Protesters Renew Bid to Block Logging

Small bands of protesters fanned out across timber country Monday, blocking loggers’ gates and wailing in front of the headquarters of a company that plans to begin salvage logging in an ancient redwood grove.

The demonstrators included people who were among the 900 environmentalists--including singers Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley--who were arrested Sunday at Pacific Lumber Co.’s Carlotta mill. Organizers said that event near the Headwaters Forest 280 miles north of San Francisco was the largest forest-protection rally ever.

The Headwaters Forest is the largest privately owned tract of old-growth redwoods. Some of its towering trees are 1,000 years old.

Environmentalists believe Pacific Lumber’s plans to remove dead and diseased timber from about 3,000 acres of the Headwaters Forest would damage live trees and harm wildlife.

The company, however, called it a salvage operation involving only downed trees that are diseased, dying or dead, and notes that it has the approval of courts and state forestry officials.

On Monday, scattered groups of demonstrators blocked at least five gates used by timber companies, said Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis. Fifteen people were arrested, authorities said.

In Carlotta, a man chained himself to a Pacific Lumber gate leading to the Headwaters Forest and placed his fists in a barrel of wet concrete. Demonstrators also put a car with flattened tires in front of the gate, and people beside and beneath the car refused to budge.

Lewis said similar demonstrations, involving three or four people at each site, were occurring at four other gates with access to the Headwaters.

Demonstrators at all the sites were expected to be arrested and taken to county jail, a sheriff’s official said.