‘Continue Hiking the Trail to Strawberry Rock as One Way to Oppose Logging,’ Says Letter to the Editor
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Dear Community,
On Wednesday morning, Green Diamond Resource Company began road work north of Tsurai (Trinidad) in a second-growth redwood rainforest that has been protected from harvest since 2012 by non-violent forest defenders and treesitters. After work began, Green Diamond published a press release requesting the public to avoid the popular hiking trail that leads to Strawberry Rock.
“We woke up to the sound of machinery just up the hill,” reported a treesitter on Wednesday. “Our ground support activists approached the machine operators and warned them that forest defenders were in the area and they should cease work for everyone’s safety. Green Diamond security arrived and said it didn’t matter because we were trespassing.”
Forest defenders are calling on locals to defy Green Diamond’s request that the public avoid the trail to Strawberry Rock, which passes through the area slated to be cut. “We ask that folks continue hiking the trail to Strawberry Rock as one way to oppose logging in this forest. The company cannot safely cut trees when hikers are nearby. This is the time to defend the forests that we and many other creatures call home. This forest is not for Green Diamond to log.”
In 2019, CalFire approved Green Diamond’s plan to clearcut roughly 100 acres directly surrounding Strawberry Rock, ignoring numerous public comments in opposition that called attention to stands of regionally endemic pricklecone pine (pinus muricata) that Green Diamond intends to convert into redwood plantations, based on data from the company’s Timber Harvest Plan (THP). Public comments also discussed the cultural value of Strawberry Rock itself. “If the company manages to go through with this THP, by the end of September the view from Strawberry Rock will be one of barren clearcuts on three sides,” a forest defender noted.
Thanks to an outpouring of community concern and several years of treesits and road blockades, the Company finally agreed to sell a portion of land surrounding the popular trail to the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust. But Green Diamond refuses to consider selling additional land. Treesitters have called for the cancellation of this Timber Harvest Plan and say that their actions also have broader implications, “Our resistance here is for this particular forest, but it’s also for the vast temperate rainforest across the Pacific Northwest that is being decimated by industrial logging at the hands of massive companies. We stand in solidarity with climate justice and forest struggles worldwide that are defending life itself from corporate dominance.”
Redwood Forest Defense
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Willie ask if she want to do it in the middle of the road
Just drop the trees and if someone gets squashed…. so be it. I compare these tree sitters to the people who walk around coughing on people with no mask on purpose. Fugg em
Green Diamond could have a pool to see how high the tree sitter bounces when the tree that they are illegally sitting in is dropped. Great fun for the loggers.
That would be a more appt comparison to the tree cutters.
This is the right approach. They admit above that this is “second growth redwood forest,” aka perfectly good wood prime for cutting. I guess they don’t like living in houses or going into buildings, all of which are built with wood? These spoiled brats need to stop giving real forest protection a bad name with their inane protests. Protect thousand year-old old growth redwood, not a stand of trees that has been growing for less than 150 years.
“Forest defenders are calling on locals to defy Green Diamond’s request that the public avoid the trail to Strawberry Rock, which passes through the area slated to be cut. “We ask that folks continue hiking the trail to Strawberry Rock as one way to oppose logging in this forest. The company cannot safely cut trees when hikers are nearby.” ….
you go right ahead. I have future plans, I’m not putting my life in danger.
I’d be curious to know if you are a mask wearer?
Who owns the trail to Strawberry Rock?
I would expect such stupid comments. But honestly this is timberland and it’s owned by green diamond so what’s the problem? They are gracious enough to let the public walk through their land to the rock, and that would not be the case if it was owned by small individual McMansion owners. We all need wood and buy wood and this is prime timberland like no where else in the country, let them keep doing their business and mind your own.
Exactly.
Agreed.
Indeed
I still support protesters of any kind (give em hell)
Would you even have a view from strawberry rock if there were old growth trees though?
Redwood Forest Defense- a coalition of -ucking idiots with nothing to do but screw over businesses that have the right to harvest trees or whatever. GO BACK TO YOUR ARMPITS IN SEATTLE AND PORTLAND AND SHUT THE -UCK UP!!!!!!!!!
no
Attention cutters and loggers there is a bunch of uncommon sense walking up the trail I stand with the timber industry Pro logging America’s resource 🇺🇸💪🏼
Typical enviro-idiots! They think they own every tree in the country and can go anywhere they want. Sorry, there are people in this country that have worked hard to be able to own property and homes and TREES. Why don’t you losers try getting a job for once and then you can buy stuff and save it or do whatever you want with it. Until then mind your own business and play hackey sack or just sit around smelling like the trash that you are. LOG IT OR LOSE IT!!