Lupine: Yeah. As you know, as someone who's spent time in this area, there's a lot of folkseven though the economy here has been based on logging and there's a lot of good old boysthere are a lot of people who are sympathetic to forest defenders and are concerned with the environmental impacts of logging. So it feels like we have broad community support here. I feel that we are in coalition with other grassroots groups in Humboldt, both environmental groups and groups fighting for necessary social justice.
Kollibri: Is there a legal aspect of this going on. too, like with the courts? Or is it like, the sit and other organizations pressuring Green Diamond?
Lupine: There are organizations in this area that are doing long-term work to challenge logging in the area. The main organization that comes to mind is the Environmental Protection Information Center [EPIC], based outside of Arcata, which works in legal realms to challenge logging and other industrial environmental degradation. We aren't affiliated with EPIC. I really respect their work and feel informed by it but I don't know if they're working on anything related to Green Diamond at the moment. It's really challenging for organizations to challenge private timber companies. It feels difficult to hold them accountable.
There's a whole roster of state and federal agencies that are tasked with overseeing logging on private timber lands, but I feel like they're failing to do their jobs and there's not a lot of recourse for the public. That said, there was a boatload of comments opposing this timber harvest plan when it was approved, as well as the former timber harvest plan for this same area"
What's interesting about this land in particular is that it's not just approved by all these state agencies like any timber plan must be, but it's also "certified." All of Green Diamond's timberlands are certified by both the Sustainable Forestry Initiative [SFI] and the Forest Stewardship Council [FSC]. Both of these are green-washed third parties that allow timber companies to label their products as "sustainable" and to sell them at a higher price.
The question of what sustainable forestry looks like is complex but I don't think that SFI or FSC are an adequate solution to holding these private companies accountable.
We see that right below me. There's this clearcut that's at least ten acres. If we weren't here, it would be at least twenty. That's what the company intended to cut here. Twenty acres is the maximum they're allowed to clearcut under their certifications"
I don't think any clearcut should be called sustainable. In a broader sense, we should be questioning the very existence of industrial timber harvesting during a climate crisis. If that's really how we want to be managing carbon sinks right now.
Kollibri: Let's talk a little bit about that more. A lot of people talk about the importance of planting trees to sequester carbon, but of course there's already a lot of trees doing a great job at that, and they don't do a good job at that until they're mature, so obviously keeping forests is very important. So, should we even be cutting mature trees"?
Lupine: I've been thinking about this a lot and even though I'm outraged at the way that our government has handled the pandemic, I think that [how] we are all using the language of "essential" to evaluate different aspect of our lives is a fascinating tool. The logging industry is considered part of the agricultural industry and therefore it's considered "essential." So when the pandemic hit, I just called Green Diamond and I called Humboldt Redwood Company-which is the other major logging company in the area-and I said, "Are you going to keep working?" And they said, "Yep. Full steam ahead. We're essential businesses."
I think that there's so many layered complex issues at play here, my brain kind of starts to like fuzz out when I think about all the things going on right now, but I think that the way the pandemic has totally shut down our society might in some ways provide tools that we can use-that might provide an urgency that we can use, to apply ourselves to addressing the climate catastrophe that's in front of us. That I think demands an even broader shut-down of business-as-usual, but a totally different one; one that's informed by climate justice and by caring for the most marginalized people instead of disregarding their safety the way the government has during the COVID pandemic.
It feels really connected to me that we are in the middle of this pandemic that attacks folks' respiratory systems, and that black and brown communities are the hardest hit by that because of lack of access to resources and because of systemic racism. And at the same time, climate crisis is this much greater threat, that threatens all life on earth, which is also disproportionately affecting people of color and folks in the global south and folks living in poverty. And then, at the same time, there's still logging companies and other corporations that are hell-bent in destroying the wildlands around us. And that feels like an existential threat. It all feels timely in the midst of this national uprising in response to police brutality. I hope it isn't too hippy-dippy for me to say that all of this feels really connected to our breath and to that life force.
It's bizarre to be disconnected from what's happening all over the country right now, and to have comrades in the streets and people being brutalized by the police and to meanwhile be in this peaceful forest out here. But it does feel like all part of one struggle to me.
"I think a lot of people in my generation, I've been greatly concerned about the climate catastrophe since I was a teenager and have been struggling to find meaningful ways to address it, So that feels like a driving force for me , or my involvement. It feels like a privilege to be part of a younger generation of activists what are continuing work that's been going on for decades here on the North Coast and to being to learn about the movement history here. And to learn from movement elders who are really active.
Kollibri: So you've met some of those elders?
Lupine: Yeah. It's been a privilege to get to meet and feel supported by folks who were around during the Headwaters struggle, and worked on countless other campaigns that received less publicity. And to learn from them" It feels like a privilege to be part of the fabric of the Earth First! movement and maybe to even be part of morphing it. Earth First! had a lot of ugly, racist, hetero, patriarchal roots and it's cool at the moment to be working on a campaign that is led by young, queer and femme people and a lot of people who've come through here have been femmes, queers, and people of color. It feels important to me, as a younger activist within this movement, to continue to apply ourselves personally and more broadly within the movement, to concepts of decolonization, anti-racist work, especially because Earth First! and the environmental movement as a whole has a lot of entrenched racism that people have been working to unpack for years, but we still a lot of work to do.
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