On the 18th of August, exhausted from holding a 30 day long treesit that shut down blasting on Coal River Mountain for month in all kinds of weather, Catherine Ann descended from the tree and was arrested. She was released later that day and is heading home -- for now. This is the second time the Bee Tree mountaintop removal coal mine has been shut down for a protracted period by protesters -- and is unlikely to be the last time. Read More

On August 2, after two weeks of being hammered by record, global-warming driven heat and storms, one of the two treesitters blocking blasting at the Bee Tree Surface Mine (MTR coal) in West Virginia has descended.

Becks Kolins, who has been occupying a tree on the Bee Tree permit on Coal River Mountain for the last two weeks, descended the tree voluntarily and was arrested this afternoon by the West Virginia State Police. Kolins, along with Catherine-Ann MacDougal, had been sitting in a tree eighty feet above the ground since July 20th to protest the strip mining of Coal River Mountain. MacDougal remains in her tree, where she continues to stop work on the portion of the Bee Tree surface mine within Bee Tree hollow; she has stated no plans to come down.

UPDATED 5:00 pm 8.2.11: Becks Kolins has been released without bail after being charged with trespassing, conspiracy and littering.

More Info: Arrest Statement from Becks Kolins | Becks Kolins writes about fighting to protect the Coal River Watershed

As a culmination of the annual Trans and Womyn's Action Camp, activists occupied the regional Oregon Department of Forestry office. Three members of the camp have locked themselves together inside the office using modified pipes. Currently the trio is refusing to leave until the Oregon Department of Forestry revoke their support for the 2011 Elliott State Forest Management Plan.

Today is the last opportunity for citizens to comment on the plan. Activists involved in the action criticized the plan for opening up areas to logging which were previously off limits. They also criticized the plan for increasing clear cutting to boost local timber jobs while not making any decisive moves to regulate or even monitor the large timber export industry which ships logs and jobs overseas.

Related: Activist Blockade Elliott State Forest in Coos County | Jail Support Needed

At 1pm [on March 23, 2011], Palomar withdrew its proposal to build its 220-mile pipeline through Oregon's best farmland, most pristine rivers, and 47 miles of the beautiful Mt. Hood National Forest!

For over three years Bark has tenaciously fought this threat to Mt. Hood National Forest, challenging NW Natural's (one of Palomar's backers) belief that our ecosystems should be sacrificed for more fossil fuel infrastructure. [...] Celebrate! We saved the Clackamas River, Fish Creek, the Pacific Crest Trail, and towering old growth forests! Read More | bark-out.org

Photograph from the proposed Clackamas River pipe line crossing near Riverside Campground

Related: Laura Cunningham on "Forgotten Landscapes of California"

Caltrans plans to take down some 54 trees in the Richardson Grove, and pave over the roots of many old-growth trees, in order to widen and straighten US-101 in southern Humboldt County. Reported to contain the 9th largest tree of all remaining Coast Redwoods, local residents refer to the Richardson Grove as the edge of the "Redwood Curtain." Preservation groups and community members against the project have called for a rally at Caltrans District 1 headquarters in Eureka on Monday, Feb. 7th.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Forest Service Building at 333 SW 1st Av to hand in a petition against the 149 acre Trapper timber sale in an area located on the McKenzie District of the Willamette National Forest. Portland, OR, 04/11/2010.

The land was auctioned off by the US Forest Service to the Seneca Jones Timber Company in 2003 and logging of old growth could now begin any day. In particular old rainforest above Blue River near Wolf Rock is threatened.

According to the USDA, "The decision to undertake the timber sale was initially made in 2003 for the upper reaches of the Blue River watershed, approximately 42 miles northeast of the Eugene/Springfield metro area. The sale covered 149 acres in five harvest units. Trees are on average 23 inches in diameter and 140 years old, with scattered larger, older trees also present."

Although environmental groups, Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild, appealed the sale in 2003 it was pushed through by the Forest Service regardless of any environmental considerations.

Olympia, WA - On October 25, activists from Olympia Rising Tide hung two banners at the Evergreen State College in opposition to a proposed biomass gasification facility. Olympia Rising Tide opposes biomass because it is a false solution to climate change and would lead to a massive resurgence of clear-cut logging in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.

Olympia Rising Tide opposes biomass in solidarity with residents of Shelton, Port Townsend, Port Angelos, Forks, Aberdeen, Hoquiam, and Tacoma, who are also facing potential biomass facilities....

A Tree sit was set up this morning. Any information on this tree sit? Post pictures if you have them.
tree sit deployed in downtown eugene, demands the forest service buy back trapper; cease old growth logging on public lands

[PIMC:update][2010-09-04 15:21:22-07][Cascadia Rising Tide]

Activist occupies tree on the corner of Oak St and Park St within the Eugene Saturday Market

Eugene, OR- Early this morning activists with Cascadia Rising Tide deployed a tree sit within the Saturday Market in downtown Eugene. A platform was rigged around a tree approximately 40 feet from the ground, and a banner was hung reading "Forest Service: Give Back Trapper. Protect Our Water."

The platform is occupied by Grace Warner, who plans to remain through Saturday to inform Eugene of the horrendous logging practices advocated by the Forest Service, as well as threats to the drinking water supply that the Trapper timber sale poses.

According to Vivian Rivers of Cascadia Rising Tide, "It appalls me that the Forest Service is still logging old growth and native forests. This should have been stopped years ago. The time is now for the community to rise up and put an end to this atrocity once and for all." Trapper is a controversial timber sale that has been in the works for over a decade.

Our native forests find themselves under siege yet again. A 149-acre piece of the Willamette national forest called Trapper was sold to the Seneca Jones Timber Company in 2003. The stand is native forest, meaning it has never before been logged, but it is now under serious threat and could be cut any day. The area was subject to a high-intensity wildfire 150 years ago, which left clusters of old growth among an area that is largely 140 year old post-fire regrowth. The area is also habitat to the endangered spotted owl. Our native forests are in and of themselves an endangered species and this particular area is a beautiful mix of mature forest and old growth that provides incredible habitat, as well as pristine drinking water.

Early in the morning on August 17th, forest defenders set up a 60 ft. high road blockade to stop the active clear-cutting operations of Green Diamond Resource Company in the redwoods near Jacoby Creek Road north of Eureka in Humboldt County. These clear-cut logging plans represent a fraction of the ongoing clear-cut logging operations in Northern California. “We are not coming down voluntarily until the reckless logging in the Jacoby Creek watershed is stopped,” said Fly, one of the activists from atop the 60 ft. high hanging platform.

Former US Senator Gordon Smith's brother rules to cut old growth forests near Bend to save the Spotted owl. It's back to square one people.

A federal appeals court (9th District) Friday cleared the way for logging to resume in an old growth forest reserve at a national forest in Oregon to protect northern spotted owl habitat from being lost to wildfire. In a 2-to-1 decision by a three-judge panel, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that had stopped the Five Buttes project on the Deschutes National Forest near Bend, Oregon.

Judge Milan D Smith (The infamous former US Senator Gordon Smith's brother) says we must cut the forests to save them from insects and fires and other bad things and save the spotted owl habitat. Don't you just hate it when the elite try to play with our minds and souls! I don't know about you, but I am pissed! This is federal old growth owned by the people of the US, not corporations. This is an ongoing attempt to dismantle the Northwest Forest Plan one forest ecosystem at a time.

Maybe it is time to pull away from the United States Corporation of America. Organize ourselves around our ecosystem called Cascadia.

This was a court battle that was being fought for saving the forests by Cascadia Wildlands Project, The League of Wilderness Defenders-Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, et al.

On Saturday August 1st, 4 NEST surveyors were arrested in the Willamette National Forest. NEST (northwest ecosystem survey team) has been monitoring timber sales for over 10 years. NEST volunteers use NEPA and national forest guide lines to establish nesting zones for the red tree vole, the main diet of the northern spotted owl. NEST has worked with several Oregon National Forests to help establish breeding ground and habit for both endangered species. Read More | Related: "Elliott 27" Sentenced After Forest Road Blockade Last Summer

A banner drop was made [last week] opposite the Umpqua bank on 18th and Alberta street in Portland to raise awareness of the fact that the Chairman of the Board, Allyn Ford, is a timber baron of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Oregon, USA. 27/07/2010.

Not only is Mr. Allyn C. Ford Chairman of the Board of Directors for Umpqua Bank, but he is also President of Roseburg Forest Products. According to their company history, "The company owns some 800,000 acres of timberland as well as processing plants in and around Roseburg, Dillard, and Riddle, Oregon, and in northern California."

People would like to see a boycott imposed on the bank for a number for reasons stemming from Mr. Ford's forestry company which has used methods such as clearcutting the forest combined with the use of toxic pesticides. Clearcutting or clearfelling is when all of the trees in a harvest area are cut down. Read More

Roseburg, Oregon 02 August 2010 - After over one year of pre-trial probation, the activists involved in the July 6-9, 2009 road blockade in the Elliott State Forest have finally faced sentencing. Twenty two of the twenty seven activists arrested plead "no contest," and were found guilty of Criminal Trespassing of the second degree, a class "C" misdemeanor.

The remaining twenty two were divided into three equal groups and seen by three separate judges.

Restitution originally sought by law enforcement and the ODF totaled to more than $100,000 and included costs for catered lunch, transportation, and hotel rooms for the fifty nine law enforcement officers which included members of the National Guard, the Oregon State Police, and the Douglas County Sheriffs office. Most of these claims were found to be unlawful.

Rolling into town, the Earth First! Journal Roadshow will feature "Earth Nightly News," information about the international Earth First! ecodefense movement, the 30th Anniversary edition of the Earth First! Journal, and more!

In Eugene: Earth First! Journal Roadshow Wednesday July 21 at the Lorax (1648 Alder) at 8 pm

With ecological disasters mounting up, independent news coverage provides the needed critique of those responsible for destroying our planet and the tools we can use to slow down the machine! Come out and hear the nightly news brought to you by members of the Earth First! Journal Collective.

The show is free but donations are appreciated.

 http://earthfirstroadshow.wordpress.com
520-450-3770