The Wild Rockies Review, Vol. 6, no. 2.

 

Home Away from Home: The Courts

Here we are again! Only an issue late instead of a whole year; things are obviously on the up-and-up here in the Wild Rockies. It’s been a weird summer, folks, as anyone who’s been involved with the Cove/Mallard campaign and/or the Law knows. To wit: people have been charged with grand theft, because they allegedly conspired to steal the Noble road. I presume they intended to sell it cheap in Seattle or something. In the end the county prosecutor got nervous about actually seeing this charge stick, and all but one of the defendants copped a plea to a lesser charge.

Not unrelated to this case, there also has been filed a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit against 33 activists and 200 John and Jane Does (names to be filled in later if they ever figure you’ve looked funny at big yellow machines) by Highland Enterprises, the Cove/Mallard road contractor. They want $100,000 for damages caused by activist-caused down time and lost profits. In addition, they also allege that the actions in Idaho amount to racketeering, upon which finding the court would award them $300,000. Of course, they would pretty much have to have a criminal conviction under the RICO (Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organization) statutes to pull that off, and it ain’t there.

Mind you, joke that this is, we do have to gird our loins for battle with these dingbats. Even if they win, and until they do, we can make this business so expensive, so time consuming, so fmstrating and so humiliating for them that they’ll be reduced’to miserable wretches, clutching their whiskey bottles and weeping inconsolably.

These are the last spasmotic kicks of a dying beast. Once invulnerable to its pesky attackers, it now lies prostrate, still alive but bleeding out its life into the thirsty earth. Its day is done.[Yeah, right.] —Badger

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Truthful words are not beautiful.{1}

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The Wild Rockies Review is a freely distributed non-profit newsletter written and produced by volunteers. It is supported by reader contributions. The Review cheerfully accepts any and all contributions that further bioccntric philosophy and direct action in defense of wilderness and biodiversity. All material in this newsletter may be freely copied.

The Editor this issue is Rhubarb, with help from Tofu Pup et al.

Wrenchers “Challenge” Flathead Sale—from the AP, October 13, 1993

Damage could amount to $50,000 at the site of a blowdown timber sale [Challenge Blowdown] where trees were spiked and three pieces of logging equipment were vandalized, Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said Tuesday [Oct. 12]. The damage was reported by employees of Bruch Logging who were working for Plum Creek Timber in the Flathead National Forest near Marias Pass in the Summit area. Loggers left the site Friday afternoon and discovered the damage when they returned on Monday morning. Authorities said at least one deck of logs was spiked with large nails, and messages saying “sale spiked” and “spike me” were spray painted on the logs and one piece of equipment. Forest Service investigators and sheriff’s deputies said a skidder had dirt in the oil, debris in the gasoline tank and that its air compressors were torn off. A fire extinguisher was emptied into the oil of a crawler tractor, the vehicle’s filters were smashed and its transmission was damaged. Also, tires were slashed on a crane, gasoline was poured on its engine and it was then set on fire. Dupont said his office and the Forest Service were handling the investigation. He noted that a sign warning of spiked trees was found [the week before] at a state salvage timber sale at the upper end of Whitefish Lake, but no spikes have been found there.

In this Issue:

• Teddy Bears

• Griz

• Vegans

• Ferrets

• Wolf Betrayals

• Land Swaps

• Cove/Mallard

• Book Review

• Menstruation

• Freddie Fairy Tales

• Hippies

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Heaven and earth are impartial;

They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.

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Dear Agent Provocateur: —LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear Mr. Agent Provocateur:

I assume you’re an agent provocateur or else you’re the dumbest, insulated-from-reality, wannabe environmentalist in Montana. I’ve subscribed to Wild Rockies Review since 1991 because past issues have been informative and hard-hitting. But the outfit apparently has been taken over by the FBI or Plum Creek.

The FBI and timber industry know that any deluded, self-aggrandizing, screw-the-world proposal to violate the law that comes out of Earth First! can and will be fully used to rally unclued folks against all environmentalists and to further their agenda of ripping the earth. Fortunately, in the past few years most Earth First!ers and other ecowarriors have caught onto industry’s reactionary tactics, have stopped playing into their hands and instead have focused energy on effective actions such as Mallard Cove. That’s why it’s clear that you must actually work for them.

At first, I thought this garbage in the recent issue about burning bulldozers and pointless name-calling of folks who live in Lincoln County was mindless vomit that emerged after a rough night of partying. I accepted at face value your comment that this was a special rant issue for printing fantasies. But I quickly remembered that the media, freddies and corporate stooges wouldn’t portray it that way and this was a set up of us folks out here who are doing the actual nitty-gritty work on the ground. This perception was confirmed when the Great Falls Tribune allowed an “anonymous” EF! editor say the threat to bum dozers is at least “half-serious.”

As you fully know, the stooges love to paint all enviros with this silly brush. As you fully know, they love this crap more than words can tell. You’ve pitched them a big, fat slow pitch to knock out of the ballpark.

If you have a chance to talk to any real ecowarriors in Missoula, remind them of the daily issues that those of us who are outnumbered in the hinterland confront on a daily basis with our full names in the media and on the line, we’re trying to make progress by changing attitudes, setting the agenda (in court, protests or in the media) and defining the issues. It does neither us nor the earth any good to have to unscramble people’s brains after another stupid blunder by Earth First! or clever infiltration by the stooges. Comfy, insulated Missoula may be a good place for printing fantasies, but those of us who are your supposed allies out here would prefer that you follow rule number one and keep it to yourself.

Sincerely,
—Disgusted in the Flathead

—Some Critters Respond

Y’know, there’s a little logical problem here. If it was indeed in the best interest of the feds and industry for “environmentalists” to call for uncompromising sabotage, you wouldn’t really think they’d just be sitting on their asses waiting for us to “play into their hands.” These people have resources! They could probably get the Review out at lea st four times a year. Why is it, if they love this kind of thing so much, that they don’t publish a lot more of it, in a lot more places? Why don’t they spread the call for industrial collapse far and wide?

Maybe they don’t really like the idea that someone might take them at least half-seriously. Maybe they’d be a little more uncomfortable if the machines Started falling apart than they are with all these gritty activists out there in the “hinterland” jumping through the approved hoops and getting their pretty mugs photographed in the newspapers.

But it’s an academic questing to us. We don’t really care that much about anything as you know, certainly not whether most Earth First!ers have learned to behave or whether people call themselves “warriors” who are afraid of fire; we just print this stuff for fun and for all the nice mail it gets us...

“Effective actions” such as Cove/Ma I lard, by the bye, have been somewhat happily peppered with incidents of monkeywrenching, despite the denials of the official campaign office in Moscow (Idaho, that is). Of course, such activities have their risks: ecotage don’t play to our advantage in the media, sometimes, and it gives the local pea-brains an excuse to beat the shit out of people, attack tourists and ride around on ATVs shooting off guns: sensible responses all.

But you know what? The Freddies hate monkeywrenching: it makes them askeerd and makes them wish they were doing something else for a living, somewhere far away; it demoralizes them and makes them look dumber than they are already; it makes them do silly things in the woods while wearing camo and bullet-proof vests or in court while wearing Western-cut jackets—at enormous expense to the public. And in all of that messing around, you know what kind of gets lost in the shuffle? Road-building and timber-harvesting. They sure didn’t do a lot this year (according to their plan; too much for the Cove/Mallard ecosystem).

And what’s even more fun, Highland Enterprises, the local road contractor, has filed a shockingly frivolous SLAPP suit against all kinds of people, organizations and slogans. Boy are they going to lose big. I can just visualize their liquid assets flowing like Mallard Creek into the pockets of gleeful lawyers. The whole ugly land-rapin’ jig is up in the Nez, and the guilty parties know it. And besides, where are our checks?

—Mad Bear & Badger

Problem Bears

—by Mad Bear

Why is it, that in this world of woe, toil, degradation, filth and shame, that our outrage is so often turned not only against the slobs behind the wheel of the Death Machine but also against the people walking the same trails as we? Why for instance, are bunny-huggers so often more annoying than slob hunters? I think it must be because when slob hunters, even (or especially) in the worst cases go out and drunkenly shoot the heads off whatever small critters wander into their headlight beams, they are at least being tme to themselves and to the blind destructive human arrogance they represent, whereas when bunny-huggers, in the worst case (you know what I mean, with their plastic clothes and packaged soy imitation hot dogs and cheese, ordering meatless sandwiches from Burger King, raising and spending huge funds to save all the unwanted cats and dogs’), after presenting themselves as moral and intelligent and selfless, turn out to be just as stupid and arrogant and destructive, they betray integrity and intelligence. We feel violated. We rage. Grrr.

Okay, so I was reading the Journal of the Rocky Mountain Front recently, taking the articles like shots of bad bourbon, getting sickened and sorrowful by each new report of proposed and accomplished ecocide, when I turned a page and came to an article that made my blood boil, my bile rise, and something in the back of my brain begin to growl. The years of reading the horrible reports of local and planetary devastation have given me enough emotional calluses that I can usually stomach those things without losing it, as I used to when I was a kid, young and green, watching those early films of the Cetacean Society. But I still have some soft spots and someone had managed to hit into one deep with their catchy headline: “Send a Bear to the White House!”

Arrrgrrghrwrlr... I can scarcely credit that anybody with half a wild mind could do this kind of thing! I can hardly believe that it even needs explaining. But someone did, out there, someone thought it up and someone else said it was a good idea, and a friend of mine (an editor of this paper!) even bought one of the disgusting little pieces of smiling plastic that they call “bears.” [Thbthphthbpth!—ed.] So I am going to try to contain myself for a couple minutes here and see if I can suggest why this revolts everything in me, in terms hopefully more useful than the amalgam of consonants which is as close as I can make this typewriter get to rage.

Imagine, if you will, that there is a women’s community somewhere, a supportive self-sufficient place, a safe space for survivors of violence: a rare place. Now imagine that the federal government plans to rent the adjoining land to the Misogynist’s Club, a bunch of stupid and psychopathic men. Now imagine that the women, in order to represent themselves, senda bunch of Barbie dolls to the White House!

Right, it wouldn’t happen. Because they wouldn’t be that dumb! Not only do most women know that they are not really represented by some horribly distorted toy, through feminist discourse they have worked out the simple connection between the danger to women and the very fact of Barbie dolls. It shouldn’t be too hard for conservationists to do the same.

“Teddy bears” are part of the goddamn problem. People grow up thinking bears are these nice cute things they can have when they want to, throw away when they’re bored, replace with new ones when they want them again. It sounds like a simplification to suggest that people actually think like that, but where else does the idea of “problem bear” come from? Problem bear!?! Mama Griz is not behaving like Teddy. Toss her out and get a new one.

Did this “buy a bear” campaign suggest that supplies were limited, that there were only a certain number of dolls to sponsor? Of course not; that would be bad politics... so the White House gets deluged with “bears”; sure, we’re thick with them out here in the Wild West, aren’t we? Sure, it’s just a gimmick, relax, see how cute they are? Please give them away responsibly when you’re tired of them.

Ahrh, do you see how terrible it is? Bears are not disposable, but they are treated that way because of these horrible little fetishes. What if we sent a real bear, a problem bear, to Clinton? What if she started snacking on him before the SS could empty their magnums? Well, it would be bad publicity for us, you know, there might be a backlash. The American Public might take umbrage to the idea that a brute animal was higher on the food chain than their Chosen One. It’s better just to sell them a front, a little softporn “bear” named after another of their elect. Let’s not give anybody the idea that bears are dangerous. Maybe they used to be once, back in the days of Cowboys and Indians; a part of out great tradition even, the dangerous bear. But not anymore. They’re nice now. We understand their needs. You can leave ’em home alone with your kids.

Peddling the cute image of bears is as base and dangerous and disgusting as selling them as ravening cradle-robbing beasts or as the source of aphrodisiacs or any other anthropomorphic bullshit. OOowwwrrllh! Bears are bears, goddamnit! bears are not little extruded shiny playthings with button eyes. It is so disrespectful, so frankly rude, to ignore this. I hope to the gods that I never hear one of these bear sponsors mouthing ritual words of “honoring” bears.

Let’shavealittleintegrity,people! Please. Let’s not embarrass ourselves as a species anymore than we need to. Sure, the bears don’t know and don’t care. But aside from the harm it does to reinforce the distortion of bear-nature in the simplified minds of America and the half wild minds of its children, it is appalling to sell out your own real knowledge of the wilds just to make a cute little point. We owe the wild wondrous world not only our dedication to its defense, we also owe it our lives, that we should live them well: with dignity and integrity and respect.

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Accursed Grizzly Zoo Opens to Public

USFWS Denies Permit to Keep Bears from Lower 48!

—BY PHIL KNIGHT, PREDATOR PROJECT

ZOO OPENS

“It Can Move 50 Yards in Three Seconds. But It Can’t Meet the Demands of the Human Race.” So read developer Lewis Robinson’s newspaper ads for the so-called “Grizzly Discovery Center” in West Yellowstone, Montana. The controversial bear zoo and tourist trap opened to the public on August 27 with three bears on display in “natural” enclosures.

What Robinson fails to realize, or to admit, is that his bear zoo is going to put yet more demands on the species it is allegedly designed to protect. By putting captive grizzlies in the midst of critical grizzly bear habitat, right on the west boundary of Yellowstone National Park, Robinson has created another potential “black hole” for bears. Captive bears and their food could draw wild bears, leading them into trouble in West Yellowstone, a town which has cleaned up former bear attractants. Of course, this may be just what Robinson desires, considering that his first choice for bears for the facility is “problem” bears from Yellowstone and Glacier!

The “Grizzly Discovery Center” is allegedly designed to educate tourists about grizzlies and black bears so that they will know how to behave in the bears’ habitat. But is seeing bears at close range, in a zoo-like setting, going to give people the right message? I think not. As Bob Ekey of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition said, “It’s a great idea, without the bears.”

Three of the bears currently serving to lure suckers to the zoo are captive-bred bears from Alaskan stock. Another is a formerly wild “problem bear” from Denali National Park, Alaska. The poor critters (two are cubs) have been declawed and neutered. Are these then even bears any longer? The captive bred ones are on longterm loan from Charlie Robbins’ bear “research” center at Washington State U. in Pullman. Robbins is the chief bear “expert” hired by Robinson for the West Yellowstone mess. What a cozy arrangement.

Robinson is also attempting to obtain a wild brown bear from Russia. The Grizzly zoo can keep bears from Alaska, Canada or Russia without federal permits, as these bears are not protected under the Endangered Species Act.

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Love the world as your own self;

THEN YOU CAN TRULY CARE FOR

ALL THINGS.

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PERMIT APPLICATION DENIED BY USFWS

In order to legally keep grizzlies from Yellowstone, Glacier, or elsewhere in the lower 48, Robinson must obtain permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), as these bears are listed as a Threatened species under the ESA. ROBINSON’S PERMIT APPLICATION HAS BEEN DENIED!! The USFWS turned him down flat as an old roadkilled cat, stating that federal laws do not make allowances for grizzlies to be sold to for-profit organizations. In addition, bears protected under the ESA may not be legally sterilized. As of June 15 1993, 97% of the public comments received by the USFWS were opposed to the zoo. This is likely one of the main reasons the permit was denied. Of course the developers plan to appeal the USFWS decision.

Robinson has gotten the required permit from the state of Montana. Montana Dept, of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MDFWP) made some lame attempts in the Decision Notice to respond to public concerns over the grizzly zoo. Here’s a sickening sample:

Concern: The development would send an inaccurate message regarding grizzly and black bears and therefore jeopardize grizzly bear recovery efforts.

MDFWP Discussion: The vast majority of the visitors to Yellowstone never see a grizzly bear. Therefore, seeing one in captivity along with an educational message coordinated with the agencies, could be a strong inducement to the visitor for following food storage and camping restrictions in occupied grizzly bear habitat.

Our reply: Perhaps. But who is going to tell these people that the Bear is the essence of wilderness? That a bear in a pen is not a bear at all? That gawking at captive grizzlies is a twisted form of voyeurism? That one should never be able to be that close to a bear and feel perfectly safe? That bears are being declared nuisances and put in zoos when it is the humans who are the nuisance? That the bear is up against the ropes, its habitat being trampled by hordes of tourists, by hideous subdivisions, by logging roads and goons on ORVs, by massive mines, by hotels, Winnebagos and golf courses?

Any agency-sanctioned message spewed by Robinson’s hacks to the public is going to be watered-down milquetoast. It will certainly not challenge the way the feds and the state are treating the bear! Especially when the grizzly zoo is hoping to get most of its bears through the state and the federal government’s declarations of “nuisance” animals. Robinson will offer lah-de-dah drivel about the need to “manage” bears for their own good, and crow about how the bears in the pens would otherwise be dead. They might as well be.

Unfortunately, black bears will also be victims of this money-making scheme. They too will be put on display like gewgaws in a trendy museum.

Upon opening of his nasty little exhibit, Robinson said “I feel like these ladies do after they’ve had a baby - I’ve been through a lot of pain and now it’s over.” What do you think, “ladies”? Does Lew baby have any idea what it’s like to give birth? And no, it’s not over. Now the real hassles begin!

A typical developer, Robinson is planning to make big bucks off his hired help. As West Yellowstone has no way to house hundreds of new employees, he is planning to build apartments for them which will rent for $565-$810 a month! What do you suppose wages will be? Minimum? These people will be virtual slaves at these prices.

What You Oughta Do

Please write Ralph Morgenweck, Region 6 Director, USFWS, Box 25486, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225, and thank him for his wise decision to deny Robinson a permit to keep grizzlies from the lower 48. Urge him to stick by his decision.

The money-man behind this hideous scheme is Jonathan Stem. He would love to hear from you. Contact him at 770 Lexington, NY NY 10021 (212) 355–4500 fax 355–4598.

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Call the public information office for the Grizzly zoo at 1-800-257-2570, 646–7672 in Montana. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to create a ruckus at the bear zoo when you are in West Yellowstone (there’s a huge bear statue right at the entrance—great for publicity stunts), and help us explore ways to create opposition to this zoo amongst the very tourists it’s intending to profit from! Contact the Predator Project at P.O. Box 6151, Bozeman, MT 59771.

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IF HEAVEN AND EARTH CANNOT MAKE

THINGS ETERNAL, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR MAN?

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Lone Vegan in the North Woods

—by Tofu Pup

“Red, White & Blue Backyard Bar-B-Que

A quiet evening, the sun just starting to set. Birds chirp, dogs bark, and one hears the distant grind of traffic. Friends gather to celebrate the passing of another day.

A faded pink lawn chair sits next to a rickety wicker stool. Someone ingenious has brought the tattered old lounge chairs down from the living room. Everything is right. The table has been set up and the object of worship is in place. The barbecue altar stands properly centered amongst the chairs; the people have gathered to watch.

Carefully someone meticulously stacks each desert-destroying mesquite charcoal briquette; someone else forcefully squirts lighter fluid; the match is struck and WHOOSH!—man has fire.

The audience shares giddy laughter and camaraderie while they wait. The chemical reek of burning, artificially processed desert trees mixes with six-week-old frying bits of green meat left on the underside of the grill. A stomach grumbles in eager anticipation.

A motivated leader in the crowd decides it’s time for the final preparations. The ice chest is opened, beer is shuffled, the bag of ice is pulled out and in the bottom there IT lies—conveniently wrapped, Styrofoam on the underside, edges tapered so as not to spill any of the blood, the plastic tightly stretched over the top to keep little fingers from mushing the ground-up flesh.

They fish the prize from the frigid, dirty water in the bottom of the cooler and place it on the table. With haste the redundant packaging is ripped away from the rapidly decaying red blob of meat. The smell of suffering, fear and death whisper around as computer-callused hands mold the putrid putty.

Plop, onto the altar.

No one is thinking of the cow: the woman in the Levi’s that are just a little tight is trying to remember if she left her curling iron on. The little guy with the acne and greasy hair contemplates something his philosophy professor said earlier in the day. A few people are thinking about what’s on TV. Most everyone’s thinking about getting laid. The man in the black pants wishes it were chicken on the grill rather than cow and the hippie at the edge of the table is trying to justify her “dinner.”

Gruesome smoke wafts around the heads of the waiting guests, clinging in oily beads to their chairs and clothes, seeping into their open pores. Mouths begin to water as another acre of rainforest is felled. Nostrils flare, deeply inhaling the seared and dying planet, as somewhere a hungry child cries itself to sleep in a dung-filled pasture.

Mmmm—yum; the burgers are done. Blood-soaked, honnone-injected, habitat-destroying hamburgers are slapped between over-processed slices of white bread. The condiment ritual begins.

Globs of fat are spread on slices of fat and draped onto patties of fat as a token green leaf is buried deep within. All is squashed together.

Finally it is time to consume. The guests raise mashed fat and flesh to nicotine-stained teeth as their twinky-addicted bellies cry out for their chemical fix. Savage teeth made soft by easy food maul the cow, mocking its short life in captivity. Ignorant mandibles open and close, chompuig on the last wolf, the last grizzly and the last old growth tree. Digestive juices, desperate for some artificial additives, liquify the pain. Stomachs unable to process something so complex gurgle and wheeze, tight turds rolling for the coming days.

The ravaging horde eats on, mowing down the desert, the forest, the future. Soon everyone is full and they sit back to stagnate around the barbecue altar. The festering odor of cooked destmction leaks from their bloated bodies as they politely talk about the weather and what’sonTV tomorrow. The sun sets; the moon appears, the altar is scrubbed and vacuous minds wander on.

See ya at the next Bar-B-Que!

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Racing and hunting madden the mind.

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ferrets

An elaborate federal scheme to sideswipe the Endangered Species Act and delist the Blackfooted Ferret, the most endangered mammal on Earth, is beginning to unravel.

Ferret recovery put the USFWS in a tough position—ferrets need prairie dogs to survive; prairie dogs are anathema to livestock ranchers; all public lands on the Great Plains are grazed by livestock, even National Parks. What’s a Fish and Wildlife Service to do?

Any reasonable plans for blackfooted ferret recovery were shouted down by ranchers and their Congressional herd dogs. By invoking the same ESA amendment the Service hopes will let ranchers in Montana and Wyoming kill gray wolves on sight around Yellowstone Park, they spun a ferret recovery plan that declares all ferrets outside captivity to be “experimental and nonessential.” Under Section 10(j) of the ESA, this designation delists an endangered species by decree. In South Dakota, Ferrets in the Badlands National Park will be downlisted to Threatened. Those outside the Park, on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and on private land will be come Forest Service “sensitive” species, a meaningless designation with no protections. The Service wrote réintroduction plans for Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota that refuse to designate critical habitat— read prairie dog colonies—and forbids ferrets from even approaching the boundaries of their designated recovery areas. With the pesky ESA out of the way, the feds wrote an EIS and management plan that refused to discuss prairie dog management and allows grazing, fanning, fur-trapping, “recreational” prairie dog shooting, and ORV use to continue with few restrictions.

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IF NOTHING IS DONE, THEN ALL WILL BE WELL.

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With heavy irony, the Service justifies downlisting ferrets because they no longer survive in the wild. The last ferrets on Earth are descendants of the 18 animals captured near Meeteetse in Wyoming after the last known wild ferret population crashed. With the last wild ferrets in captivity, the Service choose to ignore requirements of Section 10(j) requiring population be declared “nonessential” only if the designation furthers survival of the species in the wild. With no more wild Ferrets, the captive population was declared the US government’s Official Ferret Population, freeing the way for animals released at recovery areas to be labeled “experimental and non-essential.” But their argument, thin enough to begin with, only holds together if the captive population is secure.

Now it seems the captive population isn’t so secure after all. Many of the captive females bred failed to produce kits. Many that did killed and ate their babies. At the Phoenix Zoo, where 20 adults are held, all kits bom this year were destroyed by their mothers. As a result of these poorly understood problems at all the captive facilities, not enough kits survived for even the Wyoming and Montana releases, none for South Dakota.

The ferrets released at Shirley Basin in Wyoming were 18-week-old kits raised by parents that have never been out of captivity. The ability of these kits to master complex tasks such as predator evasion, prey-pursuit or surviving the harsh Northern Plains’ winters is problematic. Officials regard a 75% mortality 30 days after release a success. They expect no more than 10% to survive the first winter. The first release of 48 animals in 1991 at Shirley Basin yielded 4 adults and 5 kits the next Spring. This year, spotlight surveys conducted in July turned up only 3 adults and 2 kits out of the 94 animals released last Fall. Predators—badgers, great homed owls, golden eagles, coyotes—kill most ferrets.

Successful ferret recovery demands ferrets live free in the wild. They can’t breed successfully or learn survival skills in zoo cages. Even setting aside concerns for other threatened prairie dog obligates—Swift Fox and Burrowing Owls among them—the last hope for Black-footed Ferrets lies in freeing prairie dogs from the arbitrary constraints imposed on their colonies by land managers acting for local livestock interests, and in granting Ferrets full protection under the ESA.

As ominous all this cheap political bullshit is for Ferret and Wolf recovery, its implications for wider biodiversity is just as sinister. As the ESA moves though Congress towards re-authorization this year, it should be obvious to everyone how badly this critical legislation was weakened during past re-authorizations and how easy it has become for federal officials to ignore the biological needs of jeopardized species to favor local political hysteria. Just re-authorizing the ESA isn’t enough. If it is to offer any effective safeguards between endangered species and extinction, it must be strengthened to serve science and common sense, not politics.

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Did you see that giant red thing over there?

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How Can Things Change?

—By Sid “Humboldt” Smith

How can things change? I mean really change. Our species is out of control, and there is really not much we can do, right? Right. The masses will continue to mass, and ignorance and apathy will continue to be sold and purchased every day, every hour, every minute. Just about every natural system on this planet is on the verge of collapse, and all human made systems do is help to bring us closer to this sad end.

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The universe is sacred.

You CANNOT IMPROVE IT.

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Another doomsdayer, ranting about the end of the world, right? Right! But make no mistake, I love this life, this air, this water, this planet and all the wondrous beings which dwell on it. However, I see a future which has no happy endings. No technology can save us from ourselves, no godsend or second coming will ever come, no protest or lock-down will ever shut our society down. Something must be done—everything must be done—but all in vain, and anyone who can’t see it is living in a dark cave, denial, Washington D.C., or all of the above. Like the man says: “Many more people will have to suffer, many more will have to die, don’t ask me why...” But you can ask me why, because I have an answer: GREED.

If people were tmly educated, if people knew of caring and of sharing, and all of that groovy peace and love crap—and if people knew the truth—the truth about the U.S. Government (all government), the truth about the ecological destruction that is killing this planet as we know (knew) it—if people knew the tmth and were educated, would there be greed? Probably. Can the coming ecological Armageddon unite us as a species? How can it when very few people have any clue about the extent of our totally fucked-up situation? Why would it unify a people who would rather watch Seinfeld or MTV, and buy new clothes and worry about what the other person has that I don’t (but I’ll get one soon enough!)? Why would it unify a people who would rather watch spider monkeys in the trees and worry about getting firewood for tonight’s meal, or just getting tonight’s meal at all? One people know what is going to happen and don’t care, the other people don’t know what is going to happen, and don’t care (I’ll leave it to you to figure out who is who). Where is the unity in that? It’s in not caring. Are Homo Sapiens doomed? You bet your ass. Should we care? Maybe. Do we care? No.

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A short list of a few things that might, could, should help the Earth remain intact:

1. Mass human population reduction

2. Mass suicide (see #1)

3. Mass death (see #1)

4. Hideous epidemic diseases (see #1)

5. Spontaneous combustion of all the insurance companies, banks, military installations, government agen cies, oil companies, car manufactures, weapons manu factures, GE, DuPont, P&G, and/or large cities (see #1

6. Peace and love (only after #1-5)

7. Very, very, very, very, very serious global reeducation (also called: a reality check, or WAKE UP AND SMELL THE JAVA!)

My, What Big Teeth You Have!

—by Unleashed

Will wolves ever return to Yellowstone in strength of numbers? Reading the wolf réintroduction DEIS for Yellowstone and Central Idaho makes you wonder. Can massive relocation, diminished protection, no land-use restrictions and ESA delisting be good for wolves? These are features of the preferred alternative being pushed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in the DEIS with the promise of full recovery and delisting in Central Idaho and Yellowstone in just eight years.

But can the USFWS be trusted to recover wolves? Their “Northern” Rockies Wolf Recovery and Control Plans are still in force despite the wolf pack eradication they mandated at Marion and Dixon, MT. In the resulting public consternation FWS promised to rewrite the plans, though they did not consider Marion and Dixon failures.

If indeed new plans are coming, this Réintroduction DEIS has preceded them. It features a preferred alternative totally reliant on relocation of wolves from British Columbia and Alberta, first alpha individuals and then the entire packs.[They plan to take @ 30 packs in total—ed.] The disastrous records of relocation seem to militate against its continued use, but FWS is brash in predicting not only the survival but also the location of these future packs, another fortune they’ve consistently mistold in the past.

In case survival is good and wolves begin to have “unacceptable impacts” or even “cause livestock to move,” FWS will be there with the control-traps, guns, dart collars. The Canadian wolves will be a “nonessential, experimental population, essentially guinea pigs to be removed if they break out of their assigned spaces and experiment with forbidden food. Wolves already in the area will also receive this status and treatment. If 5–10 pairs, dispersers and their offspring can hang on until there are 129 of them, they’ll be delisted and removed from ESA protection.

Who are these Canadian wolves? Do they want to come here? What packs are they from? Are BC and Alberta bursting with extra wolves? Do the Canadians want to get rid of them? The DEIS just doesn’t say. We do know that for years some elements in both provinces have wanted to eradicate certain packs to accomodate big game hunters; perhaps sending unknown numbers of wolves to the US yearly, 2/3 of whom are expected to die or disperse, would abet their management strategies. It’s a trans-border environmental contract for the age of NAFTA.

---

That which goes against the Tao

COMES TO AN EARLY END.

---

The one alternative of note in the DEIS is “noaction.” Under it wolves would continue to slowly filter into the areas as they are doing now and what management and protection is now in force would remain; such plans should conceivably extend to Wyoming where wolves are now a varmint. [\Wyoming is pushing to manage an experimental, nonessential population with hunting.—ed.] With no action wolves are predicted to achieve “full recovery” in 30 years.

For reasons of their own FWS wants to push ahead with the eight year réintroduction plan. Many questions remain unanswered, and now we wait on this key one: will the EIS answer the many outstanding concerns?

The official comment period on the DEIS ended October 15 [and was extended to November 26—ed.], but inquiries and comments can still be directed to Ed Bangs, USFWS Project Leader, Gray Wolf EIS, PO Box 8017, Helena, MT, 59601. Your congresspeople and the secretary of the interior may know or need to know something about this project as well.

You can send in your comments, but the look of the DEIS assures that some will be preparing to appeal the near-inevitable Wolf Réintroduction Decision and EIS. Wolf activists will keep their boots on.

For details contact Wolf Action Group, POB 9286, Missoula, MT 59807

Slimy Lumber Baron Gets Critical Habitat in the North Bridgers

—by Randall Restless

The grim impacts of a huge corporate land grab more than a century ago are still echoing across the west. To facilitate the building of transcontinental railroads during the late nineteenth century, millions of acres of public land were given outright to greedy and crooked railroad corporations such as Northern Pacific. Much of the land obtained by the corporations was alternate square-mile sections in then-remote areas. The privatized sections have mostly passed out of the hands of the railroads, and many of the forested sections have been snapped up by timber corporations through various devious means. As a result, we now have national forests and BLM lands which resemble giant chessboards (often in fact because entire 640-acre sections have been clearcut logged). The nightmare of managing these lands is nearly as intricate as a chess game!

One area of public land in particular has seen untold controversy and trouble as a result of this “checkerboard” land ownership. Incredibly important as wildlife habitat and roadless wilderness, the Gallatin Roadless Area encompasses over 200,000 acres of public and private land adjacent to the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park. The Gallatin Range is truly world-class wilderness, with high wide rolling ridges of tundra, spectacular peaks of volcanic breccia, and remote little lakes in high cirques. Long roadless drainages of alternating forest and meadow feed the Gallatin and Yellowstone rivers. Great herds of elk roam the high country all summer and winter in the valleys below. This country simply howls with wildness. The southern Gallatins, part of which lie in Yellowstone Park, have perhaps the highest concentration of grizzly bears in the ecosystem. Many other amazing wildlife species are found in this range, including wolverine, mountain lion, bighorn sheep and mountain goat. One of the few rangecrest trails in Montana follows the high edge of the Gallatins for forty fabulous miles, mostly above treeline.

Much of the Gallatin Roadless Area (which has been in congressional Wilderness Study status for years) has for decades been embedded in the nightmare of checkerboard ownership. Plum Creek Timber, former owner of much of this land, logged heavily in many of the range’s major northern drainages, severely degrading wildlife habitat and shrinking the roadless area. The U.S. Forest Service has also added its share of harsh clearcuts and a massive network of roads. However, so far no road crosses the range and several drainages remain pristine, notably Porcupine, Buffalo Hom and Big Creek. These remaining wild places are chock-full of the wildlife Yellowstone is famous for. They are also, as yet, unprotected.

Controversy has raged since 1925 on how to get the remaining undegraded private sections in the Gallatins into public ownership, where the public could at least have some say in their fate and probably get wilderness designation for much of the area. The latest round is the Gallatin Range Consolidation and Protection Act. This bill has just been signed into law by President Clinton. It offers a bittersweet victory at best. For it will finally buy out the private sections in the Gallatins and in some other important places, notably the nearby Taylor Fork of the Gallatin River, also highly important grizzly habitat, part of the elk migration corridor between Yellowstone and winter range in the Madison Valley, and critical to wintering moose. However, in exchange for “their” land (obtained fraudulently by the railroads to start with), Big Sky Lumber (BSL) (who recently bought the land from Plum Creek) would obtain forested public lands of nearly equal wildlife value in Montana’s Bridger and Bangtail ranges and elsewhere, as well as about $3.4 million in cash. The real outrage is that the U.S. government refuses to just buy out the private sections without trading off other valuable public lands. For the cost of a Stealth Bomber we could probably buy out all controversial inholdings across the U.S. and be done with it. Now we are stuck with a private timber company we know little about (or perhaps too much).

BSL owner Tim Blixseth, of Oregon, is not noted

---

Some wear gorgeous clothes, Carry sharp swords,

And INDULGE THEMSELVES WITH FOOD and drink;

They have more possessions than they

CAN USE.

They are robber barons.

This is certainly not the way of Tao.

Although it works for some.

---

for his fair business dealings, having been debarred from bidding on public timber in Oregon after defaulting on at least 25 timber sales! According to the Forest Service, Blixseth and his wife had been involved in 56 separate civil lawsuits as of August 1989. A memo regarding the debarrment of Blixseth et. al. stated “...we believe that a lack of business integrity is evidenced by a letter dated July 9, 1982, involving the Onerous Timber Sale (!!), wherein the purchaser’s representative stated the ‘it appears at this time that the penalty for default will be less expensive than operating the sale.’” Nor has Blixseth recently shown much interest in being forthright with the public about his plans for the inholdings he owns. How likely is it that BSL will follow Montana Best Management Practices while logging the North Bridgers??

Fortunately, due to the efforts of tire North Bridger Alliance, some concessions were written into the swap which give the Forest Service the option of buying back at least part of the lands in the North Bridgers in a few years. Of course, then they will want to log it. We cannot trust Blixseth nor the FS to take care of these lands; they need more watchdogs like you and me!

Here are the details of the swap:

The Good News:

Gallatin Roadless Area: The Gallatin National Forest gets approximately 37,750 acres in the Gallatin Roadless Area. The Forest Service also receives a two year exclusive option to purchase 8,050 acres of pristine wildlife habitat in the Porcupine Wildlife Management Area, including South Cottonwood Canyon, Bozeman’s “vest pocket wilderness.” During this two year period, no logging or development will be allowed in the area. Gallatin Roaded Area: The Forest Service (FS) receives a three-year option to enter into an exchange agreement with Big Sky Lumber to obtain approximately 24,000 acres of remaining checkerboard land in the Gallatins, including important habitat for moose, elk, deer, and grizzlies.

Taylor Fork Area: Tire FS gets an exclusive three-year option to purchase about 11,200 acres in the Taylor Fork, between Yellowstone Park and the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. This option can be exercised once the exchange in the Gallatin Roaded Area is completed.

The Bad News:

Big Sky Lumber gets about 16,278 acres in the north Bridgers, Bangtails, near Big Sky, Montana, and in the Lolo and Flathead National Forests. Blixseth has big plans for another massive ski development near Big Sky (already a huge resort) and no doubt will subdivide the land he gets there. Of particular concern is the North Bridgers, where BSL would get 3500 acres, all in primarily roadless pristine forest south of A Flathead Pass. Blixseth could also use this land for ski development after he logs it, for it is adjacent to Bridger Bowl, a ski area which is undergoing a painful transition from local ski hill to destination resort, with all the associated obnoxious development. The area where Blixseth would get land is the largest parcel of undisturbed forest on the east slope of the Bridgers, sandwiched between heavily logged areas. It contains old-growth Douglas fir stands which provide winter range for mule deer, elk, and y year-round habitat for the great grey owl, largest owl in North America.

---

Fish are not so fearful as birds, I’ve found.**

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The Great Grey Owl

It was here in this forest, a relatively — unknown and little-visited place, that I saw a great grey owl last spring. From its perch in a big snag it stared at me in apparent boredom, its huge yellow eyes blinking as it turned away, back to whatever it was so intent on. Great greys seem to tolerate human presence, but not disturbance. The female incubates the eggs and broods the young while the male provides all the food (voles and pocket gophers). As night hunters, owls rely a lot on hearing to hunt. If the hunting is less than optimal, the male may abandon the nest, meaning the demise of the young and possibly the female. Great greys also depend on old hawk nests or other platforms in standing snags, i.e. old growth forest. They mate for life and nest in the same vicinity year after year. Logging and roadbuilding in their habitat, as would happen if Blixseth gets his way in the North Bridgers, means major disturbance of great grey owls, another of those keystone carnivores which tell us so much about the fate of the land.

Save the North Bridgers!

A coalition of ranchers (yes, ranchers) from the Sheilds Valley, below the Bridgers, has been trying to keep Blixseth from getting ahold of the sections he wants in the North Bridgers. They do not want to live in view of massive clearcuts, nor with silted streams, nor lose their cattle allotments in the mountains. So they have made a successful stink.

Unfortunately, the FS has their own nasty plans for the North B ridgers, as all the forested land there is in their “timber base”, meaning future logging and roadbuilding. Whatever the case, this little-known place deserves to get better known, and to have an expanded network of defenders. Visit it—the Shafthouse Trail from Flathead Pass road to Ferry Lake road will take you right through the old-growth owl habitat. See it from the Bridger Crest. Write your congresspeople on behalf of this place. Contact the North Bridger Alliance: Route 1, Box 230, Wilsall, MT 59806, or the Native Forest Network, P.O. Box 6151, Bozeman, MT 59771.

Action and Chaos

—by Ash Mole

“Tuesday, May 4, 1993

Arrived at the land in Cove/Mallard after a hard pack in the mid-aftemoon with —————, —————and ————— after spending a wet night at Weir Creek hot springs. We cranked up the stove and tried to get all our gear dried out. After a beer and some food, we took a late walk down to Rhett Creek. With most of the snow gone we were shocked to see how trashed our happy home was. The Comstock mine property had been viciously attacked and left for dead. When we got to the trailer we found that another group of our compatriots had made it in. wanted my scalp because the land was much further than he’d understood, but by ritually appeasing him I managed to keep my hair. We talked a good deal about our upcoming float trip, and said he’d take on the organizing. Really good news.”

This is my journal entry for the day we arrived at JLthe Ancient Forest Bus Brigade’s inholding on the Comstock Mine property near Dixie, ID, to begin preparations for setting up the Cove/Mallard campaign base camp. The protest against the sales was to continue again this year as a well-publicized civil disobedience campaign.

Were I a relentless record-keeper it would be much easier to recount the events of this past summer. I could look through my journals and perhaps see things as the fractals they were, or turned out to be. Asi look back, I think this quote sums it up pretty well:

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” —Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

The weather changed very quickly in early May, and by Memorial Day Weekend the road up to the land was clear and the skies were sunny for our Regional Rendezvous at the base camp. The purpose of the rendezvous was to bring folks together to finalize the nuts and bolts of this huge forest campaign, and with the aid of a substance or two we made tactical plans for the year’s series of battles with the Red River Ranger District of the Nez Perce National Forest. One of the few points of agreement shared by ail the activists was that the target of the campaign would be the USFS, and that we would utilize all the tactics at our disposal: civil disobedience, media campaigns, lawsuits, and a backcountry campaign to harass Forest Service personnel while they served as an armed security force to protect industry and enforce the illegal closure of the area. There was also an agreement that private individuals and their property, even if those individuals are the scum of the known universe, were off-limits to backcountry groups. And, by and large, this is what happened—although at times one does have to deal with the assholes in terms that they understand.

This article is not meant to be a rant about whether this tactic or that would have been more successful, but more the documentation of my realization that making plans in a chaotic world controlled by people whose goal is the destruction of every fucking thing can be folly. However, passion, commitment, and a dose of common sense give flexibility to any strategy, and allow it to flow with the unpredictable changes in events.

The remoteness of base camp and the immense area of the timber sales, just as we predicted, created a communication nightmare. Backcountry groups became essentially autonomous, and dealt with situations they encountered in the field as they saw fit. At base camp, the people there planned large civil disobedience and arrest actions and carried them out in the field (or on the road) along with coordinated demonstrations and support actions. Yet it was always a fine sight to see various roving bands and/or the odd lowbagger trundle into camp tired, wet, and hungry, but with a conspirator’s gleam in their eyes and bonded as only La Guerre can do. Then , of course, they would drink everything in sight.

In the end everyone pitched in for a hard four months, and some of the finest forest activists in the country passed through Cove/Mallard base camp, and shared their knowledge and experience with everyone.

---

Just do what needs to be done.

Never take advantage of power.

---

However, as I write this the destruction continues in the Cove and Mallard timber sales area, now that it’s late fall with winter well on the way—and the only time of year they can get any work done anymore out in Central Idaho. I’ve been involved in this campaign since July of 1992 and have spent a fair amount of time out in the area of the proposed timber sales. I would like to catch folks up on how far along the project (desertification, I think it’s called) has gotten. The evil cabal attempting to perpetrate this crime includes the USFS (our government), Shearer Wood Products (the owner of the “local” mill), and Highland Enterprises (owned by road contractor and real estate gangster Don Bluett). I’d like to follow this with a few thoughts on the campaign.

When the forest campaign was started in the summer of 1992 there were three projects scheduled and underway within the Cove and Mallard timber sales: the Small sale, for which the road was completed and timber was being cut, and the Grouse and Noble sales, whose roads were under construction.

When the next season’s campaign began in May of this year, there was one clearcut left to log on the Small sale. The Noble road had six miles left to go, approximately, including spur roads, before completion. The Grouse sale road was complete and ready to access harvesting. In addition to these projects already underway, road construction was to begin into three different timber sales; Jack Creek , Rhett and the Blowout Sales.

Another proposed project that we shouldn’t forget about is the Dixie bypass road. This road, a “mitigation,” is to be constructed so the folks in Dixie won’t have to put up with logging trucks roarin’ through, or rowdy drivers coming into the bar for a bracer for the ride downhill to the mill. The Dixieites have visions of yet another snowmobile road upon which to recreate; more sinister, however, is it’s potential as a trunk road poised to take the Gospel Hump Wilderness, should that fell day come. Fortunately, to this date none of these projects have been started. The Forest Service says they are on hold, without more explanation than that.

The week before Halloween this year I was walking around in the Grouse sale taking pictures of this track hoe with a clipper head attached to the stick. [A feller-buncher—ed.] This fucking thing just clamps onto a tree, clips it and sets it in a pile. Shearer Wood Products has only been able to harvest about three weeks of the time we’ve been in Cove/Mallard this year, and they have been using machine harvesters like the one above which require few operators. If you add that to the lay-offs at the Bennet mill, which I was informed by a secretary at the Red River Ranger District were due to automation, it becomes unclear how the campaign is responsible for the loss of jobs in the area. [Obviously we haven’t been working hard enough—ed.]

It is also this time of year that the summer campaigners are dealing with the weight of the American System of Justice. In that, this year is no different from last, just more oppressive. The justice system has been dealing quickly and harshly with the folks arrested on the front lines, yet at the same time, this system moves at a snail’s pace as we try to bring suit against the Forest Service for breaking Federal Law. Injunctions to halt the work were promised all year and never delivered. One of our closest mates took an ass-kicking, one man against five, with an ABC national news team on the land who, despite having been present for the entire sequence of events that day, still managed to make it look like we provoke that kind of violence. The plain fact that no one has taken retribution, which according to Idaho custom would be our right, should demonstrate plainly our commitment to non-violence. [Wrong—that right belongs only to those who unquestioningly support extractive industries; civil disobedience is terrorism—ed.]

Although we spent too much time courting the media this summer, and expended too much energy anguishing over getting jerked around by lawyers and their SLAPP suit bullshit, we still managed to take it to the Forest Service by countering their moves and, more often than not, forcing them into blundering overreactions they can’t hope to back up. Besides, puke green pickups sure must cost a lot of money to replace. At the rate the Forest Service is going, they are just not going to get the cut out. Just think of all the habitat they would have been responsible for saving, not to mention the money, if they’d only thought of that last year.

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A BRAVE AND PASSIONATE MAN WILL KILL OR BE KILLED.

A BRAVE AND CALM MAN WILL ALWAYS PRESERVE LIFE.

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Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them. Therefore followers of Tao never USE THEM.

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In dwelling, be close to the land.

• • •

In action, be aware of the time and

THE SEASON.

Don’t Overdress.

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-Advertisement-
Burning Bulldozers is not the Solution

Members of the mineral and wood fiber extraction industries and fans of internal combustion recreation were shocked to find reference in the last edition of the Wild Rockies Review to the practice of incinerating bulldozers. We abhor the thought of this most sacred symbol of our land ethic being subjected to this most uncontrolled, unpredictable, chaotic and wild force of nature. In keeping with the tenets of our elaborately and exhaustively rationalized paradigm of comfort and convenience, we are asking human inhabitants of the Inland Northwest to restrict themselves to the standard and accepted uses of fire: within the combustion chambers of snowmobiles, ATVs, road graders, and bulldozers; within handgun shells when shooting at environmentalists, friends and neighbors; and within the homes of environmentalists after having carefully bulldozed an encircling fireline to keep the flames from spreading to surrounding resources.

Book Review: Coyotes and Town Dogs

by Susan Zakin. Viking Press, $23.50. Many pages.

Bow-wow-wow.

When the Journal was published in Missoula, the office used to receive all kinds of free books from publishers who were eager to get a review in print for free publicity. Just before the Journal hit Eugene, a copy of Coyotes and Town Dogs, by Susan Zakin, arrived. Jake immediately nabbed it for his own under the pretense of writing a review for the Journal. I guess the staff believed that he would write a review, but that was presupposing that Jake would actually read the book, or could actually read the book.

Jake left it lying around one night, so I grabbed it from him, since it said on the book jacket that it was the history of Earth First!. So, the first thing I did was look in the index to see if I was mentioned. Nope. Oh well, so much for my place in history. Then I looked for Bill. Nope. Bikini. Nope. At least Jake or MB or Phil Knight. Nope. Well, how about Sidewinder and Steele and Hammer and Joe Woodelf or anybody else? Uh... nope. (Luckily, Howie gets mentioned a bunch, so the Wild Rockies gets some ink, and Marilyn gets mentioned, though I’m not sure it is in a nice way.) About then I started to wonder if the book had anything to do with Earth First! at all.

Turns out the part about Earth First! on the book jacket is just there to get people’s attention. The book is about Earth First! about the same way that FORPLAN is about integrated resource management. With FORPLAN, timber is the constraint, and all the other values are considered according to their effect on timber. In Zakin’s book, Dave Foreman is the constraint, and everybody else is measured and mentioned according to how they play off Dave or affect Dave. I guess that’s fine, but that sure is not the way they are marketing the book. But then again, that is not the way FORPLAN is marketed either.

Zakin tells a lot of penis and beer barrel stories, if that is what you prefer. I found them alternately pitiful and tedious. There are a lot of stories about those heady days of youth, when wine, women, wilderness protection, and song were there to be had at will by hirsute men of strength and bulk. Perhaps you may prefer this sort of thing as well, but, then, perhaps you may prefer this sort of book.—Timothy Bechtold

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FORPLAN serves “... to protect the Forest Service from its enemies... FORPLAN also is a formidable roadblock to gaining leverage to push the national forests in any direction other than the one they wish to go... fear exists that those on the outside will not understand the key analytical pressure points that control the solution and... even if they could figure out the key assumptions, the national forests could reconstrain the model to obtain the answer... thus FORPLAN ... represents a formidable way for the national forests to insulate themselves from the critics...”. — NORMAN JOHNSON (author of FORPLAN)

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THOSE WHO KNOW DO NOT TALK.

Those who talk do not know.

WHERE EXACTLY DOES THAT PUT ME?

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A Day

—by Clinging Deer Moss

Dilettante Activism

—by Onan the Barbarian

Wait a minute please, there is something not right about the plea bargain worked out between the self named “Noble Road Action Team” (NRAT) and the prosecution. The seven-person affinity group blockaded the Noble road for about half a day during this past summer’s Cove/Mallard campaign. Because of the nature of the action, the group was charged with the crime of “conspiracy to commit grand theft of a road”— a felony. This is classic Freddie fantasy interpretation of the law, but the Idaho court venues have, for the most part, been an exceedingly difficult place for Cove/Mallard activists to get a fair shake. Also, a felony conviction is not a pleasant addition to anyone’s record—makes it much harder to have guns. But that is no excuse for the course of action six of the seven Nrats chose: copping a plea bargain that includes restitution to Highland Enterprises (primary road contractor in C/M and plaintiff in the SLAPP suit against various activists and groups) totaling $3,300.00.

Get a fucking grip, people. When you do an action it is supposed to be to help defend the planet, save some trees, and to make a stand for one’s beliefs, not to line the pockets of the bad guys. And what about group solidarity? The one member of the affinity group with enough integrity not to sell out is now in a much more precarious legal situation. There is power in numbers, and when some people cut deals, the remaining defendants in these cases are usually treated more harshly. The group had already retained one public defender and spent $500 of legal defense money before copping the plea—a goddamn waste of precious money.

Civil disobedience is not “going out and getting arrested,” it is a commitment to fight a battle on certain terms, to wear out an adversary without violence. What the six weenies did who copped a plea is the worst kind of “action,” it’s spineless, gutless, masturbatory self-important drivel: dilettante activism. No Jake, you are not more valuable outside of jail, it’s time you finished what you start and stop putting yourself in the position of INTERNATIONALLY IMPORTANT ACTIVIST and give us all a fucking break. If you can’t do the time, don't do the action; go be important somewhere else.

There’s a widespread rumor that the Important People of the Cove/Mallard campaign have decided to model next year’s campaign after the Clayoquot actions. You know, arm-banded Peace Nazi’s telling everyone how to behave, 3-minute road blockades by people who voluntarily walk off with the cops and then pay exorbitant fines, and, oh, of course, a centralized power hierarchy running the show. *Wake the fuck UP!! We are quickly appropriating the types of campaigns and action philosophy that many of us came to Earth First! trying to escape.

---

Accept disgrace willingly.

Accept misfortune as the human

CONDITION.

In a pinch, deny everything.

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Women, Get A Bleeding Clue.

A Somewhat Bitter Article by Darryl Echt, A Somewhat Bitter Person

Wilderness defenders and mainstream meanderers alike are still missing something, it seems to me. Flippant attitudes toward pulp product and byproduct overuse abound, and it has become far beyond annoying. On any given afternoon in Moscow, Idaho, one can witness the droves of hippies, students, activists, and genuine business folks spilling out of Pizza Pipeline with a stack of paper plates holding two fifty-cent slices of pizza, a handful of paper napkins to wipe a little glob of tomato glup off a chin, and a big cardboard Pepsi cup, straw and all. Within hours, the garbage cans are bursting at the seams, the curbs are strewn with plate upon plate, the politically correct green Pizza Pipeline Pepsi cups are nestled cozily in every flower bed downtown. I think this is a sign of the times. We’re tackling the big issues; overlooking the small ones. We’re cutting ourselves slack when it comes to our personal impacts on the planet. Come on folks, this is bullshit.

Why are any of us still shopping in grocery stores, buying all packaged food products and putting them in paper (or plastic, whichever you prefer) bags to take home? Because it’s cheaper? Get a grip. If we’re going to talk cost, let’s stand by our loudly spoken principals and look at the real cost, instead of bickering over a few extra pennies or a few extra bucks.

American use-it-all-up-now society has conditioned us not to notice these things. But I have the sliver of faith in humanity (be it shrinking far too quickly) that we can uncondition ourselves and get all these excess, useless paper products out of our lives. Ah, but I digress. These are merely petty grievances along the way to establishing my big, major, mondo complaint: the use of feminine hygiene products’.! Our dominant culture told women to be ashamed of menstruation, to be discreet about dealing with it. We bought it hook, line, and sinker. We were made to believe that we have to buy and use these products in order to survive those four or five miserable and humiliating days on which we bleed! How many landfills do you think are inundated with mounds of panty liners and pads? In 1990, the U.S. burned or stockpiled 11.3 billion “sanitary” pads into landfills. Okay, so the politically correct of us moved on to tampons. Ever see those ads claiming that Tampax is environmentally friendly because they use cardboard instead of plastic? Oops, still too much waste. So, a still smaller contingency took the ultimate plunge (pardon the imagery) and started using products like O.B., with no applicator. Ooh, aren’t we progressive earth warriors. So at this point, I guess y’all are a little curious about just what it is that’s pissing me off. It’s not the plastic wrapping for each and every tampon or the cardboard boxes they come in. It goes deeper (that imagery again...).

---

The Tao of heaven is to take from

THOSE WHO HAVE TOO MUCH

AND GIVE TO THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH.

Man’s way is different.

---

The first issue is that of shame. We, as women working towards a decidedly different societal mentality, need to look at our own personal attitudes. Are we really embarrassed by our menstrual cycle? Rather, is it really such a big fucking deal?

The second issue really scares me. It seems that tampons, which women insert into the most heavily capillaried cavity of their bodies, are made up of chlorine bleached paper-stuff and bleached cottons. Well, current studies are finding alarming amounts of 2,3,7,8 Tetrachlordibenzo p-toxin, akaTCDD’s, and other big, fancy-named carcinogenic dioxins in the sludge downstream from pulp mills that use the chlorine bleaching method. What this simply means is that the process in which we turn tree pulp into usable paper products creates extremely harmful toxins. The most recent study I could get hold of definitely links TCDD exposure to ovarian cancer. This is reason to be scared. This warrants panic, women! All of this just from the bleaching method... I’ll skip the softening agents. Being that I am no rocket scientist nor chemist, I went looking for studies to show me the presence of dioxins in the finished product...what’s the level of exposure? I couldn’t find any. I did find a number of things indicating a trend toward use of alternative bleaching methods. But what about all those years of using chlorine bleached tampons? Well, I think we’re all going to die.

So what’s the solution? STOP USING FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS. Stop using tampons and pads. Start using terry cloth or flannel, they’re much more comfortable than cardboard or paper anyway. Sew them thick enough to do the job and to whatever size or shape fits you best! Wash ’em when you’re through with ’em and use ’em again! Leam to welcome your period. We’re animals, and this is an entirely natural biological process; it’s actually pretty cool. Think about all the stuff you’re not using by doing this instead. Think about all the chemicals that will lie dormant in vats because you single-handedly rendered them useless and unnecessary!! (I tend to exaggerate sometimes, not often.) Feel proud that you are no longer supporting an industry dedicated to oppressing women and mutilating the environment. Take control women, this shouldn’t be such a big fucking deal. And while you’re at it, look at every other aspect of your life and weed out the excesses! Even when working on the gigantic save-the-planet issues, never lose sight of your own personal impact...everything adds up.

What Would Hansel and Gretel do Without a Forest?

—by Brother Grimm

I was immediately suspicious the first time I saw the new Freddie billboards with their rustic wood-cut art. They seemed to suggest that the forest might have some value other than pulp content. But why would this agency of land-butchers suddenly and actively try to sell the worth of standing forests? Just who were they trying to kid, and why? Were they trying to prompt more industry pressure so they could knuckle under with an excuse? Were they seriously thinking about phasing out the timber program? Were they just doing PR? I wondered...

...and as I wondered I started to remember... an old story deep in consciousness... children lost in the woods. There was a wood-cutter—of course it was a wood-cutter—and he had two children whom he loved, and for whom he wanted only the best. But times were hard, you know, and there was barely enough to go ’round, and he had married a nasty woman, a misanthropic elitist apparently, who thought that since resources were limited the little ones should be left for the wolves, or whoever would have them. So papa took his kids out into the forest and the story goes on about how clever they are and find their way back but finally he ditches them and they get lost and are almost killed by an evil witch. Eventually they make it out of the forest and back home to dad and the evil stepmother has died and Papa buys them a sattelite dish and new ORVs and they all have a grand time of it.

---

A LOT OF TIMES, WHEN YOU TAKE THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT

THEY GET TO SOUNDING KIND OF STUPID.

---

And as I remembered this, and the horror which the story instilled of being lost out there in the wilds, and the relief when they get back and it turns out that there is enough for everyone after all, I realized that we all must have this in us, even if we don’t remember all the details of the story. What Hansel and Gretel evokes is that fear of the wildwood and that relief of escaping it. The forest is their nemesis and their prison. So where would they be without it?

Well, they’d be home with Papa the logger, secure and well-fed. Without a forest Hansel and Gretel wouldn’t have to face the consequences of having too many people for the limited resource base, they wouldn’t have to be hungry or lost or miserable. The only good thing about the forest for H & G is that Papa can cut it down; besides that, without a forest, Hansel and Gretel would be on easy street.

So I was able to set my mind at ease, and stop losing sleep wondering why Freddie was putting up these pretty billboards and conjuring up those sweet old childhood terrors. The Freddies are trained well at some things, and they certainly didn’t miss the first principle of good public relations: never ask a question unless you already know the answer.

Editor’s Note—I went by the Region 1 Freddie office here in Missoula and asked them about the billboard. Their PR flack had never heard of it. 1984 or Shocking Incompetence? You make the call.

Down and Out in the Wild Rockies

Notes from Moscow — By CarPart

Winter has arrived, incrementally, in Moscow, such an unruly mob of misfits, dingbats, crackpots and Idaho, a dark and snowy outpost situated right plain weirdos, demonstrated a clear and present danger where no one ever would have thought to situate such a place. The sun sets early now, snow falls daily, and those of us living in the city dumpster on the comer of 5^th and Polk are beginning to feel the crunch. Our old donated North Face sleeping bags struggle valiantly to maintain a bit of loft; our woolen hats, soggy with tomato paste, orange rinds and other residue and detritus from this city’s more respectable, quiet populace, cease to serve much purpose. With a confusing collection of trials, sentencings, hearings, and jail stints on the horizon, both Federal and State, criminal and civil, things have reached a distressing low. An unprecedented gloom radiates about the scraggly cadre of drunks, delinquents and winos—called activists in other publications—who tough it out here in Moscow.

Our fearful leadership, who reside at the Central Party Headquarters somewhere in California, cannot reach us due to our eviction from our office and the severance of our telephone. We assume they’ve been trying to reach us, though, because they hold a $10,000 check donated to our campaign by members of the wealthy elite who admire our chic lifestyles and bold successes. Hopefully some portion of that check will reach us soon, because the weather worsens, the old ladies at the food bank have developed a new, frowning demeanor, and the increasing prospect of frostbite looms. Fifteen of us were convicted of crimes against the government and other parties in a peculiar event that took place here over a five day period last week. I think they call it a “trial.” It was most impressive, and very official. By the end of the five days it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that all present in the courtroom were victims of poor reasoning and entirely unsubstantiated delusions of grandeur. The prosecutor, through his calculated attempt to sabotage a very cornerstone of our society—proper courtroom etiquette—by putting to trial to the orderly workings of government.

Naturally, this unruly mob, aided by its supporters in the gallery, made the necessary motions to have the man arrested at once. But the judge, clearly taxed by the events of the week, refused to do so, and for that the court paid dearly. An undisclosed amount of cash was subsequently kiped from the courthouse employees’ coffee fund in the probation office, as well as the bulk tub of coffee itself. To add to the insult, much office equipment of unclear origin has recently been seen on display at Elmer’s Stop ‘n Go Pawn and Liquor Drive Thru.

Of course, the fifteen hippie no-baggers had nowhere to stay but the lawn in front of the Senator’s office, and poor Mr. Honorable So and So had to endure a greeting each morning from a giant pile of naked, hairy, hungover hippies belching and farting in his doorway, surrounded by the odorous cloud of garlic and sheer putrefaction that commonly accompanies such folk.

That the judge tolerated such a thing for five solid days before finding them all guilty of crimes against nature, the family, the American people, and the government, showed either a shocking lack of good judgment or, still worse, a sick and twisted appreciation for comedy—I don’t know which.

All fifteen testified at their sentencing that they could not pay fines because they ate out of dumpsters, slept on the very same sidewalks which the court’s children commonly walk upon, and travel from place to place in clothes either found by the road or robbed from the dead—I couldn’t always tell. They then duly demanded to be sentenced to community service in order to help those less fortunate than themselves, and requested to pay court fees in a currency comprised of shells, beads, and fragments of antler.

---

When you are at one with loss,

The loss is experienced willingly.

But this is very difficult to drove.

---

It was a very frightful time for the court, which displayed a kind of cold desperation in its desire to be someplace else. The prosecutor, despondent, was making a strange rattling sound in his throat, and all thought the jig, in his case, was up. The probation officer, having relinquished all hopes of returning to his peaceful life upon discovery of the missing coffee money from his very own office, ran into the snow waving his arms and galloping like a child.

No one knew what would happen next. The prosecutor, who unknowingly wore an “Earth First!” window sticker on his back placed there by a defendant during recess, was accusing the defendants of being “juvenile,” and they were loudly protesting. Defendant Carrol, snoring audibly in an intoxicated reverie only he has the courage to imagine, could not be awoken to give his leniency statement. Defendant Santiago had just called the prosecutor, by now a pale heap, a “lifeless shell, a dead crust devoid of desire.” Defendant Brown, dressed in a purple cocktail dress and lovely white snowboots, loudly demanded his right to timely bathroom access and gave a graphic and physiologically accurate depiction of what events would follow the denial of that access. Defendant Powers chose this time to object to a bit of testimony given by codefendant Carrol three and a half days previously. Defendant Amon, exasperated, demanded that the court cease and desist at once its habit of splitting infinitives and pronouncing the word “similar” in such a manner that it rhymes with “titular.”

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When the great Tao is forgotten,

Kindness and morality arise.

That’s the theory, anyway.

---

Defendant Carrol awoke and began to wander about the courtroom, scratching himself obscenely and professing to look for Mother Nature. The audience had become restless, and the court was awakening to the fact that it was vastly outnumbered—possibly even outgunned—and it began to evaluate its chances. No one was safe. Liquor, evidently, was present in the courtroom, and that unpredictable frenzy that arises from the volatile mixture of chocolate-covered espresso beans and discount bourbon was seen to emerge. An unfortunate incident was bound to occur, and it became apparent that those with the biggest fortunes just might not make it through. The clerks, sensing an apocalypse, evacuated. The judge made a disoriented lunge for his chambers. The gallery rose at once. The defendants were free, every last one of them, and still almost thirty minutes left of happy hour at the local brew pub! Not a one of them incarcerated or even flogged, and they had a great big wad of cash that had burned a hole straight out of the probation office.

But it isn’t over. The Federal government, with malice aforethought toward the good, quiet citizenry of Moscow, has scheduled more trials, to be held as soon as the lives of the Federal employees have been sufficiently patched together to carry on.

So we remain here, homeless, hungry, in the extremes of privation and frantically disturbed. Moscow wants us gone. Our party leadership has flown off to California and left us no forwarding address. The supply lines are broken. We’re snowed in until spring, easy; the last VW transporter left for points south weeks ago. If anybody is out there to read this woeful communique, please send good sleeping bags, long underwear, hats, socks, mittens, and all the cash in all your pockets to Cove/Mallard LDF, POB 8968, Moscow ID 83843. See you when the sun comes back.

HELP STOP TERRORISM!! ‘FOREST WATCH 1994!’

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXTREMISTS HAVE TARGETED OUR AREA FOR TERRORISTIC ACTIVITY THIS SUMMER. THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR AREA IN THE PAST AND OTHER AREAS EXPERIENCES TODAY INDICATE THAT THESE THREATS SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

YOU CAN HELP BY KEEPING WATCH OVER FOREST SERVICE ACTIVITIES IN THE NATIONAL FORESTS THIS SUMMER. IF YOU SEE AN ACTIVITY THAT LOOKS SUSPICIOUS, OR IF YOU COME UPON AN ACT OF FOREST DESTRUCTION IN PROGRESS DO NOT ALERTTHE AUTHORITIES AS THEY ARE IN ON IT. TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS—NOTIFY ONLY THOSE WHO ARE TRAINED IN DEALING WITH LAND-RAPERS.

FIND SOME FILTHY SCRAP OF PAPER AMONG THE BEER CANS ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR VEHICLE AND USE IT TO GATHER AND RECORD IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS. REMEMBER ALWAYS TO DESTROY ANY EVIDENCE AND HELP US ALL KEEP WATCH FOR EACH OTHER.

EARTH TERRORISM IS NOT ONLY PERPETRATED BY LOGGING—THEY ARE ATTACKING WITH ALL FORMS OF FOREST ABUSE INCLUDING *ROAD BUILDING, MINING, GRAZING, POWER PRODUCTION ETC.

WE NEED NOT BE PARANOID—BUT WE NEED TO BE WATCHFUL.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL YOUR LOCAL FOREST SERVICE OFFICE AND ASK TO BE PLACED ON THEIR NEPA MAILING LIST. WRITE COMMENTS, APPEAL, SUE...OR JUST ACT.

REMEMBER: ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT THE FOREST SERVICE!

Notes for Angry Ursids

from Brother Grimm

You are appalled by the ill manners of your fellow travellers. You find yourself often more disgusted and JLenraged by their compromises than you are by the consistent malevolence of the destroyers of the world, the simple fact of evil. You think this is because you have had hope for these people, that in fact you have acknowledged them as decent animals in a way you have long since written off the developers and assassins, and when they reveal their humanity—in the worst sense of the word—it simply revolts you.

But it is also more personal than that. You have been wounded. You’re not really angry at the B adger people and their toys as much as you are at all the various people who give up the pure truth of the wilds for a cut of power. The kind of people who champion radio-collars and tourism and mitigation. There is a sense of betrayal when you see them so clearly willing to make a separate peace. You imagine that they would be content if the world would only change a little, if the system were reformed, if Burger King and McDonalds would sell vegetarian burgers, if all the builders in the country used P.C. materials, if the mills were owned by the loggers, if cows were kept on private lands...

And you know that the rest of the revolution—the dismantling of civilization and the restoration of complete wilderness—would be abandoned, and you would be left out in the cold.... Because all their talk about solidarity is about solidarity with power—yes, it is, because the capitalists are not the only ones with a kind of power—loggers are not disempowered in at all the same ways that bears and yews are—labor has a cultural power that biodiversity simply doesn’t. You know when they talk about solidarity, it is solidarity with the human masses, solidarity with what will sell to the liberals and the lefties, solidarity with what will go over in the media. They do not mean solidarity with tree-spikers, with lab-burners, with obscure little bugs and problem bears and misanthropists; they do not mean solidarity with you. No, they will sell your kind down the river to the mill in a hot tick, and you know it.

A lot of equipment got trashed at Cove/Mallard and the goddamn office organizers don’t even want to acknowledge that. Someone finally tried to really slow down the destruction in Clayoquot Sound by burning the bridge that the peaceniks shut down for two minutes every day with mass arrests, and when someone was arrested for it he was denounced and cut loose by the “campaign.” The Western Canada Wilderness Coalition, whose beautiful poster asks pardon, “thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers,” has offered a thousand bucks for the arrest and conviction of tree-spikers, and you probably will not be surprised when others do the same. This always happens; in Mexico, in Russia, in Spain, in any struggle the extremists have got to be shed before the reformers can make their peace with power.

So while you have good reason to disparage the integrity of these sort of people, who will use you for what they can and cut you adrift when it becomes expedient, you should realize that your reaction is made also of your basic fear. Because if our fellow travellers do ever get the deal cut with power—and there is really very little reason to expect that they will—you know that problem bears like you will be dumped out in the wasted wilderness, and no one will care to listen to you growl.

Letters Continued...

Dear Wild Rockies Earth First!,

While I enjoyed the party that you all threw for the Freddies at Cove/Mallard this summer, it seems that the whole base-camp idea and public protest in the roads isn’t going to do much to stop the logging and roadbuilding there. And it didn’t seem to me that all the work that went into media was worth it.

---

Keep your mouth shut,

Guard the senses,

And life is ever full.

Open your mouth,

Always be busy,

And life is beyond hope.

---

But I have an idea. The “satellite” camp setup worked well, I thought, and we have established that we are much better in the woods than the Freddies. And remember the woods stuff that hit the Freddies was never reported: the torched rock crusher and mangled vehicles, for instance.

My modest plan: we quit messing around and finally just declare war on the Red River Freddies. The Red River Ranger District is a big place. Terrain is gentle, summer weather is mild, water is plentiful, the forest is mostly open lodgepole, and a whole lot of ground can be covered quickly by someone with a compass. People on horseback are easily stymied. Roads are few. Trails are bad.

The Red River Ranger District needs to be shut down. Competent affinity groups on extended trips, adequately supplied, could easily do that. Next year the Freddies at Red River should not be able to drive anywhere on the district and expect the roads they use to be passable. And they must have justified concern that at any moment, on any road, a gang of camo’d activists may descend upon their vehicle and destroy it.

Last summer the woods were ours. Next summer we should make use of that fact, but expand our sights to the entire district. By confining ourselves to the immediate Cove/Mallard sale areas, we create a “front” that is short and easy for the Freddies to watch. Furthermore, logging can always be done in the winter, when we’re gone. But we don’t need logging to hit the Freddies, and they’re the ones we’re after anyway. Against a number of teams dispersed all across the district, teams who have no need ever to come into a “base” camp such as existed last year, against such a thing as this the Freddies will be totally helpless.

My dream: right now people around the country will assemble affinity groups. They will leam to use a compass, to dead-reckon, to walk silently in the woods. They will buy good quality camo at post hunting season sales. They will begin to plan for next summer. They will arrange bear-proof caches in discreet places in or near the RRRD. They will choose a portion of the RRRD to live in next summer and get to know it. They will put together the basic gear they need: small first aid kit, knife, good long underwear and hat, poncho, good boots, a small pack. A good camo tarp and light sleeping bag. And perhaps a pick ax. They will work in groups of one to six from Windy Summit to Granite Spring, from Sam’s Creek to Mackay Bar, from the Gospel Hump to the Salmon River Breaks. They will close the Magruder Corridor. Road 1190 will be a tom up min. They won’t need cars or telephones or media contacts, and they will have no use for meaningless arrests.

Sincerely, Seventeen and a Half Off Center

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WILD ROCKIES STRATEGY SESSION

Januraty 15–17.1993

There will be a series of meetings focusing on roadless lands in the Northern Rockies on the Martin Luther King (Equal Rights for all Species) long weekend in Moscow, ID. The event is open to all activists and groups working on forest/roadless issues and campaigns in the Wild Rockies Bioregion. The agenda will consist of a full evaluation and discussion of the Cove/Mallard campaign, other threatened areas in the Greater Salmon/ Selway Ecosystem and potential scenarios for upcoming direct action campaigns.

For more information and suggestions for the agenda, please write to the Cove/Mallard campaign office: P.O. Box 8968, Moscow, ID 83843 or call the Ecology Center in Missoula (406) 728–5733.

Famous Last Words

The following are excerpts from the closing statements made by Earth First! activists at their trial in Moscow, ID, on November 17, 1993 for violating a Federal closure order, among other crimes. They were all found guilty and sentenced to get jobs.

In 1980, when I was eight years old, Congress passed the US Code of Ethics for all government employees. It states that all government employees are botmd by law to uphold the highest moral principle over any person, party, or government agency. I grew up in a small mill town in the state of Maine called Skowhegan. Logging has gone on there longer than in the West. I live on the Kennebec river. Skowhegan means “Place to Watch.” There is a large waterfall there. Years ago salmon would pass through Skowhegan and jump the falls on their way to spawning grounds. I grew up swimming and fishing on the Kennebec. Today when you buy a fishing license it contains a warning not to eat more than eight ounces of fish from the Kennebec yearly, due to toxic levels of dioxin.

I have been exposed to dioxin. My father lost his leg in Vietnam. He was exposed to dioxin there in the form of Agent Orange. My father has a Purple Heart. He showed me his Purple Heart when I was eight years old.

—Spencer

---

---

“Erik, I don’t give a damn about the Bull Trout.”

—Peter Deane,* U.S.F.S. *July 31, 1993

---

I come from Oregon, where I’ve seen the land degraded to the point where it is now difficult to find any place where the patchwork of roads, clearcuts, and damaged river systems is not apparent. Much of this diminished land comes under the stewardship of the US Forest Service.

I can offer nothing further in my defense, other than the fact that I feel ripped off and I cringe whenever I see a baby stroller and I fear for the child. What will be left to inform her in this place? I hope she has a good sense of humor.

—Hunter

What we have witnessed throughout this trial is a disturbing denial by the various representatives of government agencies of any responsibility for knowledge or enforcement of Federal laws protecting wilderness, roadless areas, and endangered species, alongside a complete unwillingness to listen to or to address the concerns we have regarding the violation of those laws. When it does not allow us to present evidence or testimony regarding these matters, the court has continued this pattern and has proved our argument that we cannot get anyone in a position of authority to listen to our concerns or to be accountable for what is happening in Cove/ Mallard.

---

TO BE DRUNK WITH WORDS IS LESS PLEASANT

Than to be drunk with whiskey.

---

...We have heard testimony from several US Forest Service law enforcement officers who indicate that although they are responsible for enforcing the laws of the US government in the forest, they do not deem it necessary to be familiar with laws which protect those forests.

...This atmosphere of neglect and denial of authority has resulted in the irrevocable destruction of an essential part of one of the very last roadless areas left in this country that is large enough to provide viable habitat for disappearing species such as the wolf and lynx.

...I do not enjoy breaking the law. I certainly would prefer not ever to have experienced the events of August 17 th. But I was compelled to be there and to act as I did by my responsibilities as a human and citizen of the earth. The court has made it clear that it does not believe the law allows it to judge the real criminals in this case here today. I ask you then to recognize the justice of our position and the complete lack of criminality of those of us who could not, in good conscience, have done other than we did. [Heavily excerpted— ed.]

—Roxanne

A Mohawk woman had these words to say to Theodore Roosevelt:

“When you have cut down all the trees, when you have killed all the buffalo, when you have killed all the fish, only then will you find that you cannot eat money.”

I have little hope that this court will find me innocent, but I know that future generations will, and it is for future generations of animals, trees, and other plants that I fight.

—Michael

I keep hearing, over and over, law enforcement officers, lawyers, and Forest Service management say things like “It’s the law. I don’t have to agree with it, but it’s my job to uphold it.” They say they agree with me so often, yet they turn around and act against their beliefs so they can keep their jobs.

I heard words such as these at the Red River Ranger Station when I tried to confront FS workers on issues of negligence and knowing violation of environmental laws. I was ignored by those who had the authority to answer my questions, but the enforcers of criminal law were quick to uphold the laws that forced me to leave the station. It seems that when it comes to upholding laws which serve to keep the public in the dark—such as the closure order which prevents us from legally visiting the Noble timber sale area—officials are ready and willing to invoke and uphold those laws to keep their jobs. They are equally happy to ignore laws like the NFMA and ESA. I’ve seen this hypocrisy and lack of integrity so many times that it makes me wonder how any of these people can live with themselves. To me true guilt lies in going against your beliefs and values for any reason, and I have come to believe that the only thing those people value is money and the security of their jobs.

—Shell

[Ed Note: Chanin Santiago’s eloquent and impassioned denunciation of the Forest Service and prosecutor was swept away by the wind in Moscow, Idaho, claimed by the wilds for their own.]

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Aggressive Panhandling is Against the Law

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{1} Passages from the Tao Te Ching taken from the translation by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Books. NY 1989. Italics from the Tao of Erik.