from Trinidad Tree Sitters (Facebook)
Green Diamond Resource Company is actively logging in Strawberry Rock area; protestors meet loggers, delay clear cutting operations.
Work has begun on Timber Harvest Plan 01-13-073, less than a mile from the popular hiking destination known as Strawberry Rock, in Northern Humboldt County. Concerned by Green Diamond Resource Company’s unsustainable forest management practices, members of Redwood Forest Defense hiked into the clear cut zone of this harvest plan just as the trees were beginning to fall. Aware that active logging operations are incredibly dangerous, the Sawyer’s ceased their activities in the area.
During the stoppage, protesters engaged in dialog with the sawyers who revealed the fact that Green Diamond hires private contractors to do their dirty work, with worker incentives based on quantities instead of the health and sustainability of the forest. “I have been doing this for thirty years, this is how I support my family, and I see that the trees that they are having us cut are smaller and smaller every year,” said one of the sawyers. The remark alluded to a larger history of unethical practices used by the company for short term profits for executives, wiping out entire habitats, devastating local watersheds, and leaving one lone snag as a consolation prize for wildlife in the middle of a clear cut.
This is part of Seattle based Green Diamond Resource Company’s larger plan to clear cut the vast majority of their 425,000 acres of California forest as part of a 45 year liquidation plan. The health of the forests are vital to sustaining the longevity of both the economy and biosphere here in Northern California.
Redwood Forest Defense, a grassroots community organization, is fighting to change Green Diamond’s sort sighted, unsustainable management practices.
