Timber Fallers on Rainbow Ridge, Protesters Again at Monument Gate
Yesterday, a sign posted by protesters stretched across Monument Gate as members of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department stood nearby. [Photos provided by Mattole Forest Defense]
Nate Madsen, who is on the steering committee of the Lost Coast League and the Secretary of EPIC, said the company is “in contradiction of the standards they have agreed to comply with” in order to maintain their sustainability certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The League and others filed a complaint with SCSglobal alleging that HRC was out of compliance last year.
SCSglobal investigated and responded last November. They noted three areas that HRC needed to address:
- updating the HCVF assessment in the Mattole
- chemical use as addressed in a Vegetation Management Plan
- demonstrating that management practices maintain or enhance plant species composition that naturally occurs on a site…
All other allegations raised by the complainants are found to not constitute non-conformities to the FSC US National Forest Management Standard.
Yesterday, a protester took a photo of employees of Humboldt Redwood Company as a logging truck awaited controversial operations on Rainbow Ridge. [Photos provided by the Mattole Forest Defense]
The company goes beyond just not cutting old growth, he said. “A lot of trees are retained for wildlife.” For instance, he said, suppose the upper part of a tree is dead “and good for woodpeckers”, fallers are instructed to leave those trees and those that have cavities the make good habitat, etc.
“We selectively havest,” he said. “We are not taking out large swaths of the forest.”
However, saying they don’t believe that HRC has satisfied the conditions that SCS laid out, early yesterday, activists began protesting again at Monument Gate shown in the photo above.
“Logging operations were halted…,” Emily Johnstone, one of the spokespeople for Earth First Humboldt told us in an interview late yesterday. “Loggers did show up and they were refused entry…A private security company, LEAR [Asset Management], showed up and were also denied entry.”
With Johnstone was Nate Madsen, who said that protesters spoke with a road crew sent by HRC and with LEAR. “Presumably they are going in to clear the access to haul logs,” Madsen said. He added that the protesters tried to talk with the crew.
“We were just trying to get information,” he explained. “They said they were just going to be clearing old roads and before we had a chance to discuss getting out of their way, they left…They chose to turn around and go back.”
Then LEAR security personnel arrived on scene, he said. LEAR Asset Management has been hired by HRC to assist with operations in the area. “At this point,” Madsen said, “the LEAR guys called the Sheriff.”
Samantha Karges from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s stated, “We were called out at 6 in the morning…What we were told is that there were protesters on scene that were refusing to allow staff through the gate…[We] got there about 7:40…There were about eight subjects there. They weren’t blocking the road…They were reportedly just videotaping.”
She added in an email later, “Though the call this morning was that protestors were blocking access, we were unable to contact the victim of this and the victim was no longer on scene to verify- so there was no further action taken at the time. When deputies arrived on scene, protestors were not observed committing any crimes and were very cordial to deputies. Protestors were warned yesterday of the laws regarding blocking access to the property and trespassing.”
No arrests were made.
Press release from Lost Coast League:
Activists on Rainbow Ridge have reported that logging by Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) commenced late Wednesday, June 5, in the last remaining unprotected intact Douglas-fir/hardwood forest in coastal California.Rainbow Ridge, located about 25 miles south of Eureka, has been the scene of resistance to old-growth logging since 1990. Lawsuits, blockades, and tree-sits have kept much of the forest standing.
The remote area is the home to numerous threatened and endangered species, including Golden Eagle, Northern Goshawk, and Northern Spotted Owl and is the headwaters for the wild Mattole River stocks of coho and Chinook salmon.Despite negotiations between HRC and Mattole citizens groups (Lost Coast League, Mattole Restoration Council, Mattole Salmon Group) and other environmental organizations on the North Coast, HRC has refused to allow the groups to achieve permanent protection for these Mattole watershed lands. They lie adjacent to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, home to the largest contiguous stands of virgin Coast redwood in the world and habitat for many endangered species.
When logging appeared imminent in 2018, the Lost Coast League (LCL) challenged HRC’s “green” sustainability certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by filing a formal complaint. FSC’s auditors (SCS Global Services) found the complaint had merit in two areas: lack of a plan to designate and protect High Conservation Value Forests, and lack of a plan to phase out the widespread use of herbicides HRC uses routinely.
LCL was assured by SCS Global’s founder, Dr. Robert Hrubes, that logging would not happen until HRC completed its plans as required by SCS Global and delivered them to LCL for evaluation. Neither document has been delivered to the LCL.
“We are shocked and disappointed that HRC would rush in to log these trees without fulfilling the promise of their FSC ‘sustainability’ audit,” said Michael Evenson, Vice President of LCL. “Violating the terms of the audit should call into question the certification of their operations. This is an irreplaceable natural treasure.”
Also brought to the public’s attention by this logging is a re-examination of programs like Home Depot’s that charge a premium price for lumber certified as sustainably sourced. “Claiming lumber from such sources to be sustainable is cheating the consumer,” said long-time Mattole activist Jane Lapiner.
Activists observing the forest operations said that HRC has again hired the paramilitary-styled security company Lear Asset Management of Ukiah, which employs tasers, dogs, drones, and night-vision goggles. This equipment is familiar to Lear personnel who are veterans of U.S. wars in the Middle East.
“Tree-sitters and forest defenders told us they pledge to stop the logging until HRC comes to its senses and negotiates the protection of these natural treasures,” Lapiner said.
“HRC is wholly owned by the Fisher family, San Francisco real estate moguls that also own the GAP. Though the Fishers claim to have serious environmental principles they have apparently given the go-ahead on this logging.”
Earlier Chapters:
- Two Protestors Arrested at Rainbow Ridge Logging Blockade
- Protesters Say They Are Locking to Gate to Stop Logging After Humboldt Redwoods Company Removed Tripod Sitter
- Man Protesting Logging Rainbow Ridge Describes Ordeal
- Demonstrators Picketed Humboldt Redwoods Company Yesterday in Hopes of Stopping Logging Planned for the Rainbow Ridge Area
- Truckers and Protesters Concerned About Plans to Log Rainbow Ridge Clashed Near Scotia Mill Yesterday
- Sheriff’s Office Warns Logging Protesters Near Rainbow Ridge This Morning
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“When deputies arrived on scene, protesters were not observed committing any crimes and were very cordial to deputies.” “No arrests were made.” Sounds like a bunch of fanatical, environmental whacko, eco-terrorists to me.
Regurgitated bird seed!
Hey frank basic i know its you!!!
That rhetoric is sooooo old.
At this point cutting down old growth is idiotic, its literally taking fresh air out of your grandkids lungs!!!!-
For real.
The trees also suck up radiation, a lot of nuclear radiation that the glaciers absorbed is being released right now as they melt.
Ye who cut the old growth, your ancestors will pay for your sins. There will come a time when the act of logging old growth will be the “terrorist” act, not vice versa.
I thought the definition of terrorizing someone means to scare them, so by calling protesters terrorists uoure saying youre terrified of a huge corporation not making a shit ton of money off the backs of our loggers&off the future of our kids at the detriment of a natural ecosystem that none of those big wigs has ever even been to??? What??
Especially when a company has agreed to terms not to cut. Anyone of us would be handcuffed & arrested if we broke a legal agreement & logged “illegally”. The fbi shot&killed one of the guys in oregon during the blm standoff. If that guy had lined all the politicians pockets instead he coulda fked up that blm land any way he wanted.
Screw corporate control of our wild areas!!!!!
Dont believe the hype from the timber companies, they hire folks to specifically help manipulate the public opinion, they are masters at it.
Dont listen to the company, go out&see for yourselves!!!
Ill never forget the old loggers who told me how they refused to cut old growth “because you can hear them scream”
May those cutting on RRidge be haunted by those screams.
~thank you, 1995.
I’ve heard those ‘screams’, i bet we all have.
Cut them all down to hell with unemployed hippies, turn the fallers loose,make some saw dust!
Is that you Steve Wills still having that same nightmare
Time for https://youtu.be/wW9w6eCQQkU
Awe.
They’re not cutting old growth, nobody does anymore. Its private property and anyone else there not to work is trespassing. Don’t these people have jobs, or somewhere productive to be? This county and most of its economy, and your well being would not exist if this industry was not here, or left. Are you living in a concrete home?
Anyone building in fire country might want to build with concrete.
Hmmmm. Wow. I remember my dad telling me the same thing when I was a kid. Worked for PL back n da day and said you could here the old trees scream. Something that old must have an ora about it…..
Actually, you can build a house entirely out of “hemp crete” I can’t wait till they start making “hemp flooring” it’s probably going to be soo pretty.. but yeah, pretty much the county took all the hippies jobs, and now they have little to do but pester loggers.. enjoy..
Ohh, and old growth does ring, has anyone read Anastasianism? And the pendants from the “ringing cedars”? Interesting.
Actually from what I understand anyway, is that actually the younger trees are superior wood, because they don’t have as many branches. Most mills these days are mostly not even equipt to process old growth anymore. There isn’t enough of it left…
“Actually from what I understand anyway, is that actually the younger trees are superior wood, because they don’t have as many branches. ”
~i’ve heard the opposite. And it stands to reason, to me. My place is 100% redwood. It’s around 60 years since it was built and has withstood the Humboldt storms of yesteryear. Wasn’t a winter i didn’t have to get out the sump pump, until this last scheduled winter rains.
2 ¢
Please tell us more about nuclear radiation emitted by melting glaciers and absorbed by trees.
The Deputy Sheriff’s should have made the earthy firsties move away from the entrance to the gate so that the crew could pass through to do their job and tell the protesting brain dead idiots it they interfere anymore, they will go to jail and tell the Security company that they have free will to defend the Companies rights. Which ever fits the issue at that time. The County is condoning the disobedience of the brain dead idiots who should be hauled off in a jail van, maybe to San Francisco Bay.
I totally agree with your comment. They are totally worthless jackass. Kind of like flies during hunting season.
? Agreed. At least some folks still have their wits and common sense intact around here still. The others would be thoroughly pleased if they actually knew and researched the industry standards/practices. This is the largest taxable income this county has. ( yes, more than cannabis).
Totally agree with you
We stand on the moral High Ground prayer feathers in our hand’s burning sage and Cedar
Bringing blessings and Respect for one
And all things
We love you so much we will do the impossible
Global healing the next Journey
Starts Now
The dead bones of yesterday
The end of corporate greed
No more war machine
Only Love Remains
We can only WISH all these things would happen!!!!
(edit) complain about something important like the pot growers draining the watersheds…just saying…
Joe Dirt,
~music to my ears.
I like living in a house. With a roof. Made of wood.
I like living in a community where at least some of the people have jobs and pay taxes and help sustain services. Like loggers do.
While these protesters appear pretty tame, they still are hypocrites. Did they drive to HRC’s gate? Do they live in a house? Do they use electricity to power the lights so they can see to braid their dreadlocks? Do they fart?
If the answer isn’t “no” , then whatever they have to say smacks of bullshit.
Ironically they still wipe there ass with trees, which in turn means they are sh!ting on the very beliefs they are trying to uphold! Maybe they should protest STOP BREEDING HUMANS instead
… but although this is good i dont think we are making this product up here anymore
Make toilet paper out of hemp.. duh.. no brainer.. Quite wiping your bitter toush with old growth! Or better yet. Get a Bidet..
Some people are more willing than others to sacrifice for the sake of the environment. Failing to sacrifice 100% in every aspect does not make them hypocrites.
Toiler paper is a problem that we need to address. If the pressure is put on to find alternatives, we will find them. Our family uses toilet paper made from bamboo. Its better than most, almost as good a the best charmin.
They arent saying don’t drive cars, live in houses, or use electricity.
They are saying drive less if you can, drive more environmentally friendly vehicles if you can, living sustainably built houses if you can, and use less electricity and acquire it from alternative sources when you can. And let’s make big changes that will allow far more of us to love sustainably.
By protesting for change, the “when you cans” become a lot more frequent.
Rainbow Ridge is getting logged, Monument and Bear River Ridge are going to have giant windmills placed on them. Giant fish farm on the Samoa Peninsula, possible offshore windfarm going in off the coast. Most of our water from the Eel is already diverted to the Russian River and to SoCal. None of any of these resources being mined from our area benefit us at all. Our entire county has less people living in it than Santa Rosa and provides enough resources for a giant part of the state. It sucks being the resource gold mine for an entire state yet receiving no benefit from being the producer of all these resources.
“Most of our water from the Eel is already diverted to the Russian River and to SoCal.”
That’s not even remotely close to the truth
Average flow of the Eel river is 6.9 million acre feet. Average diversion of the Potter Valley Project is 159,000 acre feet. That works out to a whopping 2.3% of total flow. And none of it goes to SoCal
Good comment Mr Bear. Facts are important!
Of course its not really the amount of water diverted that causes most of the issues. Which region of the watershed it is diverted from, and when are very important.
In the critical period from early summer to the start of winter rains, the diversion takes 75 to 90 percent of the flows released from Lake Pillsbury.
Putting up billboards that show a job application should do the trick….
A job application to a neo hippie is like throwing holy water on a vampire.
Just putting those near the entrance should keep the dirty hippies away.
Real loggers aren’t Trolls
AH, stop complaining, you can grow sequoias down in the valley where the slopes are flatter.
I logged on Rainbow ridge for Sanford Lowrey He was a member of Friends of Matol
We were recognized for our timber harvesting practice
It can be done right
Yes but being ethical cuts into profits.
Talk is cheap. You want to have a say about what goes on on private property buy it and do what you want, otherwise, STFU.
STFU
I wonder how you’d feel if you did just that on your own private land and the neighbors placed a bounty on your head. I still try to earn my keep by working for it but, they don’t allow good honest work anymore. Growing wood or cannabis is for everyone’s benefit, why have such goofy laws?
Job application billboards get bounties placed?
Are dope smokers so violent that murder takes precedence to gainful employment?
These dopers are filthy, but I never imagined that extreme.
I’ll sleep better when all the dope is sold by corporations, and these weirdo cult types are in jail doing the Manson thing.
They are definitely not part of any community I’ve grown up in, sounds like LA types or Bernie Sanders jihadis that don’t recognize Israel.
This website shows the damage marijuana does….
Scary.
If your mental problems are result of marijuana use than yes it is absolutely terrifying!
“growing wood”
What a dipshit thing to say. We aren’t taking about a tree farm here. How much of the lumber produced here is used in local construction?
How much of the power of the wind turbines would be used here? And how much of the profit of the capitalist company proposkng it would be spent here?
Many laws to limit what a person can do on private property. You can’t murder someone if you feel like it just because they’re on your property, for example.
People only live around a hundred years at most. The actions they take on private property can have effects for thousands of years.
Even the haters well soon see everything is connected and it is more important to take care of the environment we live in then sht on each other on the other hand people might want to separate everybody into categories The Haves and Have Nots the black and the white the Browns the loggers and the hippies everyone here is watching and listening and the environment as having a hard time
Same exact place where Humboldt Redwood Company is conspiring with TerraGenz to destroy Monument and Bear River Ridge with the proposed wind project. Critically endangered wildlife have no idea what’s coming, between the insatiable appetite for logging old trees, and the gauntlet of blenders, they won’t have a chance. Sure makes logging easier if you simultaneously slaughter the wildlife needing protections. Corporations rejoice! Wildlife and locals lose again.
Your only original if your from so cal,there has been logging here for well over 150 years. Go home.
Native Americans have been on the continent or at over 14,000 years so you might want to take your 150 years a go find someplace else to ruin if you ask nice to original gangsters might let you know how to take care of the garden and I’m sure they’ll let you know that it is not by cutting the last of the old growth
any real proof?
Native americans in humboldt have been here less than two thousand years and they used old growth for houses and canoes. The question is a matter of degree. Personally, i dont trust humboldt redwood company. But they have an approved plan. Call your liberal congressmen. They claim to be protectors of the forest and the enviroment. Or take them to court.
Did they kill off 97% of the redwoods while they were at it? You claim it’s a matter of degree yes him to completely ignore your own statement. 97% of the old-growth is already dead.
Capability is not a measure of culpability.
Any real proof of what? If you’re a flat earther / young earth conspiracy theorist, “real proof” only refers to that which makes intuitive sense, to you. It has absolutely nothing to do with reason, logic, the scientific method, or empirical evidence.
empirical evidence? link. i only asked for proof and your response had none, just bold claims of evidence, none to be found. that is probably because you dont want to be shown how your ‘evidence’ is factually inaccurate
And now those same Native Americans are enjoying modern things like electrical power, indoor plumbing, transportation, communications, and health care. And there’s a steady stream of white suckers ready to throw away money in their casinos. The pre-Columbian ways are gone because nobody wants them back.
You’re right no one does want them back. But lots of people want particular aspects from those times to come back into vogue.
It’s a marriage of technology an ecological consciousness that people are seeking here. [edit]
Might want to get educated. Displaying your lack of knowledge makes anything else you say BS. Monument Ridge (which is nothing more than a continuation of Bear River Ridge) and Bear River Ridge are on the north side of Bear River. Rainbow Ridge is on the south side of Bear River and not remotely close to where this logging is taking place. This logging watershed goes into the Upper North Fork of Mattole River. If you and your colleagues check the map, you can see old logging roads there. Likewise there are old logging roads on the Long Ridge plan. IT IS NOT AN ANCIENT FOREST. Both these areas have been logged before.
Show us a map. Please include ancient stands, mature stands
And where this thp is.
It would make things so much more relatable.
Joe Dirt and Humboldt Original,
“It becomes increasingly obvious to all countries that the uneven distribution and consumption of resources . . . is morally, ethically, and practically unacceptable.” –Moshe Safdie
“In the matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.” Gandhi
“The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.” James Russell Lowell (1819 – 1891)
To true thanks sometimes I forget where I come from and where I’m going and it’s only a vicious circle into Infinity but the less pain I leave the better we all become in the long run the Topology of a Twisted Taurus Numberphile
just a quote from the current women’s movement will do double-duty with this issue: “I can’t believe I’m still holding this same f*****g sign!” I’m having a flashback to, uh, 1990, at least. I sure wish I was still 46 years old, looking forward to a couple of decades of relatively encouraging developments, politically and environmentally.
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river been poisoned
and the last fish been caught
will we realise we cannot eat money
~Cree Indian Proverb
Lao-Tzu was a great philosopher and poet in ancient China. He is credited with many profound quotes and this one might be his best. The Great Lao-Tzu said:
“It is only when you see a mosquito landing on your testicles that
you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using
violence.”
umm how about ‘life will find a way’? so even though i may agree with you, this argument is void of anything
~sure. Okay.
Yeah so the difference there is that your quote does not fit this context, where as the person you’re replying to made relevant quotes.
Yes life will find a way to keep going on this planet, even if we drive ourselves and most of the other life-forms to extinction.
Kym may we please have a different font color, maybe blue or something besides grey, because i have a hard time reading the grey letters, or what is your reasoning
This is the same font I always use. No one else has complained. Could you take a screen shot to show what you are seeing?
sorry Kym not font the color of the type or font. i guess i dont know what to call it. but the grey letters are hard to read . example the grey letters on the bottom half
Tax Payer, I went back a month and this is no different than the press releases I always do. No one else has ever complained.
Now, I’m worried though and trying to see if there is something that can be done. Cross your fingers Google can help.