Interviewed by Beth Bosk – New Settler Interview, Issue #21, June 1987, ©1987 by the New Settler Interview; used by permission.
Dave Ziegler: Yesterday a number of people gathered near Fortuna at the Hydesville logging deck of Pacific Lumber Company. That logging deck is specifically where the old growth timber is coming down. Most of the people, like me, were from Humboldt County—but nobody organized this. Earth First! has been named a number of times, but Earth First is not an organization. It is a movement of people who are concerned about the rapid ravaging of the land, frustrated with how everything is so mired in the courts. As we all know, the legal system lumbers along while the chainsaws are ravaging everything. It only takes a couple of minutes to fell a redwood tree. It takes years to get a restraining order.
Beth Bosk: How did you get involved in the rally?
DZ: I saw a flier on a telephone pole in Arcata. And that’s how I learned about it. I saw a poster that said it was time to take action against Maxxam—to show our outrage—and it sounded right to me. I’m not a joiner of any organization. I feel I get the BS from every side going. I just know what I feel driving past those log decks, looking at the encroaching clearcuts every-where. I knew that I had to take action somehow. I also knew the local group supported non-violent action—(Gandhian) civil disobedience—and that’s what I believe.
BB: What character did the demonstration take?
DZ: When we first assembled, we started a small circle and everyone was asked to state their reasons for being there. There were a lot of interesting reasons—ranging from protecting wildlife, to saving old-growth for their children to see, to saving jobs for Humboldt County. My own idea was just to open the eyes of the nation—to show what was happening.
And what is happening is that a large corporation called Maxxam, owned by a Texas corporate magnate, has bought out a local lumber company, Pacific Lumber Company, which has been around Humboldt County for close to 100 years. Pacific Lumber has been one of the most praised logging companies for their environmental-type of logging, which is sustained yield where they will only cut as much as what is, growing back. For three generations they have been logging there, and people who start working for that mill never leave because they were really good. They were good to their employees; good to the woods.
Maxxam bought them out in 1985, and I’ve heard different figures ranging from 500 million dollars to 900 million dollars that they spent to take over this company. At the same time timber prices are going down, so they’re cutting more and more and more to make up for their “losses”.
And I don’t know the legalities or illegalities of the takeover, except I have heard the Securities Exchange Commission is investigating it right now. I do know it was hostile. Nobody in Humboldt County wanted to see them come in. People were worried that this conglomerate would come over and start ravaging the land—which is exactly what’s happening.
So the main thrust of our demonstration at Fortuna was to get the media coverage. To make it open to the nation that their redwoods were being cut—very fast.
BB: Fat redwoods. The pictures shown of the landing were of very, very fat redwood timber.
DZ: The cutting of old-growth is what we are protesting. It’s very important for numerous habitats for wildlife species. As the old-growth leave, also the wildlife leaves. I worked in the woods for the Forest Service for ten years, and it is the work I love. As far as facts and figures, I’m not a wildlife biologist, but nobody has the facts and figures, and one of the things we are asking for is that the cut be halted until studies have been done. I’m sure everybody has heard of the spotted owl. The spotted owl is a indicator species. That’s an easy one to study. It’s not so easy to study many of the other relationships of the other animals, but they are cutting the forest while and before the studies are done.
My concern as a forester is seeing that the genetic reserve not be destroyed. When I worked for the Forest Service, I worked in salvage sales where I would mark diseased timber to get it down and taken out of the woods. Over my ten years, I was seeing more and more and more disease hitting because of not enough genetic reserve. And that’s my main concern—the young growth don’t have the genetic resistance. Should some type of disease—such as Dutch Elm disease—of redwoods happen, that’s it. There won’t be any more for anybody.
Another recent thing, I just had a friend come out from Pennsylvania. She wanted to see the redwood trees. Around Arcata in the community park, I can show her a few. But she said, “No, I want to see the big ones.” I kept saying, “Gee, that’s the point. There aren’t. See that log truck there? That’s the redwoods.”
We drove by the Pacific Company log deck. I said, “You want to see the redwoods? There they are.” [more somberly] The last remaining ones, they have closed off the woods, and if you try to walk into their woods, they will arrest you. We couldn’t even take a walk in the woods. It was after that I saw the flier and showed up at the demonstration.
The protest at Fortuna was a movement of the people. There was not one spokesman saying, ‘We should do this,” or “We should do that.” Just a lot of ordinary people out there. We waited until it felt like enough people had gathered; and you started hearing people say, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” And people just decided to go.
BB: What exactly did you do?
DZ: We met at the Park & Ride in Fortuna. A few people knew where the old-growth log deck was, and they were showing the rest of the caravan the way to it. Once we got there, we circled, and the young woman next to me—and I know she is no organizer—she started singing, This Land Is My Land, This Land, Is Your Land, and we kept walking up to the gate singing that. “The California redwoods…” And then we sang, America the Beautiful, and all this just came from the heart.
So it was playing music, and singing. Some people thought we needed some arrests to get the media coverage. The county road ended and then Pacific Lumber Company log deck was there with a locked gate. The Sheriffs were there. There were numerous sheriffs. And they said, “Don’t cross that gate or we’re going to arrest you.”
Most people stayed for an hour or so. One woman wished to give them the ideas that we had that day of non-violent protest and what our protest was for—it was just to open people’s eyes; to make Maxxam be more responsible to the logging. And she walked across the gate to hand that to the police and they arrested her. Then a few more people crossed the gates knowing full well they were going to get arrested. It was everyone’s own personal decision.
BB: Coincidental with the demonstration up by Ferndale, at the southern end of Mendocino County, a young mill worker was maimed when a spiked tree shattered his saw. The tree came out of a clear cut up the Cameron Road near Elk. It was a brutal clearcut, one the community has been complaining about for months. The response of L-P the lumber company involved and much of the local media was to “green bait” (as we now put it) Earth First! What was the response up in Ferndale? You were the closest thing to an Earth First! demonstration going on at the time and the media fingers were pointing at you. How far are you willing to go?
DZ: That incident in Cloverdale was not coincidental with the demonstration in Fortuna. It was hushed up for a week and brought out to the public to appear coincidental. All I can tell you is hearsay. That’s all that anybody knows about it. And the hearsay is that there was also decapitations out in the woods; that it was obvious to both the mill and the police that there was a loony out in the woods chopping heads off animals and doing other things that is totally against the values of nonviolent protest. The other rumor that got to us was that the lumber company was aware that that cut was spiked and they had not told their employees. One wonders what price they are willing to go.
It’s wrong that it was withheld for a week so that the media would get hold of it to coincide with the protest at Maxxam. It’s wrong all the way around. What’s not brought out are the weekly accidents that happen in the mill or happen in the woods. It happens all the time and never makes the paper. Anyone who works in the woods knows he can be wiped out anytime by a widow maker. It is something to think about. And the consequences of what they are doing as far as the environment is concerned is something to think about. And if this incident opens up people’s eyes to what is happening, then that happened. But it certainly is not advocated by Earth First! But then nobody can say what Earth First! is.
I’m certainly not advocating spiking trees or chopping heads off of animals. Earth First!—at least our chapter of Earth First! does not advocate spiking trees You’re asking me to speak for Earth First! as if it had members. There are no members. That’s what I’m trying to get through. It’s a movement. Consequently they don’t control what people do.
BB: How did the demonstrators as a group respond?
DZ: First of all we said this is not something Earth First! advocates—at least our part of Earth First! and we feel very bad for that mill employee. Also, we feel very badly for all the other mill employees that regularly get hurt that don’t make the papers. For all the people who work in the woods who regularly get hurt. And we sent a prayer for them. We gathered in a circle and had a prayer for that mill worker and all the other mill workers who are getting hurt through their activities.
One thing we decided as a group is that we weren’t going to talk about the spiking. It’s too much sensationalism and its deterring eyes away from the purpose of our protest
My main emphasis, and why I am protesting so much, is that I love Humboldt County, and I love working in the woods. I feel it’s America’s best resource. And to see it just devastated for somebody to make some fast, big bucks with the full knowledge that the future is going to be gone—and that future we are talking about is three, four, five years down the road. Greed over local economy doesn’t cut it. Obviously this conglomeration MAXXAM does not give an iota about Humboldt County or what is going to happen to it. They’re making a boom-bust economy, and they’re busting that economy.
Even now, it’s not a boom. It’s the biggest cut Humboldt County has ever had and it’s not reflected in the local economy. It doesn’t take that much more jobs to cut old growth. It takes more jobs to cut the young growth and to manage effectively what is already there. It’s already been eroded and cut over. Manage that. To take a million board feet out of one redwood only employs a few people. But taking a million board feet out of the second-growth and all that silviculture employs a lot more.
Timber prices are falling because there is a glut on the market just like oil. When there is a glut on the market, prices fall. Consequently they have to cut more to make their money for this $500 million to $900 million takeover. And as they flood the market more, the prices keep going down more and they have to keep increasing the cut until—I have heard figures that within five years there won’t be any more timber to cut and they’ll just move on again and our county will be a boom and bust county in a bust.
I wish people would get down to talking about the real issue, which is not jobs, it’s profit and greed for a few people for a short time. And that’s my main emphasis. The ravaging of the planet for profit has got to stop!
You asked, how far am I willing to go? Up in Oregon there is another action. The Forest Service is clear cutting and opening major parts of roadless area north of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area. I’m willing to go to jail on that, because that forest belongs to me. And Forest Service employees are there to manage it for me—and I’m speaking as a past Forest Service employee. That is my land and it is my responsibility to guard that land. And when I see that my employees are not managing it to the best interest for all, it’s time to either fire my employees or change their actions radically.
We’ve had the court battle. The court has tied that up, and in the meantime, they are still logging it. And I know how the Forest Service operates. Once they’ve punched roads into an area, it’s no longer a roadless area and it’s not considered for wilderness. And every place I’ve seen, it’s more and more and more timber cuts. For that Kalmiopsis wilderness, I’m willing to take a very strong stand because that is my land. And I will refuse to let my land be ravaged. Ninety percent of the old-growth in Oregon has been cut.
This is one of the largest remaining chunk of old growth. This is not redwood. This is Doug Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Sitka Spruce. These are types of trees I know as a salvage sale operator.
In salvage sales I watched little patches of timber be hit by disease and bugs. At first there were five acres, and then pretty soon there were 20 acre patches and then there were 500 acre patches of all these planted trees that are exact clones. Once one gets sick, boom! And that scares me. I was up in Arcata studying genetics and I came to understand that we’re losing that genetic reserve.
BB: It amazes me how different people get radicalized and then come together in the same movement. It’s almost a study in physics itself.
DZ: It’s like the hundredth monkey syndrome.[1] Once their eyes are open—once one person opens their eyes, they’ll tell someone else. “Hey, look at that!” I think this summer a number of eyes all over the country are going to be open. I harken back to my friend from Pittsburgh who came out. “We don’t know anything about this? Why haven’t we heard?”
It’s because you haven’t had your ears open or your eyes open. And it’s not just a west coast movement.
Think of what you see every time you go to McDonalds and you get a hamburger wrapped in that cardboard box and a paper bag, and another paper bag with five napkins and you walk 30 feet; and then you tear apart the bag, you tear apart the wrapping, you tear apart the napkins and throw it all away. It’s personal commitment on the smallest level is what is needed to happen—she was asking me ‘what actions could she take?’
Alarmone. I read your magazine where you wrote of the slime mold and the hormone alarmone—how the slime mold sent out signals of alarmone to pass the message the end of the resource was near. I learned of that hormone in salvage sales. It is also the defense for bug attacks. And also it’s a defense towards chainsaw attacks. Except they can’t fight off the chainsaws.
When I was five years old, I lived in the mid-west I had a large Dutch Elm in front of my house. The whole city was covered with Dutch Elms and at five years old, they were huge. And I had my tree house up there. Then all of a sudden, they—the nebulous “they”—came and chopped down every single elm tree in that city, including mine. I remember, I sat there and cried. And to tell you the truth, I haven’t stopped crying. I think everyone should take care of their own backyard. Where I’m going to next to work and live, there’s a big, big forest. I’ll be looking down on that forest, and I’ll be there a long, long time.
Footnote:
[1] The hundredth-monkey effect is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behavior spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. The phenomena was, for many years, used as a metaphor by progressive activists to describe the moment of paradigm shift. The hundredth-monkey effect has since been questioned (see Ron Amundson, “The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon”, Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1985, 348-356. Reprinted in The Hundredth Monkey, and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, 1991. The relevance of the metaphor to the sociology of human paradigm shift is probably still an open question.