Winter Break

I am taking a break from Humboldt's rain and staying in Santa Barbara, for awhile. I bought a new Nikon Coolpix digital camera and have been practicing with it, so I can take good pictures in the woods, when I get back. There is the Los Padres National Forest here in Santa Barbara, and I'm Planning on ding some hiking there soon.

Please write a letter to help save the Mattole Forest.

Please write a letter to help save the Mattole Forest. 450 million dollars has become available for forest and wildlife conservation, thanks to the passage of Proposition 84. Please ask the California Wildlife Conservation Board to use some of this money to purchase Pacific Lumber Company’s Mattole River property. P.L. owns about 18,000 acres in the Mattole River Watershed. This includes around 2,000 acres of oldgrowth Douglas Fir forest.

Write to:

Wildlife Conservation Board
http://www.wcb.ca.gov

John P Donnelly, Interim Executive Director

1807 13th Street, Suite 103
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-8448
Fax (916) 323-0280

Subject My first forest action: re-supply for Julia Butterfly

My first forest action was a re-supply hike to the Luna tree-sit, in Sept. 1998, where Julia "Butterfly" Hill was sitting in the ancient redwood tree "Luna". Julia went on to become world famous for sitting in Luna for almost two years, without ever coming down to touch the ground. She finally came down after reaching an agreement with the Pacific Lumber Company to save Luna. She then wrote a best-selling book: The Legacy of Luna. In early 1999, I was tree-sitting on Gypsy Mountain and would listen on my walkie-talky to Juliia talking to her visitors from around the world. Gypsy Mountain and Luna were not too far apart, as the crow flies. When I had an accident, and broke my back while repelling from the Stop-sign tree-sit, Julia climbed to the tip-top of Luna to talk to me on the walkie-talky, while I was laying immobile, waiting for rescuers to arrive.

About Forest Defense

Sometimes we have action camps, where people learn about what the timber companies are doing in the forest and we have trainings in backwoods techniques, non-violence, climbing, and media. Some activists come from far places because they have heard that ancient trees are still falling, and endangered species habitat is being destroyed. Some forest defenders are local residents who are fed up with unsustainable logging practices. Some are traveling through and decide to get involved after hearing about us. Once activists are trained, they form into affinity groups that plan actions. There are town actions, backwoods actions, and gate actions. Some backwoods actions are tree-sitting, road-blockading, and free-stating. Tree-sitting invoves setting a climbing rope and some place to sleep, such as aplywood platform, cargo net, or dream-catcher made of parachute cord.