Activists Put Safety First After Blast : Environment: Anti-logging protesters are taking extra precautions since two of their leaders were injured by a bomb.
WHITETHORN, Calif. — With their leaders recovering from an Oakland car bombing, environmentalists gathering in California’s redwoods for a summer of anti-logging protests are adding lessons in caution to their curriculum of nonviolence training.
Those who never used to lock their cars now do so regularly, knowing that an anonymous letter-writer claimed to have hidden a bomb in Earth First! member Judi Bari’s unlocked Subaru before it blew up two weeks ago. Bari and a colleague, Darryl Cherney, were seriously injured.
Some of the preservationists also have taken to inspecting their vehicles before using them. And the Action Center, a Garberville home for a variety of activists, now is staffed around the clock to discourage potential intruders.
“There is incredible tension up here,†said Betty Ball of the Mendocino Environmental Center in Ukiah.
Despite the fear--and the blustery declaration by one loggers’ union leader of a “state of war†in the woods--undaunted environmentalists still plan to pursue their effort to tie up the logging of old-growth redwoods.
Some local loggers, eager to reduce the potential for violence, have worked with the environmentalists to draw up a set of rules to ensure that nonviolent demonstrations stay that way.
No one believes the bombing will scale back plans for Redwood Summer.
“The result has been more an intensifying of people’s determination to go ahead,†said Jama Chaplin of the Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville.
The activists believe that the ancient trees, part of a complex ecosystem many hundreds of years old, must be preserved to prevent the eventual collapse of the forest itself. Loggers, on the other hand, see the trees as a valuable, renewable resource and the source of their jobs.
“No doubt about it, (activists) are scared,†said Dave Ramsland, an Earth First! member from Chicago who early last month opened up the demonstrators’ first outpost in the woods, a small house across the street from the general store in the small backwoods hamlet of Whitethorn.
“But the feeling is, if we lose our focus on saving the trees and get all paranoid, then the people who placed the bomb will have succeeded,†he added. “We just have to keep focused on our goal, stay cautious and move ahead.â€
Still, concern about heightened tensions in one of the most scenic parts of the country has affected virtually every environmentalist in this politically active part of the state.
“Something like this makes us all feel very vulnerable,†said Rachel Binah, a Little River innkeeper, offshore oil drilling opponent and chairwoman of the California Democratic Party environmental caucus. “If they can blow up people who care about the forest, what’s to stop them from blowing up those of us who care about the coast?â€
The possibility of violence, present in many of the often confrontational acts used in the past by Earth First!, became real May 24 when an explosion tore through Bari’s car as she and Cherney drove to Santa Cruz to recruit more students for their “Redwood Summer†protests.
Hours after the blast, Oakland police arrested Bari, 40, of Redwood Valley, and Cherney, 33, of Piercy, and accused them of illegally transporting a pipe bomb when it accidentally detonated in her car. Environmentalists criticized the arrests as an attempt to discredit Earth First!, noting that both Bari and Cherney had received numerous death threats in the months before the blast.
Prosecutors eventually delayed a decision on whether to formally charge the pair until the FBI can finish comparing bomb fragments with material seized in Bari’s and Cherney’s homes.
Meanwhile, an anonymous letter writer claimed responsibility for the blast, saying it was meant to punish Bari, a mother of two, for supporting abortion rights as well as environmentalism. Authorities still are trying to determine whether the letter is legitimate or a hoax.
The explosion, which broke Bari’s pelvis and damaged Cherney’s left cornea, came eight days before the formal start of Redwood Summer on Friday. Patterned after the “Mississippi Summer†civil rights campaign of the 1960s, Redwood Summer is scheduled to consist of a series of actions, from guerrilla theater to picketing and civil disobedience, opposing the logging of the few remaining stands of virgin redwoods.
“We’re not trying to shut down the logging industry,†said Ramsland. “We just want (state regulators) to make (loggers) more responsible so we’ll still have trees 20 and 50 years from now.â€
Organizers say nonviolent training is central to the operation, and to that end Earth First! has recruited as co-sponsor a Berkeley group called Seeds of Peace, which has organized nonviolent peace and anti-nuclear marches.
“We’re training people that while they may have participated in some other nonviolent action-- No Nukes or whatever--this situation is different,†said Lauri Routh, a Seeds of Peace worker originally from Iowa. “Most of the land up here is privately owned and we really need to respect property rights.â€
Concerns that the Oakland bombing may have dissuaded some participants from coming up to Mendocino and Humboldt counties this summer have eased, Routh and Ramsland said. In fact, the opposite may be the case.
“Before the bombing, people were expecting maybe 1,000 (demonstrators),†Ramsland said. “Now, they’re thinking a lot more . . . maybe two to five times as many.â€
Humboldt County Sheriff’s Officer Leona Mendenhall said authorities are making no public prediction of the number of demonstrators they expect. “With something like this, you never know what to expect until it happens,†she said.
Fewer than 100 activists have arrived in Northern California so far. Of these, 49 have been trained as “preparers,†or teachers of nonviolent principles, said Tom O’Neil, who indoctrinates volunteers on nonviolence.
“One of our main points is teaching how to deal with a violent situation--how to defuse it,†O’Neil said. A key to the training is learning how to talk one’s way out of a confrontation.
He said the preparers will train volunteers as they arrive at three Redwood Summer camps to be set up near Ukiah, Garberville and Arcata. O’Neil said volunteers who wish not to risk arrest by engaging in civil disobedience will be assigned to some lawful activity.
If anything, Ramsland said, the Oakland bombing paradoxically could reduce the potential for violent confrontation this summer.
“I think the bombing really scared everyone,†said Ramsland. “Most of the loggers are just regular people like us who don’t want to hurt anyone. I think everyone doesn’t want that sort of thing to happen again. Nobody wants this to turn into a violent summer.â€
A small group of loggers is actively working to prevent problems. Led by Branscomb mill owner Art Harwood, the group has signed a pact with protesters setting ground rules for Redwood Summer demonstrations.
“We all have kids on each other’s Little League teams and in each other’s classrooms--it got me to thinking that maybe we should sit down and talk out our differences,†Harwood explained. “We didn’t agree on everything, but we did agree on more than we thought we would.â€
Fundamental to the pact, signed last week, is a pledge by environmentalists to warn property owners in advance of each demonstration and a renunciation of violence by both sides. Sabotage and property destruction also are forbidden.
“We in no way represent a majority in the industry--we in fact represent a real minority,†Harwood said. “And the environmentalists we talked to also are in the minority--only those involved in Redwood Summer. But hopefully we can both get others to sign on to this.â€
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