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Earth
First! Activist Killed in Headwaters Forest |
Earth First! Activist Killed in Headwaters Forest
David Chain, 24, was killed by a tree felled by a logger while activists were documenting illegal logging on Maxxam/Pacific Lumber land near Grizzly Creek State Park. The activists were using a protest technique called "cat and mouse," in which forest defenders confront a logging crew in the woods and engage them in dialog, urging them to stop cutting. Often the aim is simply to make loggers aware that there are humans in the immediate vicinity, typically causing the fallers to stop their cutting because of the risk of injury.
In this case it didn't stop them.
Videotape released by Earth First! at a press conference the day after the incident cast doubt on the timber company's claims that the loggers didn't know the activists were in the forest. On the tape, PL employee A.E. Ammons curses and yells at the protesters. "I wish I had my fucking pistol," he is heard to yell.
"I saw a huge Doug fir coming down and it landed approximately six feet away from me," EF! activist Jeremy Jensen told reporters at the press conference. Jensen was near Chain when he was killed.
Earth First! members put their bodies in harm's way--in the way of timber production efforts--when all other means of protest or legal recourse have failed. This can take the form of a treesit, in which activists inhabit a tree that is slated to be cut down, or sometimes a lockdown, where activists physically lock themselves to immobile cars, logging equipment, and gates, preventing crews from entering or leaving a logging area. "Cat and mouse" is another favorite "backwoods" technique.
EF! is calling for an independent investigation based on the fact that the Humboldt County Sheriffs, currently the agency investigating the incident, "is not a neutral agency."
The Sheriffs Department is being sued in federal court by Earth First! activists whose eyes were swabbed with pepperspray last year during a nonviolent sit-in in Humboldt.
For more details and updates, go to: http://www.headwatersforest.org/david.chain/index.html
The above is excerpted from an article by Mark Bult, enews.org -- 09-30-98
Demand an independent investigation into David Chain's death
Sheriff's Dept. hardly an impartial party
It is clear that Pacific Lumber's policies and the unchecked hostility of loggers toward environmental protestors played a role in the tragic death of David "Gypsy" Chain. It is critical that the investigation into the death of David Chain be conducted by a neutral agency, and not the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, which is currently being sued by Earth First! for their policy allowing the use of pepper spray on nonviolent protestors.
Please contact the following officials to demand an impartial, independent investigation of the incident.
Bill Lann Lee
Acting Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
Department of Justice
Constitution Ave. and 10th St. NW
Washington DC 20530phone 202-514-2151
fax 202-514-0293
Yesterday, sheriffs broke the blockade set up by protestors outside the site, presumably because their investigation is over. Please contact District Attorney Terry Farmer to ask him to prevent Pacific Lumber from removing logs and altering the site until an independent investigation on behalf of David's family can be completed.
Terry Farmer
District Attorney of Humboldt County
825 Fifth St.
Eureka CA 95501phone 707-445-7411
fax 707-445-7416
For more information and regular updates on this action, go to: http://www.headwatersforest.org/action/index.html
Prepared by the Headwaters Sanctuary Project and Bay Area Action on behalf of a coalition of environmental organizations working for permanent protection of the entire 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest. Copyright 1997, 1998 Bay Area Action. Limited permission is granted to repost/reprint this information in its entirety, without alteration, and with inclusion of all contact information contained herein. For information email Susan Stephenson (susans@nextgeneration.org) at Headwaters Sanctuary Project.
For action updates on this and other Environmental issues, check out the Earth First! journal online at: http://www.enviroweb.org/ef/
There are some new developments in the Headwaters Forest/David Chain et al saga...
First some good news: On Nov 11 The Cal. Dept of Forestry suspended the Pacific Lumber Co's 1998 timber cutting licence--not just for a particular area, but for the whole company. This is not because of the David Chain death, but because the company has been cited with literally hundreds of violations of the conditions of its logging licence--improper cutting, improper roadbuilding, ignoring spotted owl habitat restrictions, you name it. Palco is some pissed and embarrassed about this! The CDF could either extend the suspension for 1999, or lift it.
This does not mean all logging in Palco cutting limits is stopped--about half of it is done by subcontractors, who are not affected by the order.
This info I got from a terrific, comprehensive and (most unusual) continuously updated site for environmental news:
(BOOKMARK THIS! To read the full story, check their November archives.)
You'd think Earth First! would be celebrating, and no doubt they are, but they still have big troubles. The Humboldt Co. Sherriff's investigation of David Chain's death has led to no charges against the logger or any other Palco employee, but one of the investigating detectives has stated that he plans to recommend that manslaughter charges be laid AGAINST THE OTHER EARTH FIRST ACTIVISTS WHO WERE WITH DAVID CHAIN WHEN HE DIED! (or, I suppose, anyone they can finger as an EF! "cult leader" who they will say sent Chain to his death. This is of course abject fantasy since EF! is a non-hierarchical bunch of de facto anarchists.) I think this is so outrageous that I'm reprinting below their desperate plea for funds and supplies to continue this campaign. And there are other issues and legal cases going on (see below).
latest update on the Chain investigation: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/9901/allsbrooks.html
or access it and lots of other news from the Earth First Media Centre pages: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/9901/index.html
with all your indulgence I'll just copy this begging letter from the Earth First Media Centre since it's quite informative....
A personal note from Andy Caffrey:
The outrageous, gruesome death of David "Gypsy" Chain hits us at a crucial time. Julia "Butterfly" Hill has been sitting up in the ancient Redwood tree Luna for over 10 months now. The Pepper Spray lawsuit against the Humboldt Co. Sheriffs Dept. was tossed out by a federal judge today, and that decision must be appealed. On Sept. 19, California Governor Pete Wilson signed off on the Headwaters Forest "Deal," which we have been emphatically opposing from Day One because what it actually does is release crucial, Endangered Species forest habitat to still more lawless logging by the relentless and voracious MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber Co., the most cited, criminal loggingcompany in California.
Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney's Redwood Summer Justice Project lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland Police Dept for their activities surrounding the 1990 carbomb murder attempt on the Redwood Summer organizers has yet to go to trial. And Charles Hurwitz, CEO of MAXXAM and owner of Pacific Lumber Co. is still embroiled in a lawsuit filed against him by the FDIC/OTS which is trying to recover the funds Hurwitz looted in the Bush-era Savings and Loan ripoffs (see the Jail Hurwitz web site.) If you would like to read a brief intoduction to this issue, please check out my 1995 article, "Partners in Crime: Bill Clinton, Pete Wilson, Wall Street and the Death of the Redwood Forest."
Funds are spread thin out here in Northern California, with everything we have going to these battles. The EF! Media Center has a completely empty bank account right now. And we're doing this organizing in one of the poorest counties in the state. Donations to support this effort to keep you informed and to inform the media of the facts, get videos out to them and to you*, to create and post sound files on the Internet such as the one we've just posted here of Killer Logger A.E. Ammons, to activate e-mail alerts, and to talk with the many supporters calling us from around the world are crucially needed at this very moment. We don't even have money to buy videotape right now (hey, send us some blank video tapes if you want to, we're not proud!) ,
Also, we are in desperate need of a Web-publishing worthy Macintosh computer with accessories, such as a scanner, printer and zip drive. And for those of you with a Granting nature, we could really use a computer system set up with nonlinear video-editing capabilities to create video files for the Internet and to produce videos for mass distribution such as HAVC's excellent Luna Tree Sit video. It takes you into the world of another extraordinary, courageous, 24-year old Earth First! activist, Julia Butterfly Hill, who is still at risk of being killed by loggers threatening to fell the tree she inhabits. [For an interview with Julia Butterfly, see the current issue (Vol.30, No.125, 1998) of Green Egg Magazine -kpt.]
And so, as the producer of several Earth First! videos myself, including "Redwood Summer: Where the 90s Begin," and "Headwaters Forest: Debt for Nature in California," I can assure you that if we had the gear, we would be cutting a David Chain video at this very moment and getting clips out over the web. But alas, we are technologically encumbered, out here 200 miles from the nearest city. So if you know anyone with connections...
So please, if you can help, send what you can ASAP, payable to "Earth First!" and send it to
Earth First! Media Center
P.O. Box
324 Redway, CA 95560
Thanks so very much. We can do so much if you get involved. We're gonna do our part here in Humboldt County. We've been fighting for our forests for over a decade and we aren't going anywhere else now! We live here and we haven't given up on saving *all* of Headwaters Forest either, and we sure aren't going to abandon our fight for justice for David Chain!
Stunned, Outraged, & Energized,
Andy
P.S. If you would like to be on our e-mail information and alert list, just drop me a note at efmc@asis.com
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