Six Rivers – Mt. Shasta -Trinity

Heading further north the inland forest becomes less arid, the trees grow larger and a moisture dependent diversity prevails. Six Rivers National Forest picks up where Mendocino National Forest leaves off. Six Rivers National and Shasta Trinity National Forest are between highway 101 and highway 5. This area contains many landscapes like Trinity Alps Wilderness, an area of world-class panoramas, craggy mountain ridges and a central Mountain called Shasta. Also Six River National Forest was once an international incident when Native people appealed to the Organization of American States over a Supreme Court ruling that was going to allow a logging road to be built through there ceremonial lands. It was called the GO-Road and it eventually was stopped through an act of congress.

From Mount Shasta northwards the Pacific Northwest is no longer confined to the coast, Facing northwards at Mt.. Shasta we are seeing a swath of giant tree forest that is 100 miles wide and 800 miles long. The Pacific Ocean is the boundary to the West and the Cascades are the boundary to the East. Conifer trees grow well in these types of mountainous landscapes. They are well adapted to the steep slopes and deeply incised valleys, which are large enough to influence local wind patterns. These same mountain ridges also limit the amount of available sunlight. The combined effect is a broad range of temperature changes, which then cause additional wind currents, unique microclimates. In much the same way dust builds up on your heater vent so too are there particular places in the mountains that grow the thickest, tallest stands of trees. The function of tall conifer trees not only is born of these subtle influences, but also accentuates attenuates and sustains a rapid growing climate for the plant and wildlife community that lives in its shadow. Streams below unlogged forests like these have pure clear water and deep swimming holes. This is how the landscape functioned before the logging.

In this region the town of Mt. Shasta often gives visitors experiences akin to the Twilight Zone. There are good people in this town, great health food store's and lots of unique spiritual activists. The forests in this region are far from the Ocean and still far enough to South to be in an arid landscape. The cutting of them happened too rapidly for forest activists to build a campaign. Subsequent grazing and farming activities gave little opportunity for private lands forest to ever be regrown on the best site.

Forest activists along the coast have kept their eyes on forest service activities of this Interior forest. But in places like Six Rivers National Forests issues are often defeated in paper work long before they have to be defeated directly out in the woods. Logging in these forests often relates to salvage logging. Last summer a salvage-logging project was successfully stopped by EPIC. While some logging has not been stopped Six Rivers National Forest may be far less threatened by the Bush administrations new policies in comparison to forests further North.

Humboldt

At this longitude the activism is not in the interior of the Coast range it is out on the coast on private lands, out on a landscape of ancient redwoods. Around these parts even the coast terrain is rugged. In places it has proved so rugged that the building of the west coast highway, Route 1 had to be diverted inland. The terrain along the coast of Humboldt was simply too costly and treacherous to build on. It earned the name the Lost Coast and the people who live there live along the Mattole River. The Mattole is where modern forest and stream restoration has been implemented for more than twenty years now. The future of forest restoration in the PNW has much to do with the funding and engineering methodologies of the Mattole Restoration council. Much of the forests in the Mattole is owned by Maxxam - Pacific Lumber, an issue, which has threatened restoration projects, as well as given rise to the Mattole Forest Defenders.

All throughout Humboldt County there are places for forest defenders to get involved. Garberville in Southern Humboldt is home of EPIC a primary litigant in defending the regions forests. Also the Trees Foundation is a non-profit funding mechanism to support forest activists. North of Eureka in Arcata is the North Coast Environmental Center and North Coast Earth First! The spirit of this region is progressive and liberal with a vague tolerance of loggers. It’s also true to the casual sunny California spirit that is more open-minded then elsewhere in America.

The land grows wild and full of more and more wildness as activism moves further north. The annual Rainfall and fog-drip increase as well. This makes the Coast Redwoods Larger, older and taller than any anywhere else. There are Redwood forests further North that are equally impressive, but Humboldt is where you get far enough North that annual rainfall and coastal fog keeps these big trees growing and growing. Even a young hundred year-old sapling can reach 200 feet in height in some sites.

The volume of trees on this original landscape is so massive that nowhere else in the world was there more biomass per acre. Old time foresters tell stories of some clearcuts yielding a million board feet (200 log trucks) per acre. What's more is that this land is so hilly and steep that much of the original logging operations couldn't safely fall and harvest the bigger trees. These last remaining trees, plus the last intact old growth groves have been the main venue of the battle cry to save the redwoods for nearly 20 years. This is a landscape where most all of the modern battles to save the last ancient redwoods have occurred. This is also a landscape of harsh cops and even harsher jail sentences for activists engaged in protests to save the forest.

Conquering the Redwoods:

Early settlers to this land often took passage on ships into an area along the north coast via the city of Eureka. The land was no longer a short travel north from San Francisco, nor was it yet a short journey south from Portland, Oregon. Back in the early days Humboldt was far, far away from the big cities, as far away from big cities as you can get on the west coast. It was the wild, wild, west around these parts. The brutal treatment the settlers did to the native people in this area was worse than in other areas. There were many massacres, a small number of which have been well documented. The conquest then moved to land ownership.

"Under the timber and stone act of 1878, which might well have been called the "dust and ashes act," any citizen of the United States could take up one hundred and sixty acres of timber land, and by paying two dollars and a half an acre for it obtain title... The plan was usually as follows: A mill company desirous of getting title to a large body of redwood or sugar-pine land first blurred the eyes and ears of the land agents, and then hired men to enter the land they wanted, and immediately deed it to the company after a nominal compliance with the law; false swearing in the wilderness against the government being held of no account. In one case which came under the observation of Mr. Bowers, it was the practice of a lumber company to hire the entire crew of every vessel which might happen to touch at any port in the redwood belt, to enter one hundred and sixty acres each and immediately deed the land to the company, in consideration of the company's paying all expenses and giving the jolly sailors fifty dollars apiece for their trouble." by John Muir, American Forests

Up into the modern day the big timberland owners can source most of their north coast real estate holdings back to this original racket. Today the industry is shifting away from old growth liquidation, shifting away from over harvesting its tree-farmed lands, shifting into real estate speculation. This is when Wall Street Investment corporations moved in on timberland owners. The most successful, enduring racketeers in the original land grab was the Pacific Lumber Company. By the time the Homestead Act era ended PL had taken hold of such a large chunk of Humboldt redwood forest that it took them a long time to log off their holdings. They were the fat cats of the region with nearly 25,000 acres of Old growth redwoods still standing. In 1986 they fell into the arms of Wall Street corruption.

“As timber the redwood is too good to live. The largest sawmills ever built are busy along its seaward border, with all the modern improvements, but so immense is the yield per acre it will be long before the supply is exhausted.” by John Muir, American Forests

In 1986 Junk Bond Felon Michael Milken teamed up with Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam Corporation. In a hostile takeover they bought up Pacific Lumber tripled the rate of harvest of there forests and began liquidating the company infrastructure as well as the employee pension fund. Hurwitz succeeded in logging 15,000 acres of ancient redwoods and 100,000 acres of residual and second growth redwoods in this takeover.

Near the same time as the hostile takeover backwoods activists found Headwater's grove. Totaling more than 3.000 acres It was the largest intact ancient grove on Pacific Lumber lands. The discovery of this grove fueled the biggest North American forest defense campaign ever. It grew in notoriety and in numbers until in 1999 deal that bought forest protections for all the last large groves, for a half-billion dollars. Headwaters Grove was saved. Since then the movement has had to rebuild. As per the deal the Headwaters Deal, Maxxam Pacific Lumber was given authority to log off the remaining remnant groves that were originally saved in court to the Endangered Species Act listing of the Marbled Murrelet. Forest activists have lost the notoriety that they once had in saving the redwoods. Despite theses odds the activist community keeps pushing ahead with outreach, education, litigation and direct action.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park:

By the early 20th century the Save the Redwoods League was formed and some of Pacific Lumber's uncut forests began to be bought back to make state parks. One of the first big purchases was when Rockefeller gave $2 million to the Save the Redwoods League and 10,000 acres of Pacific Lumber Redwood forest was protected. It later became the center of what today is Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Some of this original purchase protected an area at the confluence of Bull Creek and the Eel River. This river contains 90% of all the trees in the world that are taller than 350 feet. Today Humboldt Redwoods spans 50,000 acres of mostly second growth with 3-4 old growth trees per acre. There are also isolated intact groves that have been protected as well.

The Redwood flats in this park, with 350 foot tall trees, rising out of giant tree groves that grow as close together as blades of grass. The acoustics and lighting, the 12 foot high logs strewed across the forest floor, it is nothing like anything in this world. It is a window to an ancient world where Redwoods once covered the most of Northern Hemisphere, a time before the last Ice age reduced it to these small remaining forests on the coast of California.

Forestville:

Just north of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, along the highway 101 corridor, along Avenue of the Giants, in the Valley of the Eel river, there is a town called Scotia. This river used to flow deep and heavy here. The first lumbermen were able to sail ships up into Scotia. Today the Potter Valley Diversion steals Eel river water for grape growers and urban sprawl further to the south. This diversion is the bane of the Friends of the Eel River who vow to end it. But not only is the Eel being diverted, it is also the nation's #1 most heavily silt-polluted river. Acre for acre the Eel river watershed is more silt laden than the Mississippi. Because of this type of disastrous geology in many more watershed than just the Eel the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has begun to be an authority over department of Forestry. Just as Santa Cruz county took a beating from the industry when they tried to require stream buffers, so too are the locals in Humboldt challenged by the industry who wants to ignore all the flooding that the silt filled rivers are causing.

Today the forests around Scotia are some of the most over harvested redwood forests in the entire region. The Eel river flows shallow around this town these days. But there once was a time a century ago that was much different than how this land looks now. Back then Scotia was known as Forestville and it contained a forest that grew the finest redwood trees the earth had ever known. Forestville quickly became a logging town and as all loggers do they got to cutting and after a time one of the only remaining ancient trees still alive is a tree named Luna.

High up on a hillside above the former town of Forestville, above a town now known as Scotia, Luna tells the clearest story of what the forests of Forestville were like. The reason Luna was saved is because of a very stubborn activist who refused to climb out of the massive tree for two years Luna is the tree Julia Butterfly lived in to see it saved. The activism of tens of thousands have rallied and lobbied and litigated and been incarcerated to save these last giant redwoods.

For a thousand years Luna lived with a different tribe of people. Now all the forest in the valley below is cut, and cut again, and again. Now a new tribe is returning to the land. A tribe of tree people hatched in this region. They live at campgrounds and up in threatened trees. They spend all their hours contemplating ways to save the giant old trees that they have seen. They spend too much time in grief, to much time promising to never forget the tree they have seen taken. Today the hotspots in forest defense in this region revolve around forests in the Freshwater, the Elk, the Mattole and Grizzly Creek Redwoods. After all these years of recruits still show up to campgrounds and get trained in non-violence, backwoods and tree climbing. At its peak last fall there were nearly 20 treesitters. Two of the treesitters in Freshwater are fast heading to a one year anniversary without touching the ground. 13 women in thirteen trees sat in solidarity for 13 days last October.

A new movement for a international treesit day on April 26th of each year also originated in this region.

Luna lives right on the edge of a 1996 logging-caused landslide that destroyed a sizable percentage of the homes in the town of Stafford. Luna's evenings in the moonlight are washed out by the glow of a thousand flood lights illuminating the industrial city of Scotia, a company town. Right next to highway 101 is a huge building as big as an airplane hanger; it bears the name Pacific Lumber Company.

Forest Culture:

For a time there a worldwide focus on saving the last of the last coastal redwoods. The resulting forest activist culture that emerged is like no other. It is a culture of both bright California sunshine and dark shady moss covered places. The stories of modern day forest defending in Humboldt could fill volumes of books. The largest of the gatherings culminated in nearly 10,000 people rallying in 1997 for the protection of Headwaters forest. To this day forest activists have seasonal training camps to teach people ways to defend the forest

At its root the forest scene in these parts is about taking non-violence trainings and working at plans through group Defending Redwoods in Humboldt, introducing people to defending redwoods, it has everything to do with what happens every time we circle up and hold hands, the way we work together as a group. The other root of it is that what the forest defense culture of Humboldt has failed to save has been a bitter, well-remembered truth. We have all grieved for many lost trees. We have also grieved for our Friend David Gypsy Chain who was killed when one of these trees that we were trying to save hit him as it fell. This new culture of tree people is about gentleness, nurturing, listening and speaking out for the protection of all life. It may have started out as a fringe group, but ultimately tree people will make this Earth a better place to live.