Timber GAP

Within this 18-minute video, several interrelated issues are connected. Starting with a look at the unsustainable logging practices of the Mendocino Redwood Company, which is financed with profits from The GAP clothing chain, it provides an overview of the ecological issues behind the environmental and community resistance. Judi Bari the late radical Earth First! organizer, explains how timberland can be converted once the forest has been logged to death, showing how vineyards and gentrification are moving north - “creeping up the pike” - into the redwood region. Colorful protests involving civil disobedience and direct action by a variety of activists bring home the point that all is not well in the great north woods.

The video then moves into the issue of sweatshop labor exploitation that has defined the profit margin for GAP Inc. An angry ex-sweatshop worker explains what conditions are like on the “prison” island of Saipan, a US “colony” that ignores US labor laws and imports young Asian girls as “indentured” workers. Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange ties together this profit/exploitation machine with the WTO protests in Seattle last November. The video notes that when Labor and Environmentalists get together they seem to meet all kinds of violence from the “Powers That Be”. When Judi Bari linked up Earth First! and the IWW she was bombed shortly thereafter, and the FBI blamed her, the victim! Then in Seattle the Police launched exploding tear-gas grenades into the peaceful alliance of Teamsters and tree-huggers.