 years-in perpetuity. Activists had also made
a proposal to purchase the grove as a memorial to David Chain.
But on Saturday, the ancient trees, and the activists' hopes
for a positive outcome on Gypsy Mountain were destroyed forever.
North Coast Earth First! activist Shunka Wakan, an eye witness
to Gypsy's 1998 death has worked tirelessly to protect the
grove. He described the loss as "a personal and
an ecological tragedy," saying, "We grieve the loss
of a friend on Gypsy Mountain once again-this time, an ancient
redwood tree."
The Aradia grove contained endangered marbled murrelet habitat
but lay just outside the State Park boundaries and was not
included in the Headwaters Forest Agreement acquisition that
more than tripled the size of Grizzly Creek Redwoods State
Park. Wakan had personally presented a proposal to acquire
the Aradia Grove area to Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz at a shareholders
meeting in Houston, Texas earlier this year. David Chain's
mother also traveled from Texas to northern California to
lobby PL president Robert Manne for the grove's preservation.
Dozens of contract employees and company officials arrived
for the weekend raid, including the locally notorious "
climber Eric" Shatz, to pry protestors from their lofty
perches, and perform legally dubious citizens' arrests.
The activists were taken into custody by Humboldt County Sheriffs
Deputies Bolton and McCaulister, two officers with long histories
of brutality against nonviolent protesters. One activist,
Wessel Lewis, reported a probable dislocated shoulder after
being thrown to the ground by Deputy Bolton.
Eric Schatz owns a local tree trimming business, but
was reportedly paid as much $70,000 per day to extract tree
sitters from ancient redwoods in Freshwater watershed last
year He is being sued by long time tree-sitter Remedy
for assault, reckless endangerment and emotional distress
she alleges occurred during her removal from an ancient redwood
in Freshwater after a year-long tree-sit. ###--
Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH)
2530 San Pablo Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94702
phone: 510 548 3113
email: bach@headwaterspreserve.org
http://www.HeadwatersPreserve.org
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