A Stand for a Stand

by Kelpie Wilson

The Progressive
March 1994

One July morning in 1987, I found myself with five new friends at a logging site in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest. Valerie Wade, a college student, fifth generation Oregonian, and daughter of a logger, had climbed to the top of a ninety-foot yarder spar pole to hang a banner. Chained to the bottom of the yarder, which drags felled trees up steep slopes to waiting log trucks, were Karen Wood, a Eugene computer scientist; Michele Miller, an elementary school teacher from Chico, California; Kamala Redd, a college student from New York City; James Jackson, a surveyor from Texas, and myself, a new graduate with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Chico State, about to head off to a career in alternative energy.

I was there to defend the trees because of my engineering education. For four years I was taught that production is a one-way process—from the mine or forest to the landfill with a brief moment of consumption in between. Before entering the engineering profession, I wanted to make a statement that endless consumption of resources will lead to a trashed planet. When I heard about the clear-cutting of 200-year-old trees, I knew I had to take a stand.

Out in the woods that morning, we “arrested” the yarder for crimes against trees, sang songs, and gave interviews to reporters. While we waited for the police to come and cut our locks and arrest us, we saw a toy poodle prance across the landing, followed by its owner, a logger in suspenders. He was astounded to see that the person on top of the pole was a young woman. We were astounded to see a logger with a poodle.

He asked us why we didn’t do our demonstration in front of the Forest Service office instead of interrupting his work. We explained to him that we had to protest in the forest so that reporters would come out to the remote site and broadcast the clear-cut destruction to the public. He conceded that without media coverage only loggers saw the great trees crashing down.

Sure enough, video footage of our action made the local and national news. Photographs appeared in Smithsonian and even in the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel. But not everyone was as understanding as the logger with the little dog. The county judge called us communists, sentenced us to two weeks in jail, and ordered us to pay fines and restitution totaling $4800. We would pay for our logger friend’s lost wages for the day.

Then, on our way out of the courtroom we were SLAPPed. A SLAPP is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation; such suits usually lose, but they tie up activists’ time and money in court proceedings. The process-server informed us that we were being sued by Huffman & Wright Logging, the owner of the yarder, for $50,000 in punitive damages for chaining ourselves to their equipment.

Before we could contend with the SLAPP, we needed to serve our jail time. We were placed in a cell with a group of local thieves. I noticed a photo of one of their boyfriends: He had a swastika tattoo on his arm, and he was standing next to a log truck. They began to call us “earthworms,” and they insulted Kamala for her skin color and dreadlocks. Then they advanced toward us, fists clenched. I took a karate stance. Valerie tapped me on the arm. “Remember our nonviolence,” she said. “Let’s just sit down.”

I took a deep breath, and we sat down on the floor in a huddle. We were beaten and kicked and had our hair pulled (especially Kamala) until the guards eventually showed up and moved us to our own cell for the duration of our stay.

The SLAPP trial was held in Roseburg, Oregon, a timber-dependent town. The Northwest timber industry brought in its top lawyer, Mark Rutzick, who has argued the spotted owl cases for the industry in Federal court. At the trial, he brandished spikes, and waved around copies of Dave Foreman’s Ecodefense (a manual on equipment sabotage), even though we had not committed or been charged with any property damage. Rutzick told the jury we were “hooligans” who needed to be stopped so the timber industry could go back to doing its job of “responsible” forestry.

We cited the importance of civil disobedience to the defense of American freedom, from Boston Harbor in 1773 to the women’s suffrage movement early in the century and the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s. We also told the jury about our nonviolent philosophy and our opposition to tree spiking.
But the jury of loggers and loggers’ wives jumped at the chance to nail some Earth First!ers. They found us guilty and awarded $25,000 in punitive damages to Huffman & Wright Logging.

We appealed the decision all the way up to the Oregon Supreme Court, arguing that such an award would have a chilling effect on everyone’s right to free speech. The majority of the Oregon Supreme Court did not agree with us. In a decision handed down last August, the court, using a fine legal razor, said our protest could be separated into a free-speech action and a trespassing action, and that a jury may award punitive damages for the trespassing part.

Six-and-a-half years ago, we stood in the middle of a clear-cut and shouted “ecocide,” and we interfered with a logging operation for exactly one day. Today, our group faces a major financial liability that will dog us for the rest of our lives.

Some of us now have families to support and would like to get on with our careers. So far our collective strategy has been to stay judgment-proof by remaining indigent. The law differs from state to state, but in Oregon, the courts can’t garnish your wages if you make less than $8,840 a year. Since we are being held jointly and severally liable, if even one of us begins to earn more than the minimum, the state can take the whole $25,000 (plus interest) from that one individual.

Four years ago, a court order to attach my wages reached Oakland, California, where I was working as an engineer. I couldn’t stand the idea of paying more money to the timber industry, so I quit my job. Since than, I’ve been working on grass-roots education campaigns for the ancient forest at wages that keep me judgment proof.

It’s not what I set out to do, but that morning in the Siskiyou changed everything for me.