Earth First! and Loggers in Face-Off

As Earth First! activists and loggers faced off in the forest south of here, about 1,500 supporters and an equal number of loggers and their families held separate rallies Saturday over the emotionally charged issue of preserving California’s ancient forests.

At least 39 environmentalists were arrested in the forest standoff, but more were pouring into the woods onto private land late Saturday, placing themselves between tree fellers and old-growth redwoods, the focus of a summer-long series of demonstrations known as Redwood Summer.

Meanwhile, the noisy but peaceful demonstration in town, 26 miles north, was the largest Redwood Summer action since the event began six weeks ago. As with other large Earth First! events, this one was shadowed by a pro-logging rally to let loggers vent their anger without directly confronting the radical environmentalists.

At their rally, loggers referred to Earth First!’s often illegal tactics, such as trespass and civil disobedience that are often employed by Earth First!, to try to discredit an environmental measure, Proposition 130, on the November ballot.

However, that was swiftly denounced as a “lie” by Sierra Club members and other mainstream environmentalists who are at odds with Earth First! over its bold Redwood Summer tactics.

The proposition, which would rewrite state forest practice laws to protect the last remaining fragments of virgin forests and scale down harvest levels, was written by mainstream environmentalists not affiliated with Earth First!

Although Redwood Summer was promoted as a series of “direct actions,” or potentially illegal acts of civil disobedience, by activists from around the country, it consisted chiefly of several theatrical rallies until the confrontation south of Ft. Bragg, which began Thursday.

At that time, a local resident heard loggers cutting down some of the few ancient redwood trees remaining in Mendocino County, where state foresters report that trees in the 1980s were cut nearly three times as rapidly as new ones have grown.

Activists who arrived for the rally infiltrated the logging site, which is owned by Georgia-Pacific Corp., standing between loggers and trees. Harsh words led to violence and arrests.

Those arrested claim loggers threw rocks at them and hit one activist with an ax handle; the alleged attack led Doug Momberger and Toni Chapman of Colorado to file complaints with authorities, but no arrests have been made.

Environmentalists remained on the site late Saturday, even though a Mendocino County Superior Court judge had declined to issue an order halting the logging. They pledged to remain on site until the trees were permanently protected.

Loggers scoffed. “That area will be logged--period,” said Mike Anderson, owner of Anderson Logging Co. and a spokesman for the loggers who rallied in opposition to Redwood Summer. “It’s a legal harvest plan and it’ll be cut. All that they can do is delay it a few days.”

Anderson and other loggers appeared less concerned about the activists’ direct action than about their ability to promote environmental measures on the November ballot.

“Most of us are not afraid of added regulation,” said Anderson, a member of the state Board of Forestry. “We’re afraid of something coming along (in those initiatives) and upsetting the entire apple cart . . . making it more profitable to develop this land than to continue logging it.”

Daryl Cherney, one of two Earth First! activists injured by a car bomb in Oakland last May, discounted such talk, saying environmental regulations have fostered a long-term approach to timber production.

“Anybody out there logging today should be kissing our fannies . . . for the legislation and conservation ethic that has forced the regulations that produced the second-growth forests out there now,” he said.

The rallies were as different as the philosophies of their participants. The logger rally, which came first, started and finished as scheduled, and included an orderly parade of decorated logging trucks through a residential section of this quaint logging and fishing town of 5,800.

Maribelle Anderson, Mike Anderson’s wife, followed the rally’s invocation and singing of the national anthem with a cheer similar to the ones the former cheerleader led 20 years ago before she graduated from Ft. Bragg High School.

“Families First!” she yelled, and the crowd lustily echoed, in a mocking reference to Earth First! “Save our jobs!”

If cheerleading set the tone of the loggers’ wholesome hot dog and soda event, the environmentalists’ rally at the opposite end of town was something more tribal. Percussionists pounded an infectious rhythm near booths selling organic apple-crumb cake and falafel, while folk musicians took the stage singing earnest songs praising Mother Earth.

The environmentalists’ march through the business district along Main Street drew some boos and vulgar remarks from loggers who came to watch, but most of those epithets were drowned out by the activists’ deafening, rhythmic chant of “Earth First! Earth First!”

More than 400 law enforcement officers in riot gear from as far away as San Jose, about 200 miles to the south, watched over both rallies.