Redwood Summer Launched by 50 Protesters
Demonstrators, some dressed as trees, launched Redwood Summer on Thursday with a protest at a lumber-export company, promising to “put their bodies on the line” to block cutting of virgin timber.
The 50 demonstrators were matched one-for-one by police who are on edge because of a bombing that injured two members of Earth First!, the group organizing the summer of protest.
The demonstrators gathered at the Port of Sacramento outside Gene West Inc., which exports logs to China, Korea, and Japan.
A spokesman for the port said Gene West Inc. exports only low-quality white fir and diseased trees, taken from the Sierra, that would not normally be milled in the United States anyway. Protesters planned to interfere with loading of logs aboard a Japan-bound ship, but the vessel sailed Wednesday.
Protest speakers Thursday decried what they said is over-harvesting of timber and cutting of old-growth redwoods. They said logging firms are racing deadlines, including environmental protection measures on California’s November ballot.
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