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Speaker 1

00:21

This is Cascadia Live, live from Cascadia. It's a one-hour live program, brand new. Tonight's the premiere episode. As a means of explaining what Cascadia Alive is all about, We're going to go now to a song recorded 10 days ago by a Cascadian musician, Peter Wild.

Speaker 2

00:45

Grass mountain where I take my stand I got a pickaxe on my shoulder and a lockbox around my hand Lord, Lord, I've been all around this road You can arrest me, arrest me, and you can take me down to the jail. You could Try and arrest me and take me down to the jail ♪ ♪ I'm gonna keep laying my body down as long as there to the sales load ♪ ♪ I've been all around this road

Speaker 1

01:30

♪

Speaker 3

01:34

I actually haven't been all around the world but I've seen enough pictures and talked to enough people and heard enough songs from other people from other countries to know that it just seems like the world's kind of getting screwed over

Speaker 2

01:45

in an environmental sort of way.

Speaker 3

01:51

And I get really mad when people talk about Warner Creek being a small little sale and what are they doing trying to protect a small little sale, but, I don't know, There's gonna be 30, 000 people out at the further festival cheering things on and 45, 000 peace keep our promise keepers out at Autzen Stadium We've got about what 85 people here. We've managed to save a little piece of forest for 5 years What's beautiful is these people don't believe it's their force is the force of the earth And it's just because they're hanging out there that it's still intact

Speaker 2

02:25

the way it is. So you go around

Speaker 3

02:28

the world and you come back home, and then you bring it back home. I don't know, think globally, act locally. I think it's kind of bullshit, really.

Speaker 3

02:38

As Wendell Berry says, the only people that profit from thinking globally are corporations. What's happening and what's screwing over rural America is the fact that they become disassociated with the land that they live in and depend on. And I bet if the town of Oak Ridge was dependent upon that area and was living off that area, it'd be in a lot better shape than it is. I got to talk to a really great man, Fred Bain.

Speaker 3

03:04

He used to be a logger. He turned environmentalist. And he said the worst thing that ever happened to Blue River was when they started giving away large timber contracts. You see, it used to be in Blue River that they had a couple little mills, and they had some people who raised horses, and they had some people who did horse logging, and they had people who would make furniture, and they didn't use a whole lot of wood, and they put a lot of people to work.

Speaker 3

03:32

And they're all connected in their community, and they survived, and they actually did pretty good. And then the timber companies started buying these large corporate tracks from the Forest Service. They adopted clear cutting. They invented the chainsaw, and everything's gone except for Blue River.

Speaker 3

03:55

Same story all over the world. I doubt there's a country in the world today where a group of activists aren't sitting down, trying to get out of the shade, resting from what they're doing, trying to connect with each other, congratulate each other on the progress they've made, trying not to get too bummed out about the enormous things lying ahead, but feeling really good about what they're doing because they sleep really good at night. Because they're making a difference. So thank you very much.

Speaker 3

04:25

How about a round of applause for yourselves? Woo!

Speaker 2

04:29

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Speaker 2

04:33

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Speaker 2

04:35

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Speaker 2

04:38

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Speaker 2

04:41

Woo! Woo! Woo!

Speaker 1

04:42

♪ ♪

Speaker 2

04:43

Going up on Bunchgrass Mountain well, there I take my stand. ♪ ♪ Up on Bunchgrass Mountain well, there I take my stand. I got a pickaxe on my shoulder and a video camera in my hand.

Speaker 2

05:00

Lord, Lord, I've been all

Speaker 3

05:02

around this way.

Speaker 2

05:02

I've been all around this way. I've been all around this way.

Speaker 1

05:17

Welcome to Cascadia Live. This is live television and it's our first attempt at it and we're all wound up like tight springs right now. But hopefully in the next hour we're going to relax into this.

Speaker 1

05:29

Hopefully we're going to figure out how to run live television out of Eugene and we're going to bring you a little piece of Cascadia and the emerging notion of Cascadia to your homes all over Eugene right now in Lane County. I have with me a couple of very special guests from Cascadia, actually 3 special guests from Cascadia. This is Katya Juliana, Kelsey Cascadia-Rose, and Dr. Timothy Inglesby.

Speaker 1

05:52

And Tim and Katya will be doing most of the talking, and Kelsey will just be here to look pretty. We're going to talk a little bit about Warner Creek, which has in some ways been the rallying point for the whole community that's bringing you this television show. Warner Creek has been a big story in the news the last couple

Speaker 4

06:06

of days, Tim and Katya, so why don't you give us the up-to-date situation as far as the politics and is Warner Creek saved? Well, 3 weeks ago it was facing imminent assault by law enforcement agents from all over the country, poised, ready to basically invade the peace camp that's been there for now going on 340 days, facing imminent logging and all kinds of murder and mayhem, of the forest that is. And just the whole community came together and faxed and phone called all the way to Washington DC and everywhere in between and beyond.

Speaker 1

06:51

I hear it reached pretty high levels in Washington DC.

Speaker 4

06:53

Well it was a cabinet level decision that Warner Creek was too hot and too outrageous to go down just prior to the election. So it's been announced that any proposed timber sales are postponed till next year. Any current timber sales have been canceled, but nothing has been signed, sealed, or delivered on paper to date.

Speaker 4

07:15

And so signs are there that maybe Warner Creek is on the way to being saved, but cascadings are still on the alert.

Speaker 1

07:24

So the blockade is still ongoing. I think today is actually day 335. There's 1 timber sale in particular.

Speaker 1

07:29

It's owned by or it has been purchased by Thomas Creek Timber, and that's the current stumbling block. Tell us what you know about Thomas Creek Timber.

Speaker 4

07:38

Thomas Creek Lumber Company, well, I think it's outrageous that they're still doing business with the government since They were indicted on federal timber theft charges not and settled out of court. Stealing perhaps up to 30000000 dollars worth of timber they sell a lot of court for a million and a half dollar fine and they are the timber purchasers of Warner Creek so 1 of the things they want to get out of Warner Creek I believe is because their reputation is being spread all over.

Speaker 1

08:14

So Katia, Warner Creek in a sense has been at least saved for 5 years. It's been 5 years since the arson fire that burned Warner Creek, and you've been involved in it for that whole 5 years since the fire was starting to burn. And you have, from the time the ashes cooled, been taking people up to Warner Creek.

Speaker 1

08:34

Why is it so important to take people up there and what's it like when when people get up to the Warner Creek burn?

Speaker 5

08:40

Well it's a it's a wonderful conversion experience because what you see when you go with the group of people walking through the burn is beautiful stands of live green trees, trees that have burned but are still living but are somewhat brown, and then large stands of 100% mortality black trees. And It's a really amazing conversion to watch people who are really used to going into areas that are green and lush and getting outraged at the logging of those stands and see them react to the beauty and the diversity of life found in a burned forest. And what we've found is we've been taking people there for, it'll be 5 years in October since the fire burned, and we've been taking people there basically since the spring following that, and we get people come back year after year and they're just amazed at the changes that occur so naturally in naturally succeeding forest.

Speaker 5

09:41

And this is the rarest forest ecotype in the Cascades because all other burned forests of large scale burn have been salvaged.

Speaker 4

09:53

I'd like to add to that conversion experience because the forest service portrays forest fires as death zones where the trees are destroyed and forests destroyed. When people go to Warner Creek, they see it is so full of life. It's just an abundance of life, flora and fauna.

Speaker 1

10:10

Give me some examples. What's up there? I mean, some people think it's nothing but a bunch of bird sticks laying on the ground.

Speaker 1

10:16

Maybe there's some grass growing where the trees used to be. Well, wildfires

Speaker 4

10:20

produce wildflowers. And right now on the ridgetops, it's just amazing, amazing panoramas of color. All the spotted owls are there, full of elk.

Speaker 1

10:31

Burned forest, spotted owls?

Speaker 4

10:33

Of course, 1 of the mysteries of nature and mysteries of this place that no scientist understands how or why, but I prefer the owls tell us what is their suitable habitat.

Speaker 1

10:45

Right now the Warner Creek Timber Sale was originally described as a habitat recovery plan. The Forest Service is trying to tell us that by cutting part of Warner Creek, they are going to produce spotted owl habitat faster than nature would have produced it anyway?

Speaker 4

10:59

Well, there's no known human way to recover an old-growth forest, especially 1 suitable for spotted owls. Forest Service came up with the idea, well, we don't know how to regrow an old-growth forest, but we know how to fight fires, and perhaps that'll allow the next old growth forest to come back. It's really, it's kind of the same logic of the American War in Vietnam.

Speaker 4

11:25

We have to destroy it to save it. And so they want to log and extract the same trees that owls and their squirrel prey need to live. It's really crazy.

Speaker 1

11:35

Now, some people have been trying to sell the Warner Creek timber sales as habitat recovery. And other people have been trying to sell the Warner Creek timber sales as a fire prevention measure, that there's this terrible threat of Warner Creek burning again now that there's all this dead and fallen timber up there, and we need to log it before it burns again?

Speaker 4

11:59

That's the logic there, illogic, definitely not ecologic. I mean, in Cascadia, fires and firs co-evolved, and they were essential for each other. New forests are born in fire.

Speaker 4

12:14

It's, Of course, what the Forest Service wants to log is the large 3, 5, 7 foot diameter trees and they want to leave all their logging slash behind. Any firefighter knows that logging slash is the most hazardous fuel. If they really want to prevent fire, they'll go pick up sticks. They won't log the giant old girl snacks.

Speaker 4

12:35

There's the commercial

Speaker 1

12:36

There is a commercial. So a special event happening this weekend the fourth annual walk for Warner Creek is gonna take place this weekend. If somebody wanted to get involved in that walk, give them an idea what would that be like if they were going to walk this year?

Speaker 1

12:53

I believe it starts on Saturday and goes through Sunday. What would they see? What would they do? What do they have to bring?

Speaker 5

13:04

The walk starts on Friday and it goes through Sunday and on Friday we're going to be gathering at the top of Road

Speaker 1

13:10

379

Speaker 5

13:11

off of 58 we're gonna camp the night and then Saturday morning we'll get up bright and early and there'll be an 8 mile hike and it's beautiful. It's right along the ridge top there and you have incredible panoramic views of the 3 Sisters, Diamond Peak, and all the snow-capped cascades and incredible wildflowers in the meadow complexes there and it'll be ending on the Warner Creek Road and then the next day we'll start out again early and it'll be hiking to Salmon Creek Campground. And for more information about the walk you can call

Speaker 1

13:43

683-3308. Okay 683-3308. Let's remember at the end of this interview to give that number 1 more time for people that don't have a pencil and paper handy. During Cascadia Live, you should always have a paper and pencil handy to write down all the phone numbers and addresses so that you can get involved.

Speaker 1

14:01

We want as much as possible this show to be a vehicle for involvement and for activism. And I know that among the community of activists that I interact with, a lot of us began working together at the Walk for Warner Creek a year ago, where I think we've been watching some footage on the screen of the walk from a year ago. I think we had maybe upwards of 100 different people participate during that time.

Speaker 2

14:25

And it

Speaker 1

14:25

was a beautiful experience just to get together with that community of folks and connect. It seems like Warner Creek is different than a regular hike through the forest. Is it just the uniqueness of it?

Speaker 1

14:39

Sometimes people talk about magic in this place. Most people

Speaker 4

14:41

have never hiked through a burned forest, which is still a forest. But there is something very powerful and magical about this place. I mean, Katya and I have led hundreds of people, small hikes, small and large, students, elders, children.

Speaker 4

14:58

2 four-year-olds have climbed up to the top of the ridge, and every 1 of them comes away touched in some way. It's just an amazing experience.

Speaker 5

15:07

I'd like to add just an example of how people react when they go up there. It was about a year ago, I think, I took Tim Ream up to Warner Creek for the first time. And I sat by the car because I was pregnant.

Speaker 1

15:23

He tells he was in the tummy.

Speaker 5

15:24

And I waited patiently while he went to explore the burn. And he came back about half an hour later and his face was covered in soot. And he was telling these incredible stories of the animals and the plants that he had seen there and the visions he had had of the natural recovery.

Speaker 5

15:40

And I've been in a lot of really incredible forests and I've never really seen that kind of intensity of a reaction. And I see that time and again. I saw it with Tim and I've seen it with a lot of other people. And I think that's just really common.

Speaker 5

16:00

It's a very unusual place.

Speaker 1

16:01

I have to admit everything you said was true. I walked through that forest 1 day. It was sunset.

Speaker 1

16:07

The reds of the sky were picked up on the silver snags of the burned trees. The forest then all turns red like it's on fire all over again. And I couldn't help but spread that charred tree onto my face and dedicate myself to working for that place and haven't gotten very far away from it since. Nor have we.

Speaker 1

16:26

And now we got some other special event that is going to

Speaker 2

16:29

be news for people that

Speaker 1

16:30

are going to take place on Saturday. So if you want to come on the hike, it's possible, again, call 683-3308. You'll be told where to go, what to do.

Speaker 1

16:39

You bring some camping equipment. Food is going to be provided for most of the meals.

Speaker 3

16:43

So you

Speaker 1

16:43

bring a little snack food, and people will cook for you, and you can get involved in cooking for the big community. You hike the 2 days, all day hikes, but not terribly strenuous hikes. And you get a special feature on Saturday morning.

Speaker 2

16:55

Tell people, Spell, tell people about the special event.

Speaker 4

16:58

Sure. Well, Katya and I have been working on Warner Creek for 5 years and folks joke that we were married to Warner Creek and we decided well now is the right time to get married in Warner Creek. So we're going to have a lovely wedding in wild Warner Creek on top of 1 of those beautiful meadows full of flowers, looking right into Diamond Peak. And for folks that

Speaker 1

17:20

don't want to walk for the whole walk, they're welcome to come and walk the 2 miles into the burn. And join

Speaker 4

17:26

us on our commitment ceremony.

Speaker 1

17:29

Right. And it's going to be a whole community ceremony, I'm sure. And then folks that want to can continue to walk through the rest of the day. Other folks can continue around the other side of the mountain by car and get there early for the beginning of the wedding celebration.

Speaker 4

17:41

Yes, right. That's right. That's a very happy, happy event.

Speaker 4

17:45

Now,

Speaker 1

17:46

after that, the work continues at Warner Creek. You have a desire to see this place protected permanently, and what's the vehicle for doing that?

Speaker 4

17:55

The same vehicle we've been trying for the last 4 years is to make it a research natural area. This is preserve it in perpetuity for long-term scientific studies, educational hikes, etc. To see, to watch this next owl growth forest growing right now, develop into a forest.

Speaker 4

18:15

We're talking 200, 250 years.

Speaker 1

18:17

And I understand that at least students at universities are interested in a research natural area as educational opportunities. OSU and University of Oregon?

Speaker 5

18:25

That's right. The student governments of both those schools have endorsed our research natural area proposal.

Speaker 4

18:32

As have many of our region's most esteemed ecologists. And this weekend, the Ecological Society of America will be voting on a supportive resolution in favor of this research natural area proposal. Great.

Speaker 4

18:44

In less than Until Warner Creek is permanently protected for research, I believe the forest service and timber industry are going to keep coming back and coming back, wanting to get some timber out of there. So it's well known our opposition on ethical and ecological grounds why this place should be off limits to logging.

Speaker 1

19:07

So a lot of people think Warner Creek is saved. All it is is it's off limits to logging until the snow melts in 97. The timber industry can come right back again and start logging.

Speaker 1

19:15

That's why this Research Natural Area Plan is so important.

Speaker 4

19:17

But this weekend is the first weekend in 5 years that for now, this moment, Warner Creek has been safe from chainsaws. I really urge everyone to come and see this place.

Speaker 2

19:27

Great.

Speaker 1

19:28

1 more time, it's 683-3308 for more information. Now, you have an organization that we should tell people a little bit about that they can get involved in that has been an organization that you've used to help promote a better understanding of fire ecology. It's called the Cascadia Fire Ecology Education Project.

Speaker 1

19:44

You need to call it CFEEP so you don't waste a lot of time talking about the name. And tell us a little bit about C-FEEP and I think maybe we can flash on the screen some information about how to get a hold of you via mail.

Speaker 5

19:54

Yeah, C-FEEP is a non-profit group that we have. Basically our goal is to educate people about the natural role that fire plays in the ecosystem. And we've done this through taking people on hikes to Warner Creek, doing a lot of speaking in schools and universities, and doing a lot of slide shows.

Speaker 5

20:15

We made a video called Born in Fire that's an excellent primer for anybody interested in fire ecology and especially anyone interested in Warner Creek and the politics that have arisen from the arson fire there. And you can get the video or our newsletter or any other information you may want by writing to us at PO Box

Speaker 1

20:35

3563

Speaker 5

20:37

Eugene

Speaker 1

20:38

97403. Okay, the box number 1 more time.

Speaker 5

20:41

PO Box 3563 Eugene, Oregon

Speaker 1

20:45

97403. Alright, great. Well, I thank you very much for both coming in, all 3 of you coming in, you too, and best of luck to you and in your wedding plans, and I'm looking forward to taking part in that celebration. Thanks very much for coming here and talking with us as the very first inaugural guests on Cascadia Live.

Speaker 4

21:08

Thank you to all Cascadians.

Speaker 6

21:10

All right.

Speaker 1

21:12

All right, well, we have a lot of different things to talk about this evening and a lot of different guests, and I'd like to tell you a little bit right now about some of the other people that are gonna be on. We may have some folks calling in tonight from Horsebuyers, a timber sale that is being logged this week. It's an old growth sale, and we may be hearing from those folks relatively soon.

Speaker 1

21:34

There were arrests there today. We're going to have an opportunity later on for an opinion piece from Lisa Wisniewski, a regular feature that we're going to call Alive for 5. We will be showing some video of an action that took place earlier this week at a timber sale called China Left, where there is a blockade erected and a woman put herself on the line to try to protect the forest there in a tripod and was taken away to jail. We're going to talk later on today with Randy Shadow Walker about work he's been doing for months to try to organize a little festivity that includes the people of Oak Ridge, the logging community, and the activists of Warner Creek.

Speaker 1

22:13

So that's coming up. And then later on tonight we'll give you an activist calendar that'll tell you about all kinds of different events that you can get involved in with the whole Cascadia movement. And that ought to take us through till just about an hour. We found out just today at 03:00, thanks to some wonderful work by the city councilors, Barbara Keller and Kevin Hornbuckle, that we could have a phone in here and I thank them so much for for helping us to get that phone.

Speaker 1

22:39

It is our intention in following weeks to provide this phone number to you to allow you to call in and talk to some of our guests. We may, if we have time later on tonight, let you talk to 1 of our guests towards the end with your phone calls. Right now, we haven't planned, because we didn't know until just a few hours before showtime that we would have this phone, but it is our intention to involve the community as much as possible through a dialogue over this telephone, through an opportunity for you guys to come out and do pieces for Cascadia Live, to learn how to work the cameras. This is cable access, which means it's public television in the true sense of the word.

Speaker 1

23:12

There's no corporate sponsorship here of the 10 or 12 people that are in the room right here, not a single 1 of them is getting paid a dime to do any of this. These are all people who believe in what they're doing, believe in their community, and believe in this kind of dialogue and communication source. So I want to thank everybody that's here for doing that and I want to thank you in advance for the extent to which you're willing to get involved in something like Cascadia Live. I'd like to do a few news stories for you now to fill you in on a couple of things that have happened in the last couple of days that affect forests.

Speaker 1

23:39

Got some good news earlier in the week when the National Marine Fisheries Service provided an immediate endangered species listing for the Umpqua cutthroat trout. This immediate listing was a little bit of a surprise. It will actually take effect on September the 1st. The Umpqua run of the cutthroat trout has been decimated from just a few decades ago, of having thousands and thousands of fish, to having as few as a couple of dozen fish coming up the Umpqua in the last couple of years.

Speaker 1

24:12

Next week, we will have a US Forest Service biologist, Jeff Dose, who will be coming on, I believe, not as a representative of the United States Forest Service, but as an individual who will be speaking about his view of the Forest Service's work on listing these fish and what is happening with regard to timber sales that seem to be continuing despite the endangered species listing. In addition, the steelhead has been listed from, I believe, as far south as Los Angeles all the way as far north as the Olympic Peninsula with various statuses of endangered and threatened status. And that will take effect 1 year from now and may help to protect some of these beautiful species, which can also provide an economic opportunity for people for years, as opposed to the cut and run policies that are so prevalent on our national forests. Let me tell you a little bit about what happened recently at, oh, 1 other piece of news, I'm sorry, Opal Creek.

Speaker 1

25:13

There is a bill before Congress that is called something like the Opal Creek Preservation Bill. And it is sponsored by Senator Mark Hatfield. Senator Mark Hatfield has long been a terrible nemesis of native forest ecosystems in Oregon. And any time you sit down to make a deal with Mark Hatfield, you know you're going to hear big old trees falling soon after that.

Speaker 1

25:36

And it looks like that's what's happening with Opal Creek. The activists there have called for a ridge-to-ridge preservation of Opal Creek. Instead, what we're getting is a partial preservation of Opal Creek, along with all kinds of attachments to the bill that allow, for instance, a transfer of 5, 000 acres to the Coquille Indian Reservation, which residents overwhelmingly voted against and which would probably mean stepped-up logging with less environmental protection for those 5, 000 acres. I have, unfortunately, to report to you that the Senate passed that bill earlier this week unanimously.

Speaker 1

26:09

It will now move to the House where there's opportunities for improvements in the bill and there's also opportunities for a veto by the president until we can wait until perhaps a more environmental friendly Congress takes those seats in January of 1997. Horsebuyers, this is the big story today. Horsebuyers is a 2.5 million board foot sale that was declared off limits to logging because it would be violative of environmental law. It was a 318 sale brought back by Mark Hadfield for logging despite that fact.

Speaker 1

26:43

It was put aside again by a judge deemed to be illegal to log. Trees have been cored up there by a Portland State University professor at 650 years old. This timber sale is in the Salem watershed. As you may all have heard, Salem voted unanimously recently to end all logging in their watershed.

Speaker 1

27:07

Unfortunately, the National United States Forest Service is not honoring that particular vote and the people of Salem will face decreased water quality like they experienced in the flooding this year where they went a couple of weeks without being able to drink clean water. Some activists know that this timber sale is only available for cutting until September the 30th. On September 30th, the rider expires. We get our environmental laws back.

Speaker 1

27:33

And then cutting at horse buyers would be, again, illegal. So some activists went up there. And the way I understand it, last night, some work was done where a barrel filled with cement weighing 800 pounds was put in the middle of a road. A thunderbird was put in the middle of a road.

Speaker 1

27:47

A Thunderbird was put in the middle of the road. And this morning, 4 people locked themselves to those devices, arms inside of barrels, 1 person locked through the bottom of the car, another person locked by a bike chain to the steering wheel of that automobile. At about 11 o'clock this morning, the Forest Service came swiftly to remove those people, unlike has happened at Warner Creek, China Left, and Cove Mallard, where activists have dug in for periods of weeks, months, and now at Warner Creek, almost a year. The Forest Service decided in this case they couldn't let the horse buyer's free state get out of control, and they were dealt with swiftly.

Speaker 1

28:24

The activist with a kryptonite lock was cut soon from the automobile. The activist that was locked through the bottom of the car was treated rather harshly. He had his feet tied together hog-style. He had 1 arm locked into the road.

Speaker 1

28:43

He had his other arm tied to his feet. All of the food and the water that was nearby to keep that lockdown going was taken away. The blankets were taken away. Any kind of shade protection for any of the activists were taken away.

Speaker 1

28:58

It was not long before roasting in the sun that activists had to unlock. 4 activists are now being held in the Marion County Jail where the action, I guess, is ongoing and there's an action outside that jail. A quick chant for the folks who are locked up in the Marion County Jail, a little chant that we like to chant every once in a while in memory of Dragonfly. Lock down in progress.

Speaker 1

29:24

Lock down in progress. Lock down in progress. All right, that's enough of the news. We've got to move on right now to another segment that we hope is going to be a regular segment.

Speaker 1

29:38

This is something we like to call Alive for 5. We don't want to have any kind of control editorially over what activists want to say. We want to provide an open opportunity and what we're going to do right now is we're going to hear from Lisa Wisniewski for 5 minutes with whatever it is you want to say. Lisa Wisniewski, you are alive for 5.

Speaker 7

30:00

Thank you, Tim. I'm privileged to be the premier Alive for 5 person, and I apologize for having to read what I prepared, but this is live TV. So here it goes.

Speaker 7

30:16

Well, although Warner Creek is safe for now, Eugene's activists and supporters cannot afford to retire from the forest. Until public lands are no longer for corporate plunder, the Wild places we love best are imminently endangered. Precious roadless areas, industry's sweetest plums, are sacrificed by bureaucrats eager for corporate kickbacks. As long as corporate culture dominates policymaking and a quick buck is to be had by wealthy elitists, wilderness, which is the real world, will be destroyed.

Speaker 7

30:54

Citizens with love of the wild and concern for a common future in their hearts are a force to be reckoned with, as shown by the past year's battle with the salvage rider. Only that fierce love can motivate people to put their bodies on the line and risk their records, their reputation, safety, and sometimes even their lives. It comes down to people recognizing that the fate of the environment is more important than an individual's comfort, convenience, or personal future. To love a wild place, to love being immersed in it, is true freedom.

Speaker 7

31:31

And freedom is something worth fighting for. Go out and witness the beauty of ancient trees and clear, clean water. Experience the higher law of nature away from human demands. But don't forget the clear cuts and the scars on the land inevitably seen on the way there.

Speaker 7

31:49

Get involved with others who are working to protect the wild. Seek out those whose ideas and actions resonate with you and work with them. Only together do we have a movement. Together we can overcome personal valuables and affect change to create a world with a future worth living in.

Speaker 7

32:07

Warner Creek has proved Eugene to be a place where a sustained effort can happen. Through this community's support, what was made impossible in the courtroom by the salvage rider was done on the front lines. While much celebration is due, we can hardly stop fighting. Other places not far away, like horse buyers, stand to be ravaged.

Speaker 7

32:29

Warner Creek itself is only temporarily safe from the chainsaws. We must work for ending industrial extraction on public land so we don't have to fight the same battles over and over again. Thank you.

Speaker 1

32:46

Thank you, Louisa Wisniewski. So that's going to be a regular feature on Cascadia Live, and that feature is alive for 5. We hope to provide a wide variety of activists with a wide variety of viewpoints over that period of time.

Speaker 1

33:00

We are going to go now to a new segment about another action that is ongoing right now. Much like the Warner Creek activists have been buried in the road for 11 months now, just recently in southern Oregon, a number of activists have decided to take control of a road and prevent a timber sale that would be extremely destructive of some native forest ecosystem in the Siskiyou National Forest. You may have heard of the activists at China Left near Sucker Creek. It's been over a month now that they have been dug in with the great wall of China Left and their own hot and cold running shower out of Sucker Creek.

Speaker 1

33:39

And we are going to get for you online soon an activist that earlier this week took a bold action to try to stop logging. And an activist who is now going to give us a little bit of information about the China left sale and about the person who is putting her body on the line to save it. We're trying to make a phone connection right now.

Speaker 6

34:01

What up, remind the folks what show they're watching.

Speaker 1

34:03

Ah, you're... Thank you, director. You're watching Cascadia Alive on Channel 11, and this is cable access.

Speaker 1

34:12

It's public access, and we want you all to be a part of it. Do we have her on the line?

Speaker 8

34:16

We have her on the line. Let me see if the speaker phone

Speaker 9

34:18

works. Great.

Speaker 8

34:20

Hillary, are you there?

Speaker 1

34:21

Great. This is Aaron Rappaport and Hillary.

Speaker 8

34:26

Hillary, before we start to interview, I just want to give a little bit of background on the sale. China Left is in the Sucker Creek watershed near the California border and near Cave Junction. It's an area that was in fact voted to have wilderness protection by Congress in 1984, but when Senator Mark Hatfield got his hands on it in the Senate.

Speaker 8

34:47

He took it out of Wilderness Protection. It has then since been offered as a timber sale, withdrawn for environmental reasons, and re-offered. And all of us up here think it's fantastic that you put yourself on the line up in a tripod earlier this week to try to save this area. And the first thing I'd like to ask you is what about this forest moved you to take this dramatic personal action to be up in a tripod to try to block people from logging?

Speaker 10

35:18

Well, the area is just so incredible and so beautiful. The camp we have set up is right next to a creek where you can drink directly out of the water. The water is so clean that all of us have been drinking out of it for weeks.

Speaker 10

35:31

And there's trees that are 6 to 7 feet in diameter. And there's spotted owls up there, there's spotted wolverines up there. It's just a beautiful place with beautiful energy and I don't want to see it destroyed.

Speaker 8

35:45

What are the principles that guide you when you're up there on the tripod? The folks up here in Eugene right now are seeing you up on the tripod and they're seeing some loggers cutting a pile of slash away from the gate to the logging road. When you're up there and there are all those hostile folks right below you, What principles guide your actions?

Speaker 10

36:04

I just really try to keep a positive attitude the whole time that I was up there and try to remember why I was up there. It's pretty scary, especially when they're chopping down the bottom because you don't know at any minute if the tripod's going to catch on the ground or if it's just going to slip under. But I just try to keep a positive attitude and remember.

Speaker 10

36:22

And I grew up in a logging town, and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw 1 of the people that I went to high school with at the bottom of the tripod. And I try to keep them in a positive light, too, but it's really hard.

Speaker 8

36:35

Do you think that they should try to keep you in a positive light, or do you feel like the locals down there in the local press are smearing your action by calling you an eco-terrorist?

Speaker 10

36:44

You know, there's a really different vibe from all the different people that I saw down there and have talked to. Some of the vloggers I could tell were just really curious about what was going on and thought it was kind of funny and other ones I'm sure wouldn't have minded if I had fallen off the tripod and died. Some of the locals that I've talked to are really supportive of what we're doing, but they don't want to get involved because, you know, it's such a small town and it could really affect them negatively, and some of them really are angry about what we're doing.

Speaker 10

37:11

The press down there has been butchering us. Our plan was to stop logging for a day and get some attention to what we were doing. And we succeeded at that, but they made it look like we were trying to be there for 2 weeks or something and that we failed and tried to make us look like idiots. And they keep calling us eco-terrorists.

Speaker 10

37:30

We're not the eco-terrorists. We're the eco-defenders. You know, the people that are chopping down the trees are the eco-terrorists. They're trying to use language to make us look evil and scary and mean.

Speaker 10

37:41

And all of us have a very strong ethic of nonviolence.

Speaker 8

37:46

Hillary, we're seeing right now you being trussed up by the police and about to be dragged away to the police car in a cloud of dust. How did the police treat you?

Speaker 10

38:00

They, you know, they're police and they were relatively nice. 1 of the force service workers, you know, was making insinuating threats about, you know, things happen and et cetera, et cetera, and they were cutting me down. But other than just being pretty cold and they were all right, you know, I didn't get, I was only held custody for about 3 hours.

Speaker 1

38:23

How do you feel about

Speaker 8

38:24

the whole experience?

Speaker 10

38:26

It made me stronger and it gave me more conviction. It made me realize though that we as American citizens have no rights. I knew that in my head, but when I'm actually being dragged away in handcuffs, taken to jail, threatened with federal charges in prison time, It made me realize how powerless we are.

Speaker 10

38:48

It's too bad that if more people were standing up and talking about this, then maybe we wouldn't be so powerless.

Speaker 8

38:54

Hillary, I want to say thank God for folks like you who are willing to protect wilderness areas that got taken out of protection just by some political deal cut by our Senator Hatfield. For more information on getting involved in the blockade, you can call the Siskiyou Forest Defenders at

Speaker 1

39:09

541-732-3101.

Speaker 8

39:13

That's

Speaker 1

39:13

541-732-3101.

Speaker 8

39:17

Good luck to everybody down there. It sounds like you still have a lot of positive energy going, and I hope the blockade goes well, even though you're deep in the midst of territory that's generally pretty hostile towards environmental concerns.

Speaker 2

39:31

Thanks for being with us. Thank you

Speaker 8

39:32

very much.

Speaker 1